Ivy League Posture Photos - Part 63

Ivy League Posture Photos

Yale started taking nude photos of incoming freshmen in 1919 as part of a program to detect and correct posture problems.  The Yale photos have erroneously been associated with William Sheldon, a psychologist at Harvard and author of Nazi-like eugenic theories who used Harvard nude posture photos to illustrate his theory of somatypes.  The Yale program predates Sheldon, and, as far as I can tell, the Yale photos were never connected to Sheldon's work.

Here are posture photos of nine more Yale students that I had the opportunity to acquire.

This is Yale freshman Emmet G. Rand, Jr. on October 12, 1953.

In 1952, Yale installed an apparatus using mirrors to photograph the front, rear, side and top view.

This is Yale freshman G. J. on October 8, 1953.

Note the strange pins stuck to each student's back and chest.  The pins were stuck on at specific points for later posture analysis.

This is Yale freshman David Robert Englund, Jr. on October 15, 1947.

Photos taken before the fall of 1952 show only a side view.

This is Yale freshman Ronald Emerine on October 16, 1947.

Supposedly, by examining the angles formed by connecting the points where the pins touched the body, certain posture problems could be detected.

This is Yale freshman Henry Jacob Silverman on March 4, 1952.

If posture problems were detected, the student had to attend remedial posture sessions, and a second posture photo was taken.

This is Yale freshman John London Hawkins on February 14, 1952.

The photography and analysis of the photos was conducted by the staff of Yale's Payne Whitney Gymnasium.

This is Yale freshman Matthew James Beemsterboer on January 19, 1952.

Nobody outside the gymnasium staff saw the photos.

This is Yale freshman Thomas Glen Hathcote on February 9, 1952.

The photos were not published for other students to see.

This is Yale freshman William Ernest Goodman on February 18, 1952.

The posture photo program was discontinued in the 1960s, and later, most of the photos were burned.  However, some of the photos escaped burning, including the photos that I have been showing in this series.

*          *          *

Note: some of my followers consider these photos an invasion of privacy for the students.  To protect the privacy of the students, I redact the names of students who may still be alive.  I only publish the names of students who have died.  Legally, the right to privacy does not extend beyond death, i.e. it does not extend to spouses and relatives of the deceased person.

I consider these photos to be a historical record of the time.  Almost all of the Ivy League posture photos were burned when their existence became widely known.  In my opinion, that was akin to book-burning of books that someone claimed were obscene.  These photos are not obscene.  They should be celebrated, not hidden away.

Bodybuilders - Part 36

Eugen Sandow

Eugen Sandow (1867-1925) is considered the father of modern bodybuilding.  Born Friedrich Wilhelm Müller in Prussia, he left Prussia in 1885 to avoid military service.  He traveled through Europe as a circus athlete, adopting the stage name Eugen Sandow, derived from his Russian mother's maiden name Sandov.

In Belgium, fellow strongman Ludwig Durlacher mentored him and encouraged him to go to London in 1889 and enter a strongman competition, which he won.  That launched his career as a strongman.  Above, Sandow lifting weights.

In 1893, American impresario Florenz Ziegfeld persuaded Sandow to appear in shows at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which launched Sandow's career as a showman.  Ziegfeld found that the audience was more interested in looking at Sandow's bulging muscles than in the actual amount of weight he was lifting.  Above, a Ziegfeld poster about Sandow.

In 1901, Sandow organized the world's first major bodybuilding competition in London's Royal Albert Hall.  It was a hit.  Reportedly 15,000 people saw the event, and more were turned away at the door.  The winner was William Murray, above.  He won a prize of £1050, equivalent to about $150,000 today.

There are many nude photos of Sandow.  Here's one from 1894.  It's not known whether the black-and-white original was hand-colored or colorized more recently.  I got this and the next two photos from Vintage Muscle Men.  Thanks, Jerry!

All the frontal nude photos of Sandow have a fig leaf, with one exception ...

and here's the exception.  In 1901, the curator of the British Museum's South Kensington site considered Sandow's body to be the the perfect male form, and he convinced Sandow to have a plaster cast made of his body.  Someone shot this photo during the plaster casting.

Another photo of Sandow getting "plastered", which was done in pieces. 

And the final result of the plaster casting was this nude statue of Sandow.  It was displayed in the British Museum, but some museum visitors mocked him as a music-hall celebrity, and others were shocked at the nudity (remember, this was the Victorian era).  After 3 months the statue was removed and stored in the museum's basement, where it still resides.

Above, a photo of Sandow by Napoleon Sarony, 1893, while Sandow was in the U.S.  I also got this from Vintage Muscle Men.  Thanks, Jerry!

We end by asking: was Sandow straight, gay or bi?  He married and had two children, but before his marriage, while he was in the U.S. in the 1890s, he lived with his male musical accompanist who was rumored to be his gay lover.

Later, Sandow offered private viewings of himself after his public performances.  Spectators, mostly male, could come to his dressing room for a fee to see him naked and enjoy the pleasure of feeling his muscular body.

