Biographical Note

Peter V. Karpovich was born on 6 April 1896 in Luga, Russia, a small town about 90 miles (147 km) south of Leningrad. Karpovich’s mother Ephzosinya died in 1902 when he was six and his father, Vasily, was a local businessman who had also served as a sergeant in the army. Karpovich was the sixth of nine children, two of whom were from his father’s previous marriage. Two of his brothers helped educate him at an early age; Vladimir taught him German and Latin while Nicolas cultivated his interest in physical education through discussions. Karpovich’s childhood was strained financially and he left school to find work to help support his family. Yet despite these obstacles he completed his formative education and enrolled in the Imperial Medical Academy in Petrograd, (St. Petersburg) in 1914.

While in medical school, Karpovich served as an auxiliary physician on the frontlines crawling through the trenches, filled with corpses, saving dozens of men. He subsequently was awarded the Saint George Medal for his bravery. Upon completion of his medical training under the internationally renowned scholar Dr. Ivan Pavlov in December of 1919, Karpovich (along with a fellow student) were assigned to be physicians at the Red Cross Hospital in Kotelnich to tend to patients in the typhus epidemic. Karpovich’s proximity to the infected would cause him to succumb to the illness. In 1920 while at his post, Karpovich met and married Alice J. Neumann, who bore him his only son, George, a year later. As the epidemic ended, Karpovich was reassigned to the town of Yekaterinburg, about 600 miles (961 km) east. During his time at Yekaterinburg, Karpovich worked at the hospital and taught physiology and anatomy in the local school. During this period, the Communists had come to power and Karpovich was arrested and imprisoned for 22 days where he encountered squalid conditions. The reason for his imprisonment is unclear, although Karpovich later writes that he was imprisoned to act as a witness against his former medical colleagues who were charged with criminal activities. There are contradicting contemporary newspaper interviews of Karpovich on the topic, and, in his doctoral 1972 dissertation on Karpovich, Seetharaman’s writes that the reason for his arrest and imprisonment was that Karpovich opposed the revolution and was jailed for not supporting the new party line. In an early account of the event, Karpovich charms his interrogators with his knowledge of India’s venomous snakes to secure his freedom.

After being released from Yekaterinburg, Karpovich served as the garrison physician at Kamyshloff from 1921-1922 and then as physician in Leningrad from 1922-1923. During this time, the Russian political atmosphere grew darker still for the Karpovich family. As such he contrived a plan to leave the country. Strangely enough, this plan necessitated a divorce. This allowed his wife to flee with their son to Riga, Latvia. As Karpovich was preparing to join them, he received orders to report to his new post in Mongolia. He believed this post would not further his personal and professional goals and opted for desertion. He fled to Latvia through swamplands with a companion who acted as a guide. This companion fell ill with an abscess near his groin which necessitated Karpovich to use a pocket knife to preform field surgery. When healed, they embarked again towards Latvia, coming across an armed Soviet sentry which due to Karpovich’s supreme physical fitness, he accosted the armed sentry and left him tied up in the swamp. He successfully was reunited with Alice and remarried. Karpovich served as a consultant physician/educational secretary for the Riga Y.M.C.A. from 1923-1925. In 1924, after hearing about the work in physical education being done by Dr. James McCurdy at Springfield College, he applied for a visa to America in order to attend as a special student.

Karpovich left his wife and small son in Riga and arrived in the United States on 24 February 1925. He would not be reunited with them until sometime during 1926-1927. While Karpovich waited for Springfield College’s fall semester he worked at his assigned location at the central Y.M.C.A. of Cleveland. He continued to study English that he had started in Riga and after making sufficient progress he wrote to Frank Mohler, a Springfield College faculty member. The next assignment in Cleveland came under the supervision of Mr. Fleming, the physical director of the East Cleveland Branch. Karpovich assisted him with his swimming campaign before 1925 spending several weeks at a summer camp for boys at the Y.M.C.A in Silver Bay, NY.

After attending Springfield College for a year, concerns about Karpovich’s immigration status caused the college’s faculty to take action. They were up against the recently passed Immigration Act of 1924, which allowed Karpovich to enter the country as a student for two years but prevented him from transferring his student status to professorial status without leaving the country and re-applying for admission. This was problematic on multiple fronts. Springfield College had hired Karpovich part-time to fill the vacancy left by Dr. Elmer Barry to teach physiology. By 1927, Karpovich’s family was now in the United States on a temporary visa and deportation to Russia was not feasible. Karpovich and his wife had perjured themselves by seeking a pseudo-divorce and Karpovich had deserted the army when he fled to Latvia.

