Ivy League Posture Photos - Part 40

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.  For privacy reasons, I redact the names of men who might still be alive.  Seven of these men have passed away, so their names are not redacted.

This is Yale freshman Richard Bruce White on Oct. 12, 1953.

In 1952, Yale installed an apparatus using mirrors to photograph the front, rear, side and top view.  Prior to that, the posture photo was just a side view.

This is Yale freshman Brayton Wilbur, Jr. on Oct. 19, 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 G.W. on Oct. 19, 1953.

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 Albert L. Williams, Jr. on Nov. 3, 1953.

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

This is Yale freshman Z.H. on Oct. 18, 1954.

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

This is Yale freshman Robert Douglas Haller on Oct. 18, 1954.

Nobody outside the gymnasium staff saw the photos, and the photos were not published for other students to see.

This is Yale freshman Allan Clark Scheer on Jan. 21, 1942.

This and the following photos show only a profile view because they were taken before the 4-way view equipment was installed in 1952.

This is Yale freshman Arthur Elliot Toft on Sept. 10, 1942.

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.

This is Yale freshman William Slocum Tilghman on July 15, 1942 and Dec. 8, 1942.

It's rare to have both the first posture photo and the second, where the student failed the posture test, took remedial posture sessions, then a second photo was taken.

Normally the first photo was taken near the start of the freshman term in September or October.  In this case, the fact that the first photo is dated July 1942 indicates that he was a member of the special accelerated wartime class 1945W (W for War) where the students entered Yale in July 1942 and graduated in 1945.

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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, children, grandchildren, etc. 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.

Ads - Part 59

Posters part 1

Today we start a mini-series on ads for products or events in the form of posters that feature nude males.  Above, the oldest one I have is an 1899 Italian poster by Marcello Dudovich advertising writing ink.

A 1900 Italian poster for Bianchi bicycles.

A 1900 poster by Adolfo Hohenstein for a Hygiene Exposition in Naples.

This 1907 poster is for a cycle and car exhibition in Milan.

And another auto exposition, this one in Turin in 1908.

A 1908 French poster advertising a publication called "Man and the Earth", one booklet per week.

A 1910 poster for the Hotel Bären (Bear Hotel) in Basel, Switzerland.

We end with an international exhibition in 1911 in Turin, Italy, featuring a couple of exhibitionists.

Next time: World War I posters.

Naked Farmer - Part 36

State of Nature

We continue our series of photos posted by the Naked Farmer, Ben Brooksby, a young Australian farmer who posts photos of naked Australian farmers on social media sites. The naked photos are to get people's attention, and his message is to encourage people with mental health issues like suicidal thoughts to talk about it with someone and not to hide it away. Ben himself had suffered from panic attacks in school.

Farmers send Ben naked photos of themselves from all over Australia.  I organize the photos by which Australian state they're from.  Today's photos did not specify which state, so I call them "state of nature."

Most of the subjects are anonymous, but the farmer on his motorbike above is not ashamed to say he's Harry Oates.

This photo was labeled "Harvest complete."

A farmer with his hale baling machine.

And speaking of hay, this one is labeled "Hay there."  Note that frontals are concealed because Ben posts these on Facebook, which does not allow frontals.

But butts are allowed, as long as the whole photo doesn't focus on them.  This is called "Irrigation on point."

Horseback.

Another farmer unashamed to reveal his name: Jake Marshall, in a photo called "Cleaning this spud."

I don't know if this is a dust storm or smoke from a wildfire.

Another nice butt shot of a farmer in his field.

We end with these buddies labeled "Have a good weekend."

Bodybuilders - Part 12

Chris Dickerson

Henri Christophe (Chris) Dickerson was born in 1939 in Montgomery, Alabama.  He was one of a set of identical triplets, an event rare enough to get positive publicity, even though his family was black in segregated Alabama.  Above, the Dickerson triplets Chris, John and Alfred.

His mother, Mahala, got divorced shortly after the boys were born, and they were raised largely by their well-to-do grandparents.  In 1952 Mahala moved to Indianapolis to escape the segregated South.  She then went on to attend law school at Howard University in Washington, DC, and the triplets were sent to the Olney Friends boarding school in Ohio, run by Quakers.  Chris remained there through high school.

In 1957, after high school, Chris moved to New York City to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where he studied acting, ballet, and singing.  But when he saw a photo of Bill Pearl in a muscle magazine, his world changed.  He began to work out, crisscrossing the country to California.  At age 24, he moved to Los Angeles where he trained at Bill Pearl's gym, and Bill Pearl became his mentor and substitute father figure.

In 1967 he won the Mr. California contest, and in 1970 he was the first black man to win Mr. America (above, center).

