American Posture Panic

For several decades in the 20th Century, American universities, including elite institutions, took nude photos of their students, sometimes as often as twice a year, in order to evaluate their posture. In some cases students had to achieve a minimum posture grade in order to graduate. How did that practice develop, and how did it end? This week we’re discussing Americans’ obsession with posture with Dr. Beth Linker , the Samuel H. Preston Endowed Term Professor in the Department of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America . Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag , composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “ Debutante Intermezzo ,” composed and performed by Howard Kopp in 1916; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is from “ The posture of school children, with its home hygiene and new efficiency methods for school training ,” from 1913, by Jessie H. Bancroft; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons. Additional sources: “ Corre…