Naked
Naked
A Cultural History of American Nudism
Brian Hoffman
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
www.nyupress.org
© 2015 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs thatmay have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hoffman, Brian.
Naked : a cultural history of American nudism / Brian Hoffman.
pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8147-9053-3 (cl : alk. paper)
1. Nudism—United States—History. 2. Nudism—Social aspects—United States. I. Title.
GV450.H64 2015
613’.194--dc23 2014044418
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materialsto the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Also available as an ebook
For Uncle Danny
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Going Naked
1. Indecent Exposure: The Battle for Nudism in the American Metropolis
2. Out in the Open: Rural Life, Respectability, and the Nudist Park
3. Between the Covers: Nudist Magazines and Censorship in Midcentury America
4. Naked in Suburbia: Family Values and the Rise of the Nudist Resort
5. Pornography versus Nudism: The Contradictions of Twentieth-Century Sexual Liberalism
6. Free the Beach: Nudism and Naturism after the Sexual Revolution
Epilogue: Nudism in the New Millennium
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Acknowledgments
When I told colleagues, friends, and family that I was working on a book titled Naked: A Cultural History of American Nudism, I was frequently met with awkward stares, smirks, and sweaty handshakes followed by the question, why? To counter the assumption that I was a committed nudist looking to justify a cause, I developed an articulate explanation for the motivations behind my project. I asserted that everyone has a naked body, and just as no one can escape one’s gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class status, or age, we all at some point have to undress. The long and rich history of nudism represented a way to analyze a social and cultural experience normally hidden from history. And like other social categories that have received a great deal of historical analysis, American conceptions of nakedness have changed over time, were informed by a constantly shifting social, cultural, and political landscape, and were shaped by the complex subjectivities that define identity. Why wouldn’t someone write a history of nudism in the United States?
I was fortunate to be part of a history department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that did not hesitate to support unorthodox projects and was equipped with a faculty possessing the necessary insights and specialized knowledge to develop them fully. Leslie J. Reagan proved to be the ideal adviser. She challenged me to pursue the questions and themes critical to writing a social and cultural history of American nudism, all the while stressing the importance of rigorous research and analysis. Tamara Chaplin, Elizabeth Pleck, and David Roediger offered an array of suggestions and advice that strengthened my analysis, pushed the project in new directions, and ultimately, made me a better scholar. I also benefited enormously from the seminars, conversations, and critiques of Mark Leff, Craig Koslofsky, Jim Barrett, Rayvon Fouche, Sharra Vostral, Paula Treichler, and Antionette Burton. It is hard to imagine completing this project without these people and without this history program.
The graduate community at the University of Illinois fostered both intellectual debate and collegial amusement. I enjoyed (and benefited from) sparring with a graduate cohort dominated by labor historians who preferred the analysis of the working experience over an examination of what they considered silly men and women who chose to cavort naked. Will Cooley, Mike Rosenow, Thilo Schimmel, Tom Mackaman, Dave Hageman, Bryan Nicholson, and Jason Kozlowski offered valuable critiques that ultimately grounded my cultural analysis in social history. The IPRH medicine/science reading group—which brought together Mathew Gambino, Kristen Ehrenberger, Michelle Kleehammer, Rosewell Quinn, and Amanda Brian—provided a supportive forum to interrogate the way in which nudism deals with conceptions of health, healing, and alternative medicine. Brian Ingrassia, Kwame Holmes, Danielle Kinsey, Karen Rodriguez, Karen Phoenix, and Jamie Warren also deserve thanks for reading drafts, for making astute comments and suggestions, and for their unwavering support over the years.
My journey through the ups and downs of a very difficult job market brought me to unexpected places and, in the process, helped me grow as a scholar, a teacher, and a professional. A postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California–San Francisco in the Department of Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine gave me the enormous privilege to focus on revising my manuscript, to publish articles and book chapters, to present at numerous conferences, and to teach at the graduate level. The advice, mentorship, and support of Dorothy Porter, Elizabeth Watkins, Brian Dolan, and Ian Whitmarsh have also been incredibly valuable as I navigated the early stages of a career in academia. My experience working with Jethro Hernández Berrones on a fascinating preliminary exam that explored the history of alternative medicine through a transnational perspective also contributed tremendously to my work. As a visiting assistant professor in the Department of American Studies at Wesleyan University, I took advantage of a dynamic interdisciplinary curriculum and a welcoming student body to develop courses such as “The Politics of Obscenity,” “Healers, Quacks, and Mystics,” and “The Sex of Things.” The support of Patricia Hill, Indira Karamcheti, and Ann Wightman gave me hope that maybe one day this would all work out. I am also especially grateful to Maxwell Bevilacqua, the Shapiro Center and Russell House Arts Fellow, for thoroughly copyediting the manuscript and preparing it for publication.
