Ivy League Posture Photos

Ivy League Posture Photos

In 1995, a New York Times article called The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal exposed a strange practice in the 1940s through 1960s at certain Ivy League colleges such as Yale and Princeton and some of their Seven Sisters counterparts such as Vassar, Smith, and Mt. Holyoke.  The colleges took nude photos of incoming freshmen, supposedly for the purpose of detecting any problems with their posture.  Actually, according to the article, the pseudo-scientists who were behind the scheme were using the photos for far more troubling purposes such as eugenic studies, now completely discredited.

For the full article, see https://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/15/magazine/the-great-ivy-league-nude-posture-photo-scandal.html

According to the article, many of the photos were subsequently burned, and others ended up in a vault at the Smithsonian.  I have never seen any of them online.  I've seen photos that said they were Ivy League posture photos, but they weren't.

For example, this photo has been posted on several sites as an Ivy League posture photo.  I'm sure it was an honest mistake by the posters.  It's a posture photo, all right, but not Ivy League.  It was taken during World War II by the Navy at their pre-flight training school at St. Mary's college in California, and it shows recruit J.W. King on June 13, 1942.  All the Navy pre-flight training posture photos have the characteristic ruler marks at the left and top, although some websites have cropped off the rulers, just to confuse us.

Here's the corresponding Navy record for recruit J.W. King.  Note the space on the form at upper right where it says "3 posture pictures".

The military seems to have had a special interest in taking naked photos of their recruits.  (I wonder why?)  The photo above is from Fort Sheridan, Illinois, a major processing center for military recruits during World War II.  I have 35 of these Fort Sheridan photos.  At least these don't seem to have been mistaken for Ivy League photos, because the block the recruit is standing on clearly says "Ft. Sheridan".

So, when I came across some genuine Ivy League posture photos on ebay, I was excited.  They are all of Yale students from the 1940s and 1950s.  The photos contained the names of the students.  I have confirmed that two of them have passed away.  Out of respect for the privacy of the two men who may still be alive, I have removed their names and I will only refer to them by their initials.  I did trace the names and verify that they were indeed Yale students on the dates of the photos.  So, at last, we see some real Ivy League posture photos.

This is Yale freshman J.R. on March 9, 1942.  Note the strange pins stuck to his back and chest.  These pins were prominently referred to in the New York Times article and are absent in the fake Ivy League posture photos, another confirmation that these are the real thing.

This is Yale freshman James O'Connor Roberts on March 10, 1942.

This is Yale freshman L.R. on October 8, 1948.

This is Yale freshman Richard A. Lumpkin on October 7, 1953.  An article in the Journal of the American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation described how in spring, 1952, Yale installed an apparatus using mirrors to produce "PhotoMetric" posture photos like this showing front, rear, side and top views.

Although I have removed their names from two of the photos to protect their privacy, my guess is that, if they are still alive, these guys would be happy for people to see what they looked like as fresh young 18-year-olds.