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 six 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 not passed away, so his name is redacted.
This is Yale freshman A.L. on Oct. 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.
This is Yale freshman Luke Finlay, Jr on Oct. 13, 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 John Eugene Hearst on Oct. 6, 1953.
The photos were then analyzed. If posture problems were detected, the student had to attend remedial posture sessions.
This is Yale freshman George C. Hutchinson III on Oct. 13, 1953.
The photography and analysis of the photos was conducted by the staff of Yale's Payne Whitney Gymnasium. Nobody outside this staff saw the photos, and the photos were not published for other students to see.
This is Yale freshman Walter Joseph Loesche on Oct. 12, 1953.
After the photos were used, they were filed away. The posture photo program was discontinued in the 1960s, and later, most of the photos were burned. However, some of the photos escaped burning, including the photos that I have been showing in this series.
This is Yale freshman John Peale Bent, Jr. The date is illegible due to photo damage, but he was in the class of 1958, so the photo was probably taken in 1954.
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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. 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 not 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:
John Peale Bent, Jr. (final photo in this set) would certainly get my attention. What a perfectly formed butt. So thankful we have these photos for posterity.
I wonder how are they now, they must have grown up since the last picture besides if these photos leaked, girls will be after them for trying these boys
@Hot Naked Men - You wonder how they are now? These photos were taken over 70 years ago. Five of them are dead; the remaining man is 89 years old.
Thanks for posting this. Posture photos are my favorite.
what nice guys!
Always really love seeing these. Rare, special and unique. Thanks for sharing and not letting them fade away as if they never happened.
Were these students picked because of someones favorite type of guy? They all look alike. None even have hair on their chests and they all look blond.
@fideloregon - They were not "picked" for their looks. Nude posture photos were taken of every Yale freshman. They may look similar because they are all 18 years old, and they are all children of white, upper-class parents who could afford to send their son to Yale (in those days, Ivy League schools were mostly for the rich). NONE of them are blond, with the possible exception of the last guy, and even then his pubic hair looks too dark to be blond.
It's interesting how many of these men are circumcised. I assume they were born in the early 1930's, so I didn't realize it was so common at the time. From what you've seen, is there a certain class year where it took off? For example: Any guys before the class of 194x were likely uncircumcised and guys after 194x were likely circumcised? What are the oldest Yale photos that you have?
Did only Yale do this, or did all the Ivy League schools do this?
@Anon - regarding circumcision, most of these guys, college freshmen in 1953, would have been born in 1935. The earliest Yale photos that I have are five photos from 1939, probably born in 1921. The early photos are just a side view. Two of them appear to be circumcised, one uncircumcised, and two are hard to tell. I have a lot of photos from 1942, and about half are circumcised. By 1952, when the 4-way photos started (front, rear, side and top views), most of the men appear circumcised, but I don't see one particular year when things changed suddenly.
@Anon - according to a 1995 New York Times article "The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal" by Ron Rosenbaum, nude posture photos were taken at Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and University of Pennsylvania, as well as Seven Sisters colleges Mount Holyoke, Vassar, Smith, Wellesley and Radcliffe. Almost all of these photos were subsequently burned. Some Harvard photos can be seen in a book called The Atlas of Men, but frontal nudity is censored. All the photos with uncensored frontal male nudity that survived burning seem to be from Yale.
What beautiful bare butts on these guys. Nude posture photos need to be brought back into existence, mandatory for all males. I would volunteer to supervise.
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