Katie Sandwina was born Katharina Brumbach in 1884 in Vienna, Austria, into a Bavarian circus family. She was one of 15 children. Her father Philippe stood over six feet tall with a 56-inch chest, and her mother Johanna displayed 15-inch biceps. Strength ran deep in the family.
Sandwina began with gymnastics training as a child, but as her natural strength grew through her teens, she turned to serious weightlifting. Several of her siblings also performed in the family’s circus acts, but Katie’s power set her apart from the rest.
As a young performer touring Europe, Sandwina offered 100 marks to any man who could beat her in a wrestling match. She stayed undefeated for a long time. One night in New York City, a young man named Max Heymann stepped up. She beat him — then married him. Max stood 5-foot-4 and weighed 165 pounds. He became her lifelong partner and stage assistant.
She took the stage name “Sandwina,” a feminine take on the famous strongman “Sandow,” and launched a career that made her one of the most recognized performers in the world.
Sandwina headlined Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for nearly 40 years. A signature move was lifting Max overhead with one arm. As reporter Marguerite Martyn wrote in 1911, “Carelessly, laughingly, she tosses her husband about as though he were not flesh and bone, but merely an effigy of inflated rubber.”
Her other feats were just as striking. She bent solid steel bars into spirals, snapped iron chains, and resisted the pull of four horses. In one act, she lay on a bed of nails while a wooden plank was placed across her torso — then men, and sometimes horses, walked across it.
Another crowd favorite was the carousel act. Sandwina would support a full carousel on her chest with several adults riding on it. The sheer range of her performances made every show a spectacle.
Off the stage, Sandwina was frequently photographed in fashionable dresses, a sharp contrast to images of her bending steel bars. She once demonstrated her strength to a reporter by lifting him and his chair with one hand. She was also a mother — her son Theodore grew up to become a New York City boxing champion.
The press was drawn to this contrast: a woman who could break iron chains but also raised a family and dressed in the height of fashion. That duality made her a truly unique figure in circus history.
Her official weightlifting records were no small achievement. They stood unbeaten until 1987 — decades after she had retired from performing in her early 60s.
After retiring, Sandwina and Max settled in Ridgewood, Queens, in New York City, where they opened a neighborhood bar and restaurant. Even there, she occasionally entertained customers by breaking horseshoes or bending steel bars.
