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. The Yale program predates Sheldon, and, as far as I can tell, the Yale photos were never connected to Sheldon's work.
Here are seven 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 Christie Conlon Barter on Nov. 12, 1946.
In 1952, Yale installed an apparatus using mirrors to photograph the front, rear, side and top view. Today's photos are from before 1952 and show only a profile view.
This is Yale freshman Frank Stewart Berall on Nov. 12, 1946.
Note the strange pins stuck to each student's back and chest. The pins were stuck on at specific points for later posture analysis.
This is Yale freshman Jose Lopez de Victoria, Jr. on Nov. 12, 1946.
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.K. on Nov. 19, 1946.
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 Waid Rogers on Nov. 12, 1946.
After the photos were used, they were filed away.
This is Yale freshman Carroll Davies French on Jan. 7, 1947.
If posture problems were detected, the student had to attend remedial posture sessions and a second posture photo as taken. Initial photos were taken in the fall. The photo above is a second photo taken after the remedial posture sessions.
This is Yale freshman William Davison Glover on March 18, 1947. Another second photo taken after the remedial posture sessions.
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.
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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.
11 comments:
I'm intrigued when I read, "If posture problems were detected, the student had to attend remedial posture sessions." Were the students nude during these sessions? I wonder if these sessions were in the gym, where casual observers could watch. If so, I would have been in the gym a lot.
This is a great historical resource. Thank you for publishing them. I just wish that when I entered college as a vigorous 19 year old - a swimmer from high school - there would have been a nude picture of me I could look back on! Nostalgia!
so nice guys!
I enjoy these posts.
@Anon - I do not know whether the remedial posture sessions were in the nude. Some gym activities were done in the nude, e.g. swimming practice, others were not. In any case, casual observers could only come in and watch if the observers were Yale students; others had to pay a membership fee to use the gym.
Thank you!
Mentioning that in the early 20th century, that many universities took pictures of students naked for various reasons is one thing. But seeing the images provides much more context on those programs that words cannot convey and does foster discussion/thoughts on how things have changed with regards to nudity which between victoria era and late 80s, was a no brainer in locker rooms and now, younger generations use the "no nudity" section of locker rooms/showers because they were never thought it was normal to be naked in locker room and not being affraid to be naked was integral part of being a man.
So irrespective of the ethical issues of posting image of named persons, I applaud your posting them,
My gym trainer took photos almost like these in 2024, before and after, he says
Where did you get this photo, is there a source?
this is so amazing
@Anon - The source of these photos is my private collection. From time to time, the physical photos come up for auction, and I have been acquiring them and gradually publishing them on this website. I have lots more that I will be publishing in the future.
This is the kind of post that keeps me coming back!
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