Class of 1951 denies being photographed nude

Imagine taking a nude 'posture' photo as part of your freshman orientation program. From the 1940s to the 1960s, Yale and Harvard Universities, and Wellesley and Vassar Colleges required entire freshman classes to pose nude to supposedly judge their posture, according to an article published in the New York Times Magazine on Sunday. The 'posture' studies were used as part of somatype theorist W. H. Sheldon's studies on the correlation between body type and intelligence. Among those photographed include Hillary Rodham Clinton, George Bush, George Pataki, Meryl Streep and Diane Sawyer. The article also states that nude photos of the University's Class of 1951 are part of Sheldon's collection -- which is currently housed at the National Anthropological Institute in Washington. But, alumni from the class of 1951 said they do not remember being photographed nude. "I don't recall anything like that being required for freshman," said Class of 1951 Alumni President Bernard Lemonick, a former All-American football player. "While I was an undergraduate at Penn I wasn't aware of pictures being taken, nor while I was working there from 1965 to 1987," added Helen Artigues, who also graduated in 1951. Artigues later worked in the University's campus development office. Although Lemonick said he does not remember being photographed naked, he said he considers the project an unfair violation of privacy. "If they didn't give permission, then it is a personal violation," Lemonick said. "If they did indeed give permission then, with the way things are in today's society, then who cares." According to the Times Magazine article, the photos were not only used for identifying posture problems. Sheldon was given permission by universities to use the photos in his studies of body types. The pictures were also used to illustrate his book Atlas of Men -- which hypothesizes that a person's body type determines his character. Sheldon also asked women's colleges for nude photos to print in his book Atlas of Women, which was never completed -- in part because of the objections raised by female students at the University of Washington who were also photographed for his research. When colleges began discontinuing the posture photographs in the 1960s and 1970s, photos were burned at Harvard and Brown Universities. "You always thought when you did it that one day they'd come back to haunt you," journalist Sally Quinn, who graduated from Smith College in 1963, told the Times Magazine.

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