From the 1940s to the 1970s, alongside the usual student registration forms, some of the country’s top colleges had an additional requirement for freshmen students. Yale, Harvard, and Brown University all required young students, of both sexes, to pose for nude photographs. Over the years, thousands of photographs were taken, which captured such famous names as Meryl Streep, George Bush and Hillary Clinton.
The long running nude photographic sessions were carried out under the direction of psychologist William Sheldon as part of his work. While it was claimed that the photographs would be used to study conditions such as rickets and scoliosis, Sheldon’s notes suggest that the photographs have a much more sinister purpose.
It is believed that the psychologist was using the photographs in an attempt to establish a correlation between body size and intelligence. A similar archive of photographs was kept by the Nazis and was used to support their theory of a master race. Written permission was never sought or gained from the students.
There have since been rumors of photo rooms where the pictures were stored being broken into, with the stolen photographs being sold on the ‘Ivy League black market’ or to have been traded around the city’s red light zone. Other photographs were believed to have been given to new recruits of secret college societies.
Large caches of the nude photos are still being discovered in storage by university staff. A large collection of nude photographs was found in a Boston, Goodwill warehouse. These photos were eventually housed in the Smithsonian museum, where Ron Rosenbaum, a reporter for the New York Times, saw them in 1995, leading him to break the story. Yale university made an immediate request that all existing photographs of its students be destroyed. The Smithsonian destroyed the photos and extended the offer to other universities. It isn’t known what became of the nude photo of Hillary Clinton and so the possibility remains that it might surface during her Presidential campaign.
Image via: MessyNessyChic