Springfield College faculty members sprang into action and wrote many letters to the State Department, the Department of Labor, Massachusetts Senator Frederick Gillett, Canadian Immigration, and the American embassy in Mexico in an attempt to secure their new faculty member’s permanent residence. A plan formulated that contrived Karpovich entering Canada temporarily to satisfy the terms of the Immigration Act, which stipulated the alien must first leave the country and then seek re-admittance. However, his Russian nationality prevents his Canadian exile and he fared no better with Mexican authorities. While it remains unclear how Karpovich remained in the country, circumventing the Immigration Act of 1924, he successfully completed his Master’s Degree in Physical Education in 1929 and was granted citizenship in 1935.

While teaching at Springfield College, Karpovich cultivated his friendship with McCurdy, other faculty members, research assistants, and students. He devoted many hours to research projects on swimming, walking, clothing, footwear, diet, nutrition, artificial respiration, and physical fitness and education. The most important by-product of Karpovich’s research was to bring physical education into the realm of science. Prior to the mid-twentieth century, physical education was primarily considered to be recreational activity that did not warrant serious scientific study. Karpovich’s work helped to dispel the notion that physical activity could not be quantified scientifically.

Karpovich’s many research projects were supported through grants during his tenure as Chief of the Laboratory of Physical Fitness, School of Army Aviation Medicine, Army Air Force, and Randolph Field, Texas from 1942 to 1945. In this position Karpovich gained his reputation as a solid researcher and worked on issues related to soldier fitness, first aid, and the rehabilitation of injured soldiers, the first of its kind.

While his professional life was going well, Karpovich divorced Alice and married physical education scholar Josephine Rathbone in 1945. Their role as founding members of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) facilitated a more scientific approach to physical education among their colleagues.

Karpovich worked closely with the United States Army Quartermaster Research and Development command in Natick, Massachusetts, in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He completed on projects related to clothing and footwear for soldiers. He published a study of the health and working conditions of Sanitation Workers in New York City in 1953 to help them demand better pension benefits. Additionally, he worked with the Federal Trade Commission on testing new products, most notably a case involving wheat germ oil produced by Miles Products. During this case Karpovich tested the product and testified before the commission. He also suffered a professional and personal setback when he realized that he mistakenly used wheat germ oil not made by Miles, thus rendering the results essentially useless. The lawyers for Miles questioned his qualifications as a medical doctor because he had not been trained in the United States. Karpovich was greatly saddened by his errors and by the accusations that he was not qualified to be a medical doctor.

After retiring from teaching in 1961, Karpovich was the director of the Physiology Research Lab at Springfield College, until 1969. He received more than $520,000 in government grants and private funds between 1950 and 1969 to conduct research. He invented the Electrogoniometer in 1956 with the assistance of his son George. This device measured angles of joints in arms, legs and feet when the subject was performing different tasks. Karpovich shared his research with scholars and the general public through correspondence and speeches. Many non-professionals wrote letters to Karpovich requesting advice on weight training, physical fitness, and general health issues. Karpovich dutifully replied with recommendations or apologies if he could not address their needs. Karpovich presented speeches at conferences and at local venues on a broad range of topics from his opposition to football to his advice on how to develop a healthy marriage. Springfield College honored Karpovich’s life of research by naming an annual lecture series in physical education after him in 1972, and dedicated a room to him in 2017.

During his career, Karpovich exerted a tremendous influence on the field of physical education and fitness. It is evident by the prodigious number of publications that Karpovich’s life was embodied by utter devotion to his profession. He maintained strong relationships with colleagues including Creighton Hale, Charles McCloy, Mohan Singh, Raymond Weiss, Marlene Adrian, Maxim Asa, and Charles Tipton. With these colleagues, Karpovich conducted the majority of his research and writing, authoring more than 150 articles, book chapters and full-length works. His books include Adventures in Artificial Respiration, Physiology of Muscular Activity, and Weight Training in Athletics (with James Murray). Karpovich was affiliated with many different professional organizations. He was a founding member of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), and a member of the American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation (AAHPER), American Physiological Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Academy of Physical Education. He served in other capacities as an Associate Editor of Research Quarterly, a consultant to the Office of the Surgeon General and as Chairman of the National Research Council Committee on Standards of Physical Fitness for High School Graduates.

Karpovich died on June 13, 1975 at his home in Springfield. He was survived by his son George and his wife Josephine.

The biographical information contained in this note is drawn from:

- Seetharaman, Arumbavur N. (1972). “Peter Karpovich, M.D.: His Life and Contributions to Physical Education.”Doctoral dissertation, Boston University.

- Peter V. Karpovich Papers, Series 1a, Box 1, Folder 1 – General biographical materials

- Peter V. Karpovich Papers, Series 1a, Box 1, Folder 3 – Immigration Correspondence

- Peter V. Karpovich Papers, Series 26, Box 18, Folder 2 – Book II: 1947-1956, pg. 134

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