“But the body is far more beautiful nude.”

January 17, 2016 5:07 AM

In February 1916, two prestigious northeast American liberal arts colleges engaged in a spirited war of words, goaded by the media. The conflict, between Wellesley in Massachusetts and Swarthmore in Pennsylvania, did not pertain to academics, admissions, suffrage or sporting teams. They were fighting over which college’s female students most closely resembled the Venus de Milo.
posted by veedubya (26 comments total)

Whoever has the best shell accounts wins!
posted by I-baLL at 5:12 AM on January 17, 2016 [3 favorites]

Well, I just cut off my arms. Checkmate, Wellesley and Swarthmore!
posted by kyrademon at 5:30 AM on January 17, 2016 [25 favorites]

In October 1922, a particularly contentious competition took place at the Physical Culture Show and Beauty Contest held at Madison Square Garden. At this event, according to the Pittsburgh Press, five male judges, all sculptors, “led the young women contestants into a private room in the Garden and minutely inspected the competitors one by one.”

The women were naked during these inspections, “wearing not even so much as a pair of slippers on their feet.” One of the contestants, Ann Hyatt, told the Press that she was instructed to remove her bathrobe and then bathing suit. When she murmured that the situation was “very embarrassing,” Herman Moens, the head judge, remarked, “But the body is far more beautiful nude.” Then, according to Hyatt, “[t]he other four repeated in a kind of chorus, ‘Yes, indeed. By all means. It certainly is.’”

I found so much of this article infuriating, but I can't help it - that made me laugh. Men, amirite?

Semi-related: The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal
posted by Mchelly at 5:31 AM on January 17, 2016 [8 favorites]

(Then again maybe I found it funny because in my mind all the judges were voiced by Hank Azaria)
posted by Mchelly at 5:32 AM on January 17, 2016

This is completely nuts.
posted by shakespeherian at 5:44 AM on January 17, 2016 [3 favorites]

(Then again maybe I found it funny because in my mind all the judges were voiced by Hank Azaria)

This does read like a Simpsons script that was rejected for multiple reasons.
posted by selfnoise at 5:48 AM on January 17, 2016 [5 favorites]

A lot of being an academic prior to what, World War 2?, seemed to be coming up with ways to get women naked. I guess it was a small progress from "hysteria" "treatments".
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:50 AM on January 17, 2016 [3 favorites]

“I do not consider the Venus de Milo perfect,” huffed anthropometrics specialist L.E. Eubanks in Social Progress. “Any woman with a 26-inch waist and a 39-inch bust should have an ankle larger than 7.4 inches.”

Ye olde foot fetishists.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:03 AM on January 17, 2016

“Any woman with a 26-inch waist and a 39-inch bust should have an ankle larger than 7.4 inches.”

Baby Got Fibula
posted by PlusDistance at 6:31 AM on January 17, 2016 [11 favorites]

Then she murmured that the situation was “very embarrassing,”

But, I guess it wasn't embarrassing enough, because after Hyatt lost...

Refusing to accept the judges’ decision, Hyatt sought the services of a lawyer, who announced his client’s plan to take the case to the Supreme Court of the State of New York. “Miss Hyatt is really, in fact, the most perfectly formed woman in America, the modern Venus of the United States,” her lawyer, David Steinhardt, said. “[I]t is a matter of serious importance to herself, to her husband, and to her children that she should not be defrauded of this conspicuous distinction.”
posted by mrbigmuscles at 6:58 AM on January 17, 2016 [3 favorites]

mrbigmuscles beat me to the punch.
posted by Songdog at 7:11 AM on January 17, 2016

Haha it's funny because she went through something embarrassing and was disappointed that she didn't get anything out of it.
posted by straight at 8:02 AM on January 17, 2016 [3 favorites]

"True beauty consists of symmetrical and proportionate development of parts with adipose [fat] enough to cover the angles and hollows."

Glad we got that settled. What do you mean "proportionate" isn't an objective scientific term? Of course it is.
posted by straight at 8:09 AM on January 17, 2016

Seems silly now thinking of all the money I wasted on a thoracimeter while I was still dating.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:09 AM on January 17, 2016

Oh, no, wait. It's funny because she thought she could appeal a man's judgment about how she looks.
posted by straight at 8:22 AM on January 17, 2016 [4 favorites]

"True beauty consists of symmetrical and proportionate development of parts with adipose [fat] enough to cover the angles and hollows."

Or, as the esteemed artist Meghan Trainor put it, "All the right junk in all the right places."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:39 AM on January 17, 2016 [12 favorites]

I think those judges really earned their "Chicken Inspector" badges as referenced in 1920s humour. I hope they wore them proudly on their black suits, especially the one who had measured 10,000 girls and still needed to check out more, in the interest of science, y'know!
posted by mermayd at 8:50 AM on January 17, 2016

Episode #3F05: A Farewell to Arms. After their thoracimeter breaks, Mr. Burns and his Yale Alumni Society enlist Homer to be the tie-breaking vote in their annual Springfield Venus contest. Lisa is appalled, and Bart, with newfound respect for his father, launches a similar contest in his treehouse. Still, things are going well for Homer until Patti and Selma emerge as the leading contestants.
posted by condour75 at 9:17 AM on January 17, 2016 [9 favorites]

Remarkable what passed for science in those days. Less remarkable is that every time one of these absurd schemes is mentioned, Harvard, Yale, or both are somehow intimately involved.
posted by 1adam12 at 9:58 AM on January 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

"Over the next decade and a half, Sargent and other physical culture enthusiasts continued to scour the nation to find their human Venus."

for 15 years creepers used science and art to creep
posted by poffin boffin at 10:24 AM on January 17, 2016 [5 favorites]

Doing a little research on this Sargent dude from Harvard was interesting. He was definitely a heavyweight (heh) in the physical culture movement at the time. I was interested in what he thought an ideal man's measurements would be like.

I couldn't come up with any definite figures, but I found out that he invented a lot of machines that look like the contraptions I use at the gym, and that he preferred the muscular type of man, unsurprisingly. I don't think he would have been impressed with David Bowie's 26-inch waist.
posted by kozad at 11:05 AM on January 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

That's just...sad.
posted by Omnomnom at 11:07 AM on January 17, 2016

This figure came to be known as the "Harvard Venus." Visitors to the fair were invited to examine it, reflect on how their own bodies compared, and submit themselves to be measured for Sargent's data collection project.

Ooh, sorry, I've got a thing that day.
posted by Room 641-A at 12:30 PM on January 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

My great aunt wrote in her memoir that she won one of these contests and it led to her theater and film career.
posted by brujita at 6:52 PM on January 17, 2016

I cannot imagine wanting to go to college if measuring me naked was a requirement. WTF.
posted by corb at 8:35 PM on January 17, 2016

I wouldn't have welcomed being so measured, but I'd have coped with it so long as the room wasn't cold. For reasons.
posted by bryon at 9:27 PM on January 17, 2016 [1 favorite]