We know that Sandow and his wife were on terrible terms at the time of his death.  She had him buried in an unmarked grave.  It's rumored that this was because he was unfaithful to her.  In 2008, Sandow's great-grandson erected a 1.5 ton gravestone for him.  Yes, he got a big hard erection (of a sort) 83 years after his death.

Testicular Self-Check

Testicular Cancer Awareness Month

April is Testicular Cancer Awareness Month.  Testicular cancer is the most common type of cancer for men age 15 to 35, but the cure rate is excellent (98%) if it is detected early, which is the reason to do a monthly self-check.

But how exactly should you check your balls?

Unfortunately, the U.S. is so prudish about the naked body that most public information on this subject doesn't actually show testicles.  For example, the illustration above is from the website of the Rio Grande Cancer Foundation, substituting a different kind of nuts in their photos.

Luckily, my friend Pat's blog Big Whack Attack is not so prudish  The photo above is from his blog.  On the 15th of every month, he reminds his readers to check their balls. (And you'll find lots of other good stuff on his blog, too.)  Thanks, Pat!

And the British are not so prudish, either.  This British YouTube video, above, shows exactly how to do the self-check (it's easy, as you'll see).

Events - Part 84

April Fool's Day

In San Francisco, April 1 is the date of the annual St. Stupid's Day parade.  The event celebrates everything stupid.  People wear stupid costumes and carry stupid signs.

Above, the Doggie Diner heads are brought in by truck for the parade.

The event was started in 1979 by Ed Holmes, who has organized it ever since.  He dresses up as Bishop Joey of the fictitious First Church of the Last Laugh.  Above, Bishop Joey addresses the crowd and tells them how stupid things are.  His name is a takeoff on entertainer Joey Bishop, who had a TV show in the 1960s.

Then Bishop Joey moons the crowd, and the parade begins.

The parade visits six Stations of Stupid, a parody of the Catholic Stations of the Cross.  The first Station of Stupid is the Federal Reserve building, where parade goers bless the Fed by throwing away their losing lottery tickets.

The third Station of Stupid is the Statue of the Bare Butt Mechanics, above (actually a 1901 bronze sculpture called the Mechanics Monument, but the figures do have bare butts).

Speaking of bare butts, this is San Francisco, so there are always a few naked parade-goers.

We end with this video clip of part of the St. Stupid's Day parade in 2016.

Ads - Part 82

Alfa Romeo

Alfa Romeo has been known to feature nude men in its ads.  Above, a French ad from 2004 says "A car has never been so well thought through," with a model imitating the pose of Rodin's statue The Thinker.

In 2011, Alfa Romeo ran a series of ads in England for its car called the MiTo Sprint, featuring four nude British Olympic athletes who were sprinters, two men and two women.  Of course we're looking at the men.  Above, Iwan Thomas, who won the world championship in the 400 meters in 1997.

This is Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, who later won gold in the 100 meter relay in the European Championships and in the Commonwealth Games.

And if you're thinking the previous ads didn't really show anything, here's one with a nice rear view of Harry.  In addition to advertising their car, Alfa Romeo boasted that they were supporting Heart Research UK with a £100 donation for every new red Alfa Romeo MiTo car sold in the month of August, 2011.

Harry Aikines-Aryeetey has been photographed nude outside of the Alfa Romeo ads.  This is as close to a frontal view of him as it gets.

But here's another rear view of Harry.

Iwan Thomas is less bashful.  This is from a video he made.

Hiking - Part 83

NinjaAndi - Harz Mountains, Germany

In June, 2025 a man who calls himself NinjaAndi visited Harz National Park in north central Germany.   It contains the Harz Mountains, the only mountains in northern Germany.  Here he is by a map at the park entrance.

This road sign points the way to the Brocken, the highest mountain in the park.

Some roadside grass and a landscape of mainly spruce trees.

Resting at a picnic table.

He hiked up to this rock formation called the Grosse Zeterklippe.  You can see him about a quarter of the way from the left side of the photo.  Click on the picture for a larger image.

We end with the view from the Grosse Zeterklippe.  The mountain in the background is the summit of the Brocken, with a radio antenna at the top.  It's only 1141 meters (3743 feet) high, but it's the highest mountain in northern Germany.  Danke, Andi!

Weighing In - Part 84

Dixon Flores

Dixon Flores is a Nicaraguan boxer.  This clip is from a longer video showing boxers weighing in for an event at Nuevo Gimnasio Nicarao in Managua, Nicaragua on July 29, 2017.  The longer video starts with the headliners for the event weighing in, not shown here.  Then the undercard boxers weigh in.  This clip shows one of them, Yamil Alcevedo, weighing in, but over on the side we see the boxer due to weigh in next, Dixon Flores, who has already stripped naked in preparation for weighing in.

After this clip, Flores weighs in nude, but the photographer aims the camera so we can only see him from the waist up, which is why I didn't include his weigh-in.  But we have already seen a nice view of him over on the side.

In this event, Dixon Flores fought Sergio Gonzalez, and the match was suspended after Gonzalez suffered a wound to his eyebrow, so neither of them won.  Dixon Flores' overall record is 17 wins and 13 losses.