Ivy League nude posture photos

During the 1940s–1960s, nude photographs were routinely taken of incoming freshmen at elite colleges in the United States, such as the Ivy Leagues and Seven Sisters schools. Purportedly taken to assess the posture and health of the students, the bulk of the photographs were produced by W. H. Sheldon, a psychologist and eugenicist who believed non-white races were intellectually stunted. Sheldon developed a theory that measuring a human body could predict the subject's intelligence, temperament, and moral worth. The inspiration to take mass photos for his research came from the founder of eugenics, Francis Galton, who proposed such a photo archive for the British population.

The institutions that had "posture photo" programs included Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Vassar, Wellesley, Mount Holyoke, Swarthmore, University of Pennsylvania, Hotchkiss, Syracuse, University of California, University of Wisconsin, Purdue, Brooklyn College, the Oregon Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and others. The years that each institution participated vary. Some schools, such as Harvard and Wellesley, had their own practice of taking posture photos well before Sheldon's involvement, as early as the 1880s.

Most of the photo archives were destroyed voluntarily by the schools in the 1960s and '70s, after ending their posture photo practices. After Sheldon's death in 1977, his personal archive of over 20,000 photos and negatives was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution's National Anthropological Archives. These were never displayed, and could only be viewed by researchers who petitioned the chief archivist. After a write-up in the New York Times Magazine in 1995, the Smithsonian sealed the documents completely, and destroyed the Yale archives upon request.

Some celebrities have mentioned their experiences getting their posture photo taken, including Sylvia Plath, Nora Ephron, Dick Cavett and Judith Martin (the etiquette expert known as Miss Manners). In the 2020s posture photos of the actors James Franciscus and Bill Hinnant resurfaced and were sold on eBay.

Background

Posture in US culture

American culture's fixation on posture started in the mid-18th century, when it was seen as a reflection of character, particularly for men. During the 1800s, posture became a part of etiquette (for men and women), aided by stiff clothing like corsets and greatcoats. It also took on a moral quality, helping differentiate upper classes from the "slouched and tired" working class, and also separating them from earlier aristocrats, who were considered "languid and morally loose."

By the end of the 19th century, as social rules (and clothing) became more relaxed, posture turned into a medical issue. "Good posture" was considered essential to good health, and slouching was said to crush internal organs, bringing about various ailments. There was a particular focus on children, and posture was a frequent subject of parenting manuals. In 1890, half of children were identified as having "abnormal" spinal curvatures.

Late 1800s posture photos

Concerned about the bad posture of the youth, some schools began photographing their students and taking various measurements (many not related to posture). Harvard's program started in the 1880s, as did some women's colleges. Participation was generally compulsory for the students.

The exact methods varied from school to school, but in general, photograph stations were set up in a gymnasium, where students were called within the first week of the school year. Each student would disrobe, pose on a platform, and be photographed from multiple angles. At first the photos were generally waist-up, and some schools took steps to hide the identity of the subject, such as covering the head with a handkerchief.

Further data was also taken. For example, officials at Vassar (which was a women's college at the time) took measurements of the waist, chest, hips, knees, calves, ankles, instep, elbows, wrists, head circumference, lung capacity, whether the student wore corsets, whether she had ever taken gym, her birthplace, her father's occupation, the nationality of her parents and grandparents, and her "temperament".

At Wellesley, the student's posture was graded from A to D, and if they received anything lower than an A, they were required to take a "remedial" course in posture. They were then rephotographed and regraded. The majority of Wellesley students (freshmen and above) received B or C grades.

Across all Massachusetts schools that took posture photos, it was reported in 1889 that female students were photographed and measured 50 times more often than male students, whose postures were deemed far superior.

Early 20th century posture photos

In the early 1900s, posture became even more important in American culture, with the formation of the American Posture League, contests like "Miss Perfect Posture", and college campuses with "posture police" that tagged students who were not walking or standing straight. In this atmosphere, it was common for public primary schools to run postural correction programs. College posture photo practices increased, and by 1925, most schools adopted full-body nudes, as recommended by the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics, which later became Wellesley's Department of Physical Education.

Wellesley spearheaded the advancement & spread of posture photo programs. They integrated new medical devices into the practice, such as the Demenÿ Machine starting in 1900, and later the "thoracimeter", which was invented at the school's Physical Training Department. In the 1930s, Wellesley started using "posture pointers", which were thin metal rods that were taped to various points of the subject's spine and chest. When viewed in profile, these rods would stick out from the body, and students were graded on how much the rods fanned out or touched.

Wellesley also helped popularize the practice at other schools. Beginning in the 1920s, the school circulated training films about posture measurement to other women's colleges, as well as some "progressive" high schools and elementary schools, many of which took up the practice.

1940s–1960s: Sheldon era

Posture photos began to hit their peak in the 1940s, thanks to W.H. Sheldon, a popular psychologist and eugenicist at the time. Sheldon had developed a theory that all human bodies could be classified into one of three "somatotypes": ectomorph (tall, skinny, weak, nervous), mesomorph (muscular, good posture), and endomorph (fat, short). He believed a person could be summed up by a three-digit number based on their somatotype, and that this number was innate and immutable. Sheldon also developed "constitutional psychology", which asserted that one's somatotype determined their mental characteristics, such as intelligence and temperament.

Sheldon's theories became popular in the 1940s, and in 1947 he was given his own laboratory to study "constitutional psychology" at Columbia University [wiki]. Life Magazine ran a cover story in 1951 about his theories, and Cosmo published quizzes about how to understand your husband based on his somatotype. Wanting to amass an archive of data on human bodies, Sheldon approached different colleges about running a compulsory photo program, or, if they already had one, taking it over. Many schools agreed.

From the 1940s to the 1960s, Sheldon shot and catalogued tens of thousands of full-body nude photos of college students. On the surface, the photos were to assess the subject's posture (and thus health), but many believe Sheldon was using them to further his somatotype research. He printed many of the Harvard nudes in his guide to body types, "Atlas of Men".

According to Sheldon's lifelong friend Ellery Lanier (father of virtual reality founder Jaron Lanier), the "posture" programs were "part of a facade or cover-up for what we were really doing", which was proving the Sheldonian theories that physique determined character. Lanier said the schools were complicit in this plan. Letters between Sheldon and Vassar officials in 1949-50 show that the school was aware he wanted to include their students in an "Atlas of Women". The officials let Sheldon set up a photo station at the girls' mandatory physical exam, let him keep the photographs, and even said "we will be glad to have you use these girls as some of your 'guinea pigs.'"

The Harvard photos were also used by the tobacco industry, which funded research on the relationship between masculinity and smoking. A 1959 report in the journal Science said "weakness of the masculine component" was "more frequent in heavier smokers".

Downfall of the posture photo

In 1950, Sheldon set up his photo program at the University of Washington. One student told her parents about her experience, and "a battallion of lawyers and university officials stormed Sheldon's lab, seized every photo," and burned them all. This caused a brief controversy concerning the legitimacy of Sheldon's research, its ethics, and pornography.

Similar events happened at other women's colleges, including Pembroke, the coordinate women's college of Brown. Sheldon failed to compile enough photographs for his "Atlas of Women". Over time, Sheldon's theories became more discredited, and eugenics overall became disfavored due to its association with Nazism. All associated schools ended their posture photo programs and burned their archives, mostly during the 1960s and 70s.