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 freshman G.H. on October 8, 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 freshman E.H. on October 16, 1953.
This is freshman Garson F. Heller, Jr. 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 freshman N.H. in October, 1953.
This is freshman Arnold C. Shoop on Oct. 16, 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. To protect the privacy of the students, I redact the names of students who may still be alive (despite the fact that their names have already been published on an online auction site). 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.
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.
9 comments:
I appreciate that you continue to post these types of photos and provide commentary so that new viewers can understand the historical context.
It's notable that Yale began its posture studies in 1919. America's entry into WWI revealed much about the state of nutrition, physical fitness, and the intelligence/education level of army recruits. In essence, and despite the US's rise as an industrial power, American male youth was in a sad state. For those interested, check out the rise of intelligence tests post WWI as one of the changes the Army made in determining US-readiness for war and how to manage recruiting and assignments.
These revelations continued to appear into the 1950-60s - e.g., for older viewers of this blog, remember President Kennedy's national physical fitness program. This arose, in part, to ensure a healthier and fitter Army recruit pool as the US dealt with post-Sputnik hysteria and the evolving Cold War.
I suspect that many folks find these photos as examples of intrusive institutional authority and the violation of a young man's privacy. Placed in today's context, this reaction is understandable. Nevertheless, I doubt that most of the young men felt that way at the time.
Also, the pictures are helpful for any man who is uncomfortable with his own body or self-image. These are average-looking men, with average bodies and cocks. We're more alike than we are different in this respect.
For a while, these photos put me off. But the accompanying commentary clarified the issue. I know these young men were probably not uncomfortable being naked. In those days, having a peter was not secretly shameful. And it's unlikely that the men were not put out by being stripped.
I just noticed that every once in a while one of them has a pin at the left hip. I really do wonder the offset.
@whkattk - Pat, if you mean the pin on the front of the left hip, they all have it, though none of the students had this pin in the earlier profile-only posture photos. I don’t know what this pin was supposedly measuring. The closest I can find is a 1954 article “PhotoMetric Posture Pictures” published in the Journal of the American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation. The article goes into great detail on the procedure. Among much else, it says:
“Two angles are being measured on the anteroposterior view to determine the more significant indicant of pelvic tilt. In the case of each angle, the anterior superior and posterior spines of the left ilium are used together with the position of the greater trochanter of the left thigh. It is possible also with a front view and back view available to note any lateral tilt of the pelvis.”
Whether any of this refers to the pin on the front of the left hip, I don’t know.
When I was a kid i early 1970s, my mother bought me some "medical" books that came from France that provided basics about life and human body, from cells to complete anatomy. There were a number of naked people, including a single large picture featuring men (and other picture with men) of different ages from boyhood to senior ages. (alas, not the same person through the years).
Also, was told that a man is not affraid to undress in front of others in locker rooms so everyone undressed in locker rooms and took showers naked because if you didn't, you wre considered a shy boy, not a real man.
Considering the puranical nature today where young men are taught to never undress in locerk room, and the nature of the Internet where porn never shows normal males in fully flaccid state, these posture photos have gained much educational value because it's the only way that boys/young men can compare to see if they are normal like others.
So in a way, if these students agreed to participate in an anatomy study, and there pictures are used for learning about normal anatomy of normal males at a time when such pictures are hard to find, I would say their value is larger than the ethical issue of publishing them on a media where more people see them then they could have envisaged back then.
Interesting that same we’re allowed to keep watches, rings, or glasses on!
Me too. I was told a real man isn't afraid to undress in locker rooms and took showers naked.
It seems that the subjects that were chosen are all similar. None have body hair for example. Is this on purpose?
@Unknown - I am publishing photos that I have been able to acquire. There is no selection process. Look at all the other Yale posture photos that I have published (click on "Yale" in the list of labels on the right) and you will see a large number of Yale students in 1953 and 1942. As other readers have commented, these photos are useful because they are not porn photos; they are a true picture of what young men actually looked like, at least the upper-class young men who attended Yale.
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