University of Wisconsin nude posture photos
snopes
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, February 19, 1995
Wisconsin graduate says women didn't question request for nude photos
MADISON, Wis. - The strangest aspect, a Milwaukee woman recalls, was that
nobody questioned the need to bare all.
From the 1930s through the 1960s, thousands of University of Wisconsin at
Madison women, as part of a physical education requirement, were photographed
nude. Men were spared the camera's naked eye.
Officials say they incinerated the photographs in the 1970s.
"We felt very awkward, very embarrassed and very humiliated," said the
1965 UW graduate. "But did we protest? No. We simply said, Holy
(expletive),' and had our pictures taken naked.
"We were all just sheep. This seemed to have some scientific merit. We
didn't question it."
Nationally, particularly at elite East Coast schools, snapping so-called
posture photographs was considered a normal, if somewhat awkward, rite of
college passage for decades - for men and women.
A recent story in The New York Times Magazine revealed that Hillary Rodham
Clinton and former President George Bush may have posed in the buff during
their Yale University days. After the newspaper report and ensuing
controversy, the Yale pictures and negatives were destroyed.
Those photos were part of a research project to determine a relationship
between body shape and intellect. That supposed link has been dismissed by
most scientists.
After the study's researcher, W.H. Sheldon, died in 1977, the photos were
given to the Smithsonian. The pictures have been available only to
researchers and students.
Some photos of women from UW's Class of 1953 were included among those
photos, the Times noted.
But at UW-Madison, a professor says no research project was involved: The
athletic department subjected undergraduate women to nude photography as part
of what was then a required physical education course.
Instructors told the women that the photographs were taken with an eye
aimed at improving their posture. Numbers were attached to the photos; names
were not.
Julia Brown, the professor who oversaw the posture testing, defends the
use of the photos, which she said were an accepted method of screening for
spinal defects. The photos, she said, were often so fuzzy as to defy
identification of the subject.
"Any worthwhile physical education department in the country had the
posture pictures," said Dr. Brown, emeritus professor of physical education.
"It was a way to screen for any problems like scoliosis. Put it in the
context of the time, it was very important then to screen for deformities."
Men were exempt, Dr. Brown recalled, because their physical education
program had a different mission, including the training of athletic coaches.
But, Dr. Brown said, men still got naked at UW-Madison. She said men swam
nude regularly at the venerable Red Gym until the 1970s.
On Langdon Street in Madison, the crowded thoroughfare that holds most of
the UW's fraternities and sororities, rumors of contraband copies of the
posture photos flowed freely during the 1950s and '60s, said one alumnus who
asked not to be identified.
"It was something of an urban legend when I was in school in the '60s," he
said. "All these fraternity guys bragged that they had copies. But nobody
ever saw them."
The Milwaukee woman, who asked to remain anonymous, described her freshman
physical education class as an exercise in group indoctrination.
"Fundamentals of Movement," the alumna remembers, required women to wear
skimpy blue outfits that they dubbed derisively, "Fundies Undies." Principles
of proper posture, movement and relaxation were espoused in class.
And then there were the photographs.
"I remember that there were footprints painted on the floor," she said.
"You stood in these and they took photos of you nude from the side and front.
I don't remember if it was a man or a woman taking the pictures. I do
remember that it was an ancient camera, even by 1960s standards. It looked
like it came from the Civil War.
"It was all terribly humiliating. They made you feel like a convicted
felon."
Nor, she said, did anybody offer suggestions on how to improve one's
posture based on the photos.
"For all we knew, we could had been consigned to the Seventh Ring of Hell
for bad posture," she said.
Instead, UW-Madison officials dispatched the photos to the inferno.
Thomas O'Donnell
> On Langdon Street in Madison, the crowded thoroughfare that holds most of
> the UW's fraternities and sororities, rumors of contraband copies of the
> posture photos flowed freely during the 1950s and '60s, said one alumnus who
> asked not to be identified.
>
> "It was something of an urban legend when I was in school in the '60s," he
> said. "All these fraternity guys bragged that they had copies. But nobody
> ever saw them."
The variant I heard of the Langdon Street crowd's pranks had an
unspecified fraternity inviting sorority girls to dinner. Said
sisters are seated and the first course is a sealed envelope, which
they are to open. The rest is pretty obvious.
Tom "Madison, Wisconsin, in the late 60's: may you have an
interesting life" O'Donnell
rva...@sallie.wellesley.edu
>
> THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, February 19, 1995
>
> Wisconsin graduate says women didn't question request for nude photos
>
>
> MADISON, Wis. - The strangest aspect, a Milwaukee woman recalls, was that
>nobody questioned the need to bare all.
>
> From the 1930s through the 1960s, thousands of University of Wisconsin at
>Madison women, as part of a physical education requirement, were photographed
>nude. Men were spared the camera's naked eye.
>
> Officials say they incinerated the photographs in the 1970s.
>
> "We felt very awkward, very embarrassed and very humiliated," said the
>1965 UW graduate. "But did we protest? No. We simply said, Holy
>(expletive),' and had our pictures taken naked.
>
> "We were all just sheep. This seemed to have some scientific merit. We
>didn't question it."
>
> Nationally, particularly at elite East Coast schools, snapping so-called
>posture photographs was considered a normal, if somewhat awkward, rite of
>college passage for decades - for men and women.
>
au natural during their tenure at Yale snipped]
From what I understand these photos were only taken of undergraduates
so the Clintons' pictures would not have been taken at Yale.
Hillary attended Wellesley for her undergraduate years. We have been
assured by our president, Diana Chapman Walsh (who had her photo taken
here before the practice was stopped) that Sheldon never got his grubby
mitts on any Wellesley photos. We're still not clear on why the
pictures were taken here at all though.
>
> Those photos were part of a research project to determine a relationship
>between body shape and intellect. That supposed link has been dismissed by
>most scientists.
>
> After the study's researcher, W.H. Sheldon, died in 1977, the photos were
>given to the Smithsonian. The pictures have been available only to
>researchers and students.
>
>
Rebecca "ectomorph" Vaurio
rva...@wellesley.edu
>
mwhol...@gmail.com
mwhol...@gmail.com
lil...@gmail.com
Has anyone heard any further news about this?
Linda - UW alum 1976,1978,1985