Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
Who invented the trampoline?
SHORT ANSWER A teen gymnast mocked up the modern trampoline in the 1930s, but humans have been bouncing for far longer than that...
LONG ANSWER It wasn’t an eccentric inventor or a toy company wanting a new craze to take off – an American teenager actually got us bouncing and tumbling. Young gymnast George Nissen developed his ‘bouncing rig’ – a frame of scrap steel and canvas sheet, connected by tyre inner tubes to add more spring – for his Iowa circus act in the 1930s. He had been inspired by watching trapeze artists but wished the safety net did more than just catch them, so the acrobatic stunts could keep going.
Nissen – also a keen diver – learned the Spanish for springboard was ‘el trampolin’ (his nickname while working in Mexico was Campeón de Trampolín, meaning ‘trampoline champion’). He thought that would be a good name for his contraption when he and his coach, Larry Griswold, went into business. The trampoline was used to train pilots and navigators in World War II and astronauts during the Space Race, eventually becoming a worldwide sport as well as a children’s craze.
Technically, though, trampoline-like devices existed before the 20th century, with depictions of figures bouncing on stretched material seen around the world. The Inuit used walrus skin for Nalukataq, or blanket toss – a game where they bounced each other into the air to mark the whaling season.
