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. But, as far as I can tell, the Yale photos are not connected to Sheldon's work.
Here are four more posture photos taken at Yale that I had the opportunity to acquire. For privacy reasons, I redact the names of men who might still be alive. One of these men has passed away, so his name is not redacted.
This is Yale freshman Peter C. Hobart on Oct. 6, 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.
This is Yale freshman W.H. on Oct. 6, 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. 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 R.H. on Oct. 7, 1953.
This is Yale freshman J.H. on Oct. 12, 1953.
Were these photos an invasion of privacy for the students? By today's standards, yes. By the standards of the day, not so much. In that era, guys were routinely naked around each other in locker rooms and in swimming pools when women weren't present. Being asked to strip and even being photographed naked as part of a posture examination would not seem too outrageous, since the staff conducting this was all-male (and remember that Yale was an all-male school).
12 comments:
no shame! well done!
A veritable shopping catalog of nude 18-year olds. Thousands and thousands of them. Remarkable.
I keep wondering why one of the pins is always left-offset in the lumbar region. What was the point of that?
Love the bottom two asses.
@whkattk - Pat, I don't know why one of the pins is offset to the left. I have read several articles by the people at Yale who conducted the program (published by organizations such as the American Physical Education Association) that explain what they were doing. They refer extensively to the pins on the spine, but there are no references to the left-offset pin. One article does mention a test for "pelvic tilt," but it didn't seem to involve that pin.
One more question for you. All of the young men you’ve showed us are in quite good shape. Is that because you’re only showing us the more attractive men, because Yale only did this study on men in good shape, or because all Yale freshmen of the time were in good shape (i.e., not overweight)? Thanks!
@Wanderlust - (1) I'm showing all the Yale photos that I have been able to acquire, not just the more attractive ones. (2) Yale did this on every arriving freshman. It was not a "study," it was to determine if each freshman needed posture remediation (which is a strange idea today). So, the answer is (3) the vast majority of Yale freshmen, and I think all 18-year-olds in the 1940s and 1950s, were not overweight. The obesity epidemic is a modern phenomenon – not that there weren't fat people back then, but it was uncommon. Also, I think most of us were in better shape at age 18 than we are now.
@whkattk if you look there is a corresponding pin on the front in the guys pubic region. Maybe on the side pictures the drew a line through the hip connecting them. There are also dots running down the spine.
@sickoricko
I don’t know- I find the third guy really doesn’t have an ass…then again who am I to talk!
Do any pictures from the other Ivey league schools exist?
@Treeclimber - Supposedly most of the nude posture photos have been destroyed. A 1995 article in the New York Times claimed that some photos from Yale and Princeton are in the Smithsonian archives. My source is a site that sometimes offers the photos on eBay; I don't know how they acquired them. All of their photos seem to be from Yale.
I never tire of looking at these Yale posture photos. I do wonder, however, why the young men had to be totally naked, with genitals and buttocks on full display. Did the researchers and photographers, perhaps, get an erotic thrill of making the students remove all their clothes, including underwear? It must have been quite a sight, dozens of young men walking around with absolutely nothing on. A definite ritual of passage for these 18-year olds.
Post a Comment