Longtime Cincinnati resident Leonard (“Len”) Lanius, born around 1865, claims he was the lightweight champion wrestler of the world at one point.
That would have been around 1890 and I have verified that he did at least referee a match in 1894. In fact, the loser of the bout gave Lanius some lip, whereupon Lanius promptly removed his coat to take care of business. Police interference prevented it from going any farther.
Once, while speaking about the Gotch-Hackenschmidt bouts, Lanius noted that “it was the invasion of the Jap wrestlers around that time that put me to work on perfecting a style of defense to check their attack. Their methods were quite baffling.” That, of course, led to his publication of American Jiu Jitsu: The New Art of Self Defense in 1922.
His career is quite varied. As a boy, he went to Cincinnati and shined shoes and and sold papers for a living, his father having died of consumption before Len was born. He took up wrestling at around 12-13 or so as a sickly lad who had been told he might not reach twenty (didn’t they all start sickly when they’re sell books?), but the wrestling cured him and he became a champ, boasting he once went seventy matches without a fall.
He traveled with the circus and on the vaudeville circuit, then later retired from wrestling and joined the sports staff at the Cincinnati Post. He also coached for several years at the Ohio Military Institute in Cincinnati. He occasionally spoke on the radio about wrestling for WLW. By 1921 Lanius had entered the field of optometry and was still going strong, visiting out of state optometric conventions in 1933. (He was president of a Cleveland optical factory in ‘33). But his early passion was chickens (so to speak).
According to census data, he was the proprietor of an optical store by January 1920 and had a wife, looks like her name was Minnie, some 9 years younger than he. He wasliving in Cincinnati, and he had a 23 year-old married son, Ralph D. Lanius, who managed his optical store.
In March of 1921 Lanius demonstrated to the members of the Rotary club his “Yankee Jiu Jitsu” at the Park Hotel. The Rotarians particularly enjoyed when he boosted his demonstration partner (Dr. Otis G. Morse) over his head. You know those crazy Rotarians.
On June 9, 1921, Lanius gave an exhibition of his version of jujutsu at the Busy Bee cafeteria during the Kiwanis club program. He was one of the principal features! This was the opening of the Christen Kenton club and there were over 100 attendees. That’s a lot of Kiwanis.
But it was during his early circus/vaudeville traveling days that a bachelor friend gave Lanius two hens and told him to fatten them up and then invite him to dinner. That was the beginning of a beautiful man-poultry partnership, and by 1917 Lanius was known all over Ohio for his poultry passions. In fact, he was the president of the Ohio branch of the American Poultry Association for three years, as well as a licensed poultry judge. The papers would even run his photograph whenever his fairground lectures were advertised.
By 1912 he owned the College Hill Poultry farm in Cincinnati and by 1917 he also owned the G.E. Conkey Co. of Cleveland. It appears that there wasn’t hardly a single fair or poultry meeting at which Lanius failed to lecture, although the 1917 lectures were mainly ominous warnings of the grave shortage of either poultry or eggs that loomed on the horizon due to the cold season causing a grain shortage. Luckily the country appeared to survive the hen/egg catastrophe. In case anyone is wondering, he sold layers, including White Leghorns, Buff Leghorns, White Wyandottes, D.C. Rhode Island Reds, and Buff Orpingtons.
All facetiousness aside, I bet the guy could spin some tales or he wouldn’t have been invited to speak at all those events. Too bad nothing really survives but his book. Speaking of which, I scanned a copy almost exactly three years ago and passed it around. I see there is now a version floating around on the web. I don’t know if it’s the one I set free, but if you do a little Googling, you should be able to find a place to download it.
Yep, that’s the one I scanned a few years ago, same signed dedication as my book. I can’t believe no one ever bothered cleaning it up, especially since I provided it in MS Word. Anyway, you can download a copy here, but be warned, I never intended for it to be released to the public in that state, I was just doing a quick scan for friends.
If you have any further information on old Len, please shoot me an email.
Some of the references used:
Charleston Daily Mail 5-23-1933
Coshocton Tribune 3-15-1921
Indianapolis Star 2-9-1912, 9-1-1917, 10-5-1918.
Lanius, Len. American Jiu Jitsu: The New Art of Self Defense (1920)
Lincoln Daily Eagle 4-26-1917
Marion Daily Star 4-5-1921, 4-5-1921, 6-9-1941
U.S. Census, Cincinnati, OH, Ward 26, Hamilton County (1-20-1920)
The Lanius manual is now available as a high quality PDF or reprint from Lulu. Many (many, many) thanks to Jason for making the document available for republishing.
American Jiu Jitsu and many other free manuals can be found at:
http://stores.lulu.com/lawson
Thanks again Jason!
Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
I have a signed copy of his 1922 book anyone interested.
Thought you’d like this story about Lanius that was recently published in the e-newsletter of College Hill, where Lanius lived.
