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 five 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. Two of these men have passed away, so their names are not redacted.
This is Yale freshman Muller Davis on Oct. 12, 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 George E. Doty III on Oct. 16, 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 L.D. on Oct. 12, 1953.
This is Yale freshman R.D. on Oct. 16, 1953.
This is Yale freshman W.E. on Oct. 19, 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).
Some of my followers have questioned the propriety of publishing these photos, since the students did not give consent for their publication. My reply:
1. I only publish the names of students who have died. To protect their privacy, I have redacted the names of students who may still be alive (despite the fact that their names have already been published on an online auction site). 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.
2. In my opinion, publishing these photos is similar to publishing nude photos of athletes and soldiers taken by LIFE magazine photographers. At the time, the understanding of the photo subjects was that photos with frontal nudity would never be published in the magazine (and they never were), but the LIFE photo archive containing those photos is now publicly available online, and nobody seems to be complaining about it.
3. 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.
8 comments:
Anyone else notice that some of these guys appear to be wearing wedding bands?
I agree with you 100%. They're already out there for world view.
There's definitely an erotic aspect here, just knowing that these good-looking young men were required to strip completely naked and be photographed. Thankful these photos have been preserved. Hope to see more for future posts.
I always appreciate these images. Especially their asses.
I am not so technically savvy that I totally understand the explanation that was given by the researcher. He may have had a very technical explanation. I still think that he got more than just academic enjoyment from taking these pictures, and that was fine. Regardless of his goal, there are people like me who find great enjoyment from looking at these pictures of naked men.
Since you started showing Yale and other posture photos, I have read about them in more detail from old NY Times articles, Yale alumni newsletters and a blog by Brian Ferrari. It never occured to me that some famous people in later life had photos taken. Dick Cavett was one, and so was James Franciscus. His photo sold for $1225 and Calvin Trillin for $100. I enjoy seeing the young men and have no ethical concerns about showing them. It seems many are now available on ebay and other auction houses. A Yale Art Professor wrote that the aim was to correlate body features with success later in life. It was the same idea the Nazis had about Aryan physiognomy. Fortunately the idea was abandoned in the the 1960s. Thank you for showing these fascinating photos.
#4 he's the most cute here
Another aspect that makes these photos of general interest: they are not pornographic in nature and depicts normal males, not beefcakes, muscle guys or models with better-than-average features. Also important: they don't fluff up their male equipment like in purpose-photo shoots where you never see a guy fully relaxed down there.
If a male is insecure, looking at those photos has greater risk of making him feel perfectly normal vs comparing himself against beefcakes. (especially these days where younger generations do the towel dance in locekr room and you never see anyone naked).
It would have been iteresting for this practice to continue to show whether average male body has changed since then (better nutrition, sports or genes evolving).
If those photos had been used for anthropolical study of anatomy, would there have been a problem? the photos would still be technically public.
Post a Comment