The Ivy League nude posture photos were taken in the 1940s through the 1970s of all incoming freshmen at certain Ivy League and Seven Sisters colleges, ostensibly to gauge the rate and severity of rickets, scoliosis, and lordosis in the population. Harvard already had their own such program by the 1880s. The larger project was run by William Herbert Sheldon and Earnest Albert Hooton, who may have been using the data to support their theory on body types and social hierarchy. What remained of the images were transferred to the Smithsonian and most were destroyed between 1995 and 2001.
Some photographers, such as Akira Gomi, have since used this style of nude photography as an art form.
Read more about Ivy League Nude Posture Photos: Schools Involved
Famous quotes containing the words ivy, league and/or posture:
“shows its berries red
In token of the drops of blood
Which on Calvary were shed.”
—Unknown. The Holly and the Ivy (l. 10–12)
“I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best—it’s all they’ll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money—provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don’t need it.”
—Peter De Vries (b. 1910)
“If one’s posture is upright, one has no need to fear a crooked shadow.”
—Chinese proverb.