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. Three of these men have not passed away, so their names are redacted.
This is Yale freshman Siebert G. Adams, Jr. on Oct. 5, 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 D.A. on Oct. 12, 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.A. on Oct. 5, 1953.
This is Yale freshman W.C. on Oct. 12, 1953.
This is Yale freshman Patrick Winlock Child on Oct. 12, 1953.
Note: some of my followers have questioned the propriety of publishing these photos. If you think I should not publish them, please don't comment to that effect. Too much time and space has been taken up on the subject. We can agree to disagree. If you don't like it, go to some other blog. Here is my position:
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
13 comments:
Great photographs. I wish when I went to college in the 60s that these sort of pictures were taken of me. It would be a great reminder of what I looked liked then - (football player but still a science nerd!)
Back then I am not sure how I would have felt about it, but now I sure would like to see pictures of me nude, and enjoy the thought of others seeing them. I have nothing impressive to show, but totally enjoy people seeing me naked. And I certainly appreciate others who were photographed naked for me to enjoy.
I always enjoy it when another batch of these photos are published on this site. I've always wondered, however, why the young men had to be totally nude. Would it have been problematic for them to have kept their underwear on? Perhaps someone could explain.
@ anonymous There's no -good- explanation, because some of these gentlemen are out of alignment. They got accepted anyways.
The iliac needles and the sacrum needle would have had to punch through the fabric of the typical tighty whiteys. You can see a mild tan variation on some of them.
These bones are the foundation of the spine. So there is -an- explanation.
Mr. Child appears to be out of whack both foundationally and then from the shoulderblades to his neck. No guarantee the photos are any good though. His mouth is open in the middle picture, so he could just have been squirmy or one of those folks who just can't shut up.
@Anon - Why did the young men have to be nude? Two reasons:
1. As part of the exam, the student’s height and weight (without clothes, to get the true weight) were measured. So, when the posture photo was taken, the student would already be nude.
2. As Ike points out, underwear might interfere with some of the pins on the lower back. But there’s more. A 1937 article describes how, in addition to the pins, certain points on the student’s body were marked in pencil, and these include the “greater trochanter of the femur”, which is on the side of the hip and definitely would be blocked by underwear. You can see a cross mark on the hip in most of the photos; it’s especially clear in the photo of D.A.
@Ike - It was not a question of being “accepted”; these students had already been accepted into Yale. However, if they failed the posture exam, they had to take “corrective classes”, after which a second posture photo was taken. A 1956 article says that out of the approximately 1000 freshmen entering each fall, about 60% had to take corrective classes.
Nice to see some uncut guys in the 50s
I think I would have had more problems with having such needles stuck all over my body compared to being nude ! Or are these like succion cups with nedle that is perpendiculat to surface of skin?
On nudity: I think having buttocks exposed was likely important to determine posture. Underwear would ruin the lines between back/front and legs.
I have to wonder if those images would have been made available to those making anatomy drawings for medical books.
@Anon - The needles did not stick into the skin. They were 4-inch aluminum pins mounted perpendicularly on a base that was stuck to the skin using a 1-inch piece of adhesive tape. The bases of the pins are the white things that you can see on the back and chest.
I wonder if the Yale coaches had access to these photos. Student in photo #5 definitely looks like football material. Just think, every year 1000 new students had to strip for posture photos. A virtual Sears catalog of young men in the buff, offering potential "buyers" (i.e., coaches) a look at the goods.
Wonderful pictures to share! I would think this is a gallery of young men who contribute to science and nude art! Thank you for sharing with us!
Yeah dad proud of them
Third guy is gorgeous!
Post a Comment