Who invented jumping jacks? Or what is its origin

[smootman]

weird i know, but the girls i work with seem to enjoy challenging me on obscure info… little do they know I have a band of teeming millions

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

The game, or the calestentics (SP?) exercise?

[ShibbOleth]

According to this source it was Jack LaLanne. He certainly made them famous.

[Crandolph]

DaVinci?

[Fear_Itself]

@ShibbOleth

According to this source it was Jack LaLanne. He certainly made them famous.

Lalanne himself is unsure about that claim:

“Jack,” I ventured, “did you invent the jumping jack? Is that you?”

“I’m not completely sure on that one,” he said thoughtfully. “But I think so.”

[easy_e]

The term at least seems to predate Jack LaLanne. In the Little House books, there’s mention of a jumping jack toy:

There was a jumping jack. He was cut out of thin, flat wood; striped paper trousers and jacket were pasted on him, and his face was painted white with red cheeks and circles around his eyes, and his tall cap was pointed. He hung between two thin red strips of wood, and when you squeezed them he danced. His hands held on to twisted strings. He would turn a somersault over the strings; he would stand on his head with his toe on his nose.

That’s out of On the Banks of Plum Creek, which was published in 1937 and takes place in the 1870s. Perhaps “jumping jack” was a generic term for acrobatic sorts of tricks and got transferred to the exercise.