Origin of the Trampoline

The modern trampoline has been one of the most popular children’s toys for some years, coming a long way since its early development in the 19th century.

The early origins of the trampoline are open to some debate although it is said that the Inuit people developed an early form of the apparatus, using a walrus skin to toss each other into the air. There is also evidence of some people in Europe being thrown into the air by a number of people holding a blanket such as Sancho Panza in the novel Don Quixote, although instances of “blanketing” such as this are clearly non-voluntary instances of quasi-judicial, mob administered punishment.

It is certain, however, that in the early years of the 20th century some acrobats used a “bouncing bed” on the stage to entertain the audience. The bouncing in bed was actually a form of small trampoline covered in bedclothes and used mostly during comedy routines.

Circus folklore suggests that the trampoline was first developed by an artiste called Du Trampolin who saw the possibility of using the trapeze safety net as a form of propulsion and landing device, and experimented with different systems of suspension, eventually reducing the net to a practical size for separate performance. While such trampoline like devices were certainly used in the circus, the story of Du Trampolin is now widely regarded as a myth due to the lack of documented evidence to support it.

The first modern trampoline was built by George Nissen and Larry Griswold around 1934. Both men were at the University of Iowa in the US; Nissen was a gymnastics and diving competitor while Griswold was a tumbler on the gymnastics team. They began experimenting with a piece of canvas after observing trapeze artists using a tight net to add entertainment value to their performance. They stretched the canvas, in which they had inserted grommets along each side, to an angled iron frame by means of coiled springs. It was initially used to train tumblers but soon became popular in its own right.

George Nissen overheard the Spanish word “trampolin”, meaning diving board, during a diving demonstration tour in Mexico in the 1930s and decided to use an anglicised form as the trademark for his and Larry Griswold’s new apparatus. In 1942 Griswold and Nissen created the Griswold-Nissen Trampoline and Tumbling Company and began making trampolines commercially in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

During World War II, the United States Navy Flight School developed the use of the trampoline in its training of pilots and navigators, giving them concentrated practice in spatial orientation that had not been possible before. After the war the development of the space flight programme again brought the trampoline into use to help train both American and Soviet astronauts, giving them experience of variable body positions in flight.

Since then, the trampoline has been developed further, with the competitive gymnastic sport of trampolining being part of the Olympics since 2000. A number of other sports utilise the trampoline as a training tool too, including diving, gymnastics and freestyle skiing. Perhaps most significantly however, is the development of the trampoline as a children’s toy, with many gardens across the country containing one of Nissen and Griswold’s apparatus.