Ed
An Untold Story of College Hill: Len Lanius, father of American Jiu-Jitzu
Did you ever wonder for whom Lanius Lane, which runs from Hillcrest Road to the nature center at LaBoiteaux Woods, was named for? Leonard “Len†Lanius may be one of the forgotten characters in College Hill’s past, but it turns out he was quite a colorful fellow who had careers in wrestling, the martial arts, agriculture and optometry.
Born in 1868, Lanius moved to Cincinnati as a boy and began shining shoes, selling papers and worked as a carriage painter, perhaps for the Emerson & Fisher Carriage Co., which may be how he found his way to College Hill. Much like the young Theodore Roosevelt, he became interested in athletics in his youth after doctors said he was unlikely to live to the age of 20. Building up his strength, Lanius became an avid wrestler and won 70 straight “combats without losing a fall.†By the early 1890s he had become the light-weight wrestling champion of the world—at least that was his lifelong claim.
Through wrestling, he became interested in the self-defense techniques of the Japanese, fascinated with the physical principles of a smaller man taking down a bigger man by using his opponent’s weight and movements against him. Years of study led to the landmark publication in 1922 of his American Jiu-Jitsu: The New Art of Self Defense, and so became the founder of American Jiu-Jitsu, which is still practiced today.
After his wrestling career, Lanius traveled with the circus and on the vaudeville circuit and later joined the sports staff at the Cincinnati Post. He was also a coach at the Ohio Military Institute, and commentator on WLW radio about wrestling.
During the 1890s the story goes, a bachelor friend one day gave him two hens and told Lanius to fatten them up ant the invite him to dinner. While waiting for the hens to fatten he went out of town to full several engagements, and when he returned, Lanius’ wife Minnie asked him not to kill the birds but to keep them for the eggs they were laying. A short time later he was standing in the market in Cincinnati and a farmer persuaded him to buy nine Plymouth Rock chickens at an exorbitant price. He afterward learned that all of the fowls were roosters. From this start he began to build up a business, which soon became one of the largest poultry yards in Ohio: the College Hill Poultry Farm. It was headquartered at his farm on the present day Lanius Lane for more than 30 years.
Here is a 1917 advertisement for his poultry:
“How to Get Winter Eggs! Requires the careful selection of persistent layers. For many years our stock has been awarded highest honors at leading shows. We can furnish the quality that will start you right. White Leghorns, Buff Leghorns, White Wyandottes, S.C. Rhode Island Reds, Buff Orpingtons. Eggs $2 per setting or three setting at $5. A limited number of eggs from our very highest show quality $5 per setting, none better. COLLEGE HILL POULTRY FARM, Sta. K, Cincinnati, O., Len Lanius, Prop. Order direct from this ad. Mention Eagle. Reasonable fertility guaranteed.
Hamilton Pike, College Hillâ€
By 1920, however, Lanius was on to yet another career, having opened an optometry store in Cincinnati. Perhaps failing eyesight as the result of the many blows he had sustained during his wrestling days was the motivation for his final career change, we can only speculate, but one thing is clear: whatever venture Lanius undertook he did so with gusto and panache that earns him a unique place in College Hill history.
Len Lanius had two children, including Ralph D Lanius, who was born in College Hill in 1896. During Ralph’s 101 years of life he was an amateur wrestler and optometrist like his father. In fact, Ralph was a pioneer in the development of contact lenses and was credited with inventing the target lenses used by World War II bombardiers to shoot down enemy planes.
Here is the full obitiary of Ralph D Lanius. Len’s son.
Ed
Paper: Sarasota Herald-Tribune (FL)
Title: RALPH D. LANIUS HELPED PIONEER USE OF LENSES
Date: January 4, 1998
Ralph D. Lanius, a longtime Venice resident who used his scientific interest in optometry to create special lenses for fighter pilots, models and others, died Dec. 29, 1997. He was 101.
Lanius had moved to Florida from his hometown of Cincinnati in 1949 and eventually settled in Venice, but not before completing an accomplished professional career as an optometrist. After a brief stint as an amateur boxer, Lanius threw himself into his work, setting the pace for technical advancements in the vision field, said his wife, Kay.
Kay Lanius said Saturday that her husband helped pioneer the use of contact lenses when he worked on models who needed to rid themselves of glasses for the sake of their modeling careers.
Lanius, born March 1, 1896, in Cincinnati, also developed a reputation for helping patients who had been rejected by other doctors because their eyesight was deemed too poor to assist. Lanius would take them on with a special zeal.
“He said he got such a thrill because seeing meant so much to those people,” his wife said.
He also held several patents on plastic lenses and was credited with inventing the target lenses used by World War II bombardiers as they shot down enemy planes, his wife said.
Thanks Ed, I didn’t know any of that about his son Ralph. He sounds like my kind of optometrist:
“Kay Lanius said Saturday that her husband helped pioneer the use of contact lenses when he worked on models who needed to rid themselves of glasses for the sake of their modeling careers.”
That’s the kind of professional self-sacrifice with which I can identify.