New Year's Eve 2024

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Protests - Part 63

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Ivy League Posture Photos - Part 42

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 posture photos of six more Yale students that I had the opportunity to acquire.  For privacy reasons, I redact the names of men who might still be alive.  Five of these men have passed away, so their names are not redacted.

This is Yale freshman Harry Berger, Jr. on January 22, 1942.

In 1952, Yale installed an apparatus using mirrors to photograph the front, rear, side and top view.  Prior to that, the posture photo was just a side view.  Today's photos are all side views.

This is Yale freshman G.L. on March 9, 1942.

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 Robert Hugh MacDonald III on February 24, 1942.

If posture problems were detected, the student had to attend remedial posture sessions, and a second posture photo was taken.

This is Yale freshman Garrison Holmes McClure on February 23, 1942

The photography and analysis of the photos was conducted by the staff of Yale's Payne Whitney Gymnasium.  Nobody outside the gymnasium staff saw the photos, and the photos were not published for other students to see.

This is Yale freshman Robert Elliot Post on February 23, 1942.

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 Robert Bushman Judell on January 21, 1942.  Having two photos of a student taken on the same day is extremely unusual.  For some reason, they decided to retake the photo, perhaps because his arm was moving in the photo at right.  Remember, those were the days of film photos, when you couldn't see what the photo would look like until after the film was developed.

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Note: some of my followers consider these photos an invasion of privacy for the students.  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.

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.

Ads - Part 61

Posters part 3

We continue our mini-series on ads in the form of posters featuring nude males.  Today, posters from post-World War I through the 1920s.  Above, a poster for an Italian tonic wine, 1919.

A Polish anti-Bolshevist poster showing Leon Trotsky sitting on a pile of skulls, 1920.

A 1923 French poster for bicycles showing a bicyclist riding on an electric wire with sparks flying.  Art by Paul Mohr.

A French poster for spark plugs, c. 1925.  More art by Paul Mohr.

A third French poster with art by Paul Mohr, advertising brake jobs, 1929.

A 1924 poster by Croatian artist Jozo Kljaković shows Lenin smashing the old order.

A 1926 German poster for Die Schönheit magazine.

A Dutch poster for a 1928 exhibition in Utrecht.

A 1928 Italian Fascist poster promoting Italian agriculture, with a quote from Mussolini.  Note that he is making the Fascist salute, which later became famous as "Heil Hitler".

Naked Farmer - Part 38

State of Nature

We continue our series of photos posted by the Naked Farmer, Ben Brooksby, a young Australian farmer who posts photos of naked Australian farmers on social media sites. The naked photos are to get people's attention, and his message is to encourage people with mental health issues like suicidal thoughts to talk about it with someone and not to hide it away. Ben himself had suffered from panic attacks in school.

Farmers send Ben naked photos of themselves from all over Australia.  I organize the photos by which Australian state they're from.  Today's photos did not specify which state, so I call them "state of nature."

Above, a photo labeled "Neighbor going out in first rain."

This one was called "Kelly on tree branch."  The thing on his head seems inspired by Australian outlaw Ned Kelly's homemade armor in his final shootout with police.

What to wear under your kilt.

Picking quince.

A beautiful view.  And the scenery is nice, too.

Someone should tell them that being a cowboy does not mean riding a cow.

Good luck fixing this truck.

In contemplation next to a wagon wheel.

Shearing the sheep.

We end with this guy who apparently produces oversize loads.

Bodybuilders - Part 14

Charles Atlas

Chalres Atlas (1892-1972) was born Angelo Siciliano in Italy.  He moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1904 and became interested in exercise and bodybuilding.  Physical Culture magazine called him "America's most handsome man" in 1921.  He never won a contest, but that didn't stop him from claiming that he did and promoting himself as the "World's Most Handsome Man" (above).

I got this photo from Vintage Muscle Men, which has done several posts on Charles Atlas.  Thanks, Jerry!

In 1922 he legally changed his name to Charles Atlas because it sounded more American, and he began marketing his exercise program that he called "Dynamic Tension," consisting of twelve lessons.  Above, the cover of a 1924 booklet promoting the program.

One of many nude photos of Atlas inside the booklet.  

Another nude photo of Atlas from the booklet.  They are all rear or side views, never frontal.

A photo of Charles Atlas in Artists and Models magazine, August 1925.

A 1929 postcard of Charles Atlas.

A photo of himself that he signed "Yours for physical beauty."

I got this photo, and the previous one, from Vintage Muscle Men.  Thanks, Jerry!

Photographer Edwin Townsend took a series of photos of Charles Atlas in the mid to late 1920s.  Above, posing as the discobolus (discus thrower).

A Townsend photo of Atlas showing off his muscles.

A rear view photo by Townsend.

I found this in an online post of photos of Charles Atlas by Townsend.  If it's really Charles Atlas, it would be the only nude frontal photo of him that I have ever seen.  The question is: is it Charles Atlas or the very similar-looking Tony Sansone, who was also photographed by Edwin Townsend?

Here's a photo of Charles Atlas (left) and Tony Sansone (right) in a pose called "The Slave."  Sansone had taken Atlas' course, and Atlas called him "the most beautiful man in America."

Here's a photo of Tony Sansone by Edwin Townsend.  Physically, Charles Atlas and Tony Sansone looked very similar.  Even their facial features were similar.  However, Sansone slicked back his hair with hair grease, which Atlas did not do, and Sansone's penis in this photo looks a bit different from the penis in the frontal photo of Atlas (this has a larger opening of the foreskin).  So, I think the frontal photo of Charles Atlas may really be Charles Atlas.

Charles Atlas died of a heart attack in 1972 at age 80.

Unlike Charles Atlas, Tony Sansone posed for many nude frontal shots by Townsend and other photographers.  We'll see more of him next time.