A number of talented colleagues have also been instrumental in bringing this project to fruition. I was extremely fortunate to be found by Leigh Ann Wheeler, who enthusiastically shared her own work and research on nudism and its relationship with the American Civil Liberties Union. We then joined with Peggy Shaffer and Andrea Friedman to put together the first (to my knowledge) panel on American nudism at the 2011 annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians. I am also thankful to have met Whitney Strub, who provided an excellent model of how to successfully accomplish unorthodox and innovative research. Finally, I am grateful to all those who joined me at an assortment of conferences to present work that dialogued so well with the history of nudism.
Naked: A Cultural History of American Nudism would not have been possible without the assistance and support of the nudist community. The professionally preserved and maintained holdings of the American Nudist Research Library, located on the grounds of the Cypress Cove Nudist Resort in Kissimmee, Florida, gave me a rare window into nudism’s past struggles and triumphs, its leaders, and its clubs. Helen Fisher deserves special praise for overseeing the collections and for her generous and skilled support of scholarly research. Robert Proctor’s assistance in scanning countless images was also critical to illustrating the colorful history of American nudism. The support of Courtney N. Bi
schoff (aka Curt Bish), who not only granted me permission to use the many images from the Nudist and Sunshine and Health but also shared with me his insights and observations from his own involvement in nudism, were invaluable as well.
I am also indebted to the many librarians and archivists who never batted an eyelash as they helped me locate materials that were often unconventional and even a bit quirky. The New York State Archives was an early supporter of my project. As the recipient of the Larry J. Hackman Research Residency Award in 2006, I had the opportunity to receive excellent guidance from Jim Folts about conducting historical legal research. The Michigan State Law Library, the Library of Congress, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Records provided other crucial legal documents, court decisions, and correspondence. The unique, eccentric, and extensive collections held at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, Cornell University’s Human Sexuality Collection, Yale’s Manuscripts and Archives, and the Bancroft Library provided an array of materials documenting important perspectives on nudism in the twentieth century.
I am grateful to my family for exposing me to a wide variety of life experiences and ideas, all of which, directly and indirectly, contributed to the themes developed in this book. I was fortunate to grow up in a clothing-optional household/community in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Weekends were often spent gallivanting around the backyard sans clothing, block parties featured nude forays into Peter and Pam’s pool, and the family photo album recorded all these memories for posterity. It was the realization—as I grew older—that most people did not share the same childhood memories that sparked my interest in the cultural attitudes and anxieties that define nakedness in the United States.
In addition to always providing love and support, my father, a lawyer, and my mother, a nurse, led numerous family discussions that helped prepare me to embark on a project that dealt heavily in legal research and issues of health. No less important were Uncle Jack and Danny, who will always be with me. I am also very grateful to my father-in-law, who introduced me to the Korean Spa and offered to wash my back. Finally, I am forever grateful to Byunghwa and Danny for always inspiring me with their unconditional love and support.
Introduction
Going Naked
On December 5, 1929, over spareribs with mustard and sauerkraut, three German immigrants met at New York City’s Café Micholob to discuss the possibility of bringing nudism to the United States. It was then that Kurt Barthal, now known as the founder of America’s oldest nudist group, launched the American League for Physical Culture.1 The three dinner companions had enjoyed participating in the popular German nudist movement known as Nacktkultur and yearned for a similar organization in the United States. Yet exposing the body to the sun, light, and air to correct the ills of modern society and to receive physical, mental, and moral benefits had few precedents in the United States. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, isolated attempts to set up clothing-optional communities by free-love advocates, anarchists, and sex radicals withered as a result of public hostility as well as internal disagreements over ideology and practice.2 Barthal also acknowledged that the subject was “downright undiscussable amongst decent folks,” and he feared that Americans might “shoot and quarter them right in the beginning.”3 Yet the three immigrants proceeded to set up the first nudist organization in the United States and, in the process, sparked an ongoing debate that revealed the multiple, shifting, and contradictory ways Americans have understood the naked body.