He won Mr. Universe in 1973, and he won Mr. Olympia in 1982 after controversial losses for two years due to corrupt judging.  The Mr. Olympia contest promoter, Paul Graham, was a racial bigot and a homophobe, and Chris was black and gay.

Chris started posing for physique photographer Bob Mizer (AMG), though the photos were not published until years later.  Above, Chris in the AMG shower in 1964, listed as his birth name Henri.  I got this photo from Vintage Muscle Men.  Thanks, Jerry!

In 1967 Chris started posing nude for Jim French (Colt Studios).

A rear view.

And another front view.

Artist Tom of Finland produced this drawing of Chris Dickerson based on a Jim French photo.

Here's a clip from a Colt video of Chris walking down a path.

And a clip from a video of him applying oil to his body.

Chris did one porn video for Colt of a three-way with Dakota and John Tristram.  There was no fucking, but quite a bit of sucking action.  Above, a clip of Chris Dickerson, who is in the foreground, getting sucked.

And here's a still from that video of Chris sucking cock.  

Chris Dickerson acknowledged that being black and being gay had been barriers to success in bodybuilding, but he broke through those barriers to become the first black Mr. America and the first openly gay Mr. Olympia.

Chris Dickerson died of heart failure in 2021.  He was 82 years old.

Hiking - Part 59

 Naked European Walking Tour 2024

The Naked European Walking Tour (NEWT) is a one-week naked hike.  Usually, like this year, it is held in the Austrian Alps.  My blog follower and contributor Natfree Pascal, who lives in France, is one of the organizers of this event.  Above, Pascal on the road in Austria.

Pascal leads the group up the hill.  One of the conditions of signing up for a NEWT hike is that you agree that they can publish photos and videos of you naked.  This hike is for people who are unashamed.

Eating lunch on the Tettenjoch summit.

Pascal (right) and his friend Lim from Singapore, who has participated in many of the NEWT hikes.

The hikers reach a waterfall.

A group photo in front of the waterfall.

Here's Pascal by a smaller waterfall.

This was described as the "hut" in Austria where the NEWT group stayed.  In front is a guy from the Netherlands who I only became aware of this year, though he has participated in several NEWT hikes.  He has a Twitter page under the name @naked_hiker.

A group photo next to the "hut."  Naked_Hiker is in front with his mascot, Elgar the Elk.

This photo of Naked_Hiker with another guy was labeled "naked holing in Austria."  I think "holing" was a typo, but it's fun to think it might be a reference to an activity involving their holes.  Naked_Hiker is gay, and his Twitter site is full of naked photos of him in various states of excitement.

The Naked European Walking Tour is not a sexual event, though of course they don't control what the participants do in private.

Some of the NEWT hikers resting on a bench.  From the left: Naked Dutchman from the Netherlands, Pascal from France, Jerome Jolibois, who runs the annual World Naked Bike Ride in Brussels, Lim from Singapore, and Naked Adventures from Brussels.

We end with NEWT hikers spelling out NEWT in front of the "hut" where they stayed.  Naked_Hiker is the left part of N, Lim is the middle of E, and Pascal took the photo.

Thank you so much, Pascal, for organizing this hike!

Weighing In - Part 61

Nik Lentz

Nik Lentz was a lightweight MMA fighter, now retired.  He was weighing in naked for the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) 208 fights in Brooklyn, NY in 2017, above, when the towel-holder lost his grip (above).  Oops!

Let's see that again.

Someone got a photo of it, unfortunately a cropped view.  Nik then fought Islam Makhachev and lost.  Guess it wasn't Nik's day!

Poem of the Day - Part 60

Simple Simon

Simple Simon met a pieman
Going to the fair;

Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
Let me taste your ware.

Said the pieman to Simple Simon,
Show me first your penny;

Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
Indeed I have not any.

Simple Simon went a-fishing,

For to catch a whale;

All the water he had got

Was in his mother's pail.

(Above: Plate 30, nude man carrying bucket from Animal Locomotion by Eadweard Muybridge, 1887.)

Simple Simon went to look

If plums grew on a thistle;

He pricked his fingers very much,

Which made poor Simon whistle.

(Note: or maybe Simon whistled at seeing someone's prick.)

He went to catch a dicky bird

And thought he could not fail

Because he had a little salt

To put upon its tail.

(Note: In this photo, Simple Simon is Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas.  Yes, this photo has been image-manipulated.  The Senator was holding a salt shaker, but he was not actually putting salt on a naked guy's butt.)

He went for water in a sieve

But soon it all fell through;

And now poor Simple Simon

Bids you all adieu!

(Above, not a sieve, but the same idea: a bucket race at the Nude Olympics in Adelaide, Australia where the buckets had holes in them.)