Barthal and his two fellow countrymen practiced nudism as an expression of their Volkisch German identity. Nudism grew out of a much broader Lebensreform, or “life reform,” movement in Germany at the end of the nineteenth century. In response to rapid industrialization and urbanization, many Germans desired a return to the “genuine forces of life” and turned to vegetarianism, antialcoholism, nature healing, and land reform to regenerate the nation.4 As part of the Lebensreform, going naked in a natural setting represented a return to Germany’s authentic preindustrial past and symbolized a rejection of urban life as immoral and materialistic. Nudists also harnessed the power of the sun to treat diseases such as tuberculosis, and through active movement, exercise, and calisthenics, rather than leisurely sunbathing, they attempted to strengthen the body. By the 1920s, the practice of nudism spread beyond small, eclectic Lebensreform sects to a much broader German audience. Numerous groups catered to the middle classes with a nationalist ideology that presented nudism as a way to regenerate the Volk and to guard against immorality. Worker nudist groups, such as the Proletarian Lifestyle Reform and Free Physical Culture, a part of the labor movement’s People’s Health Association (Verband Volksgesundheit), emerged after the First World War and presented the act of going naked as a way of liberating the proletarian body. Kurt Barthal, along with the many other German immigrants who came to the United States prior to the rise of National Socialism, drew on their experiences with the nationalist and proletarian forms of nudism rather than a Nazi variation that emphasized racial purity above all else. For Barthal and his two dinner companions, nudism was as intrinsic to their national identity as the “spareribs with mustard and sauerkraut” they ordered at the Café Micholob.
American nudists, like their German counterparts, championed the natural healing powers of the sun, light, and air. In the early 1930s, many Americans first learned about nudism through tourists and reporters who wrote several popular books about their experiences with Nacktkultur. Francis and Mason Merrill’s Among the Nudists (1931) and their follow-up study, Nudism Comes to America (1932), went through several editions and inspired many health enthusiasts, sex reformers, and immigrants to organize and join nudist groups across the United States.5 Meeting at gymnasiums and at private countryside retreats, small groups of men and women removed their clothes and participated in exercises that included tossing medicine balls, vigorous calisthenics, and swimming. Nudists believed that the experience of going naked was essential to maintaining physical and mental health. For many, the removal of clothing served an important hygienic purpose since it freed the excretory functions of the skin from sweating garments that clung to the body and restricted free-flowing movement. Exposing the body to the air also guarded against several diseases and encouraged muscle and bone growth by maximizing the production of vitamin D. In addition, several early advocates wanted to reform what they considered a psychologically unhealthy conception of the body as shameful and erotic. American nudists contended that being naked with the opposite sex satisfied the “natural” curiosity to see and know about the body, promoted a “wholesome” way of thinking, and ultimately strengthened the relations between men and women.6
The social and cultural assumptions that defined the naked body as shameful and immoral in the United States played a significant role in shaping the development of alternative medicine and made it possible for nudism to define itself as therapeutic rather than erotic. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the importance placed on preserving modesty and propriety drew female patients away from the male-dominated medical profession and toward alternative therapies that embraced female practitioners and less invasive procedures. Alternative healers often recruited women as practitioners because they made female patients more comfortable in seeking treatments that required intimate access to the body. Female midwives declaimed the rise of scientifically trained male midwives, in part because they threatened to undermine the long-practiced tradition that required all men to be absent during childbirth to preserve the mother’s modesty and propriety. Hydropaths, who urged both male and female patients to immerse themselves in various cold-water baths and to wrap themselves in wet sheets, needed female practitioners to administer treatments to avoid upsetting the moral sensibilities of their mostly middle-class patients.7 In the twentieth century, the discomfort that women felt subjecting themselves to breast and gynecological exams admin
istered mostly by male physicians resulted in delayed diagnoses—a major public health concern that contributed to the popularity of alternative cancer healers who offered treatments without invasive exams or radical surgical procedures such as the mastectomy or hysterectomy.8
The nudist movement, in defining itself as therapeutic, built on previous alternative therapies that employed gendered approaches to discreetly examine, diagnose, and treat the naked body. Nudists, however, sought to redefine the naked body as healthy and rejected the notion of the body as a source of shame. Unlike previous alternative healers who avoided the illicit connotations that came from exposing the body to a physician of the opposite sex, nudists encouraged men and women to disrobe together to overcome feelings of shame and immorality that prevented them from gaining the physical and mental benefits of going naked.
Although nudism did not define American identity the way it did for Germans, its emergence in the 1930s reflected the growing tolerance of sexual expression in the United States. During the first decades of the twentieth century, many Americans began to reject the strict moral absolutism of the nineteenth century and embraced what John D’Emilio and Estelle Freedman termed “sexual liberalism.” This new set of beliefs “detached sexual activity from the instrumental goal of procreation, affirmed heterosexual pleasure as a value in itself, defined sexual satisfaction as a critical component of personal happiness and successful marriage, and weakened the connections between sexual expression and marriage by providing youth with room for some experimentation.”9 Whereas nineteenth-century society treated all forms of sexuality with suspicion and hostility, the first decades of the twentieth century saw American society and culture embrace heterosexual pleasure and desire.
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