A controversy surrounding Rev. Ilsley Boone’s control over the ASA’s finances also created the opportunity for several new female leaders to take a greater role in the nudist movement. Women such as Zelda Suplee, who operated Zoro Nature Park with her husband, Alois Knapp, since the early 1930s, had long contributed to the operation of nudist clubs and helped the movement maintain its “mom and pop” character.73 Yet, prior to the postwar period, no women occupied official leadership positions in the ASA. Yet whisperings and accusations that Rev. Boone improperly managed the organization’s finances to his benefit eventually led to his downfall and the emergence of several prominent female nudist leaders. The postwar influx of new members led to the formation of several regional organizations with their own independent leadership networks. Many of these new voices began to question Boone’s “despotic tendencies, manipulations of organizational funds, and monopolistic control of its affairs through an intricate system of dummy corporations.” To reestablish stability and to communicate the importance of family to new members, several middle-aged women, such as Margaret A. B. Pulis, emerged to fill the leadership void left by Boone.74 These women brought respectability to the movement at a time when the influx of single men threatened the stability of camps.
Pulis, Rev. Boone’s daughter, represented the ideal figure to assume leadership in the nudist movement. With three children and two grandchildren and as an active member of her local Parent Teacher Association (PTA), Pulis displayed the moral authority of a mother and grandmother. With volunteering representing one of the defining duties of the 1950s homemaker, Pulis encouraged nudist women to participate in their local communities as representatives of the movement. She suggested that members join local community organizations such as the “state mental Hygiene Associations, the Boy Scouts, the Parent Teacher Association, the YMCA and YWCA, Red cross, Chambers of Commerce, 4h Clubs, church organizations, etc.”75 Here, women might not only contribute to “building a broader and wider understanding of nudism in the minds of the general public” but would also demonstrate that “nudists are nice people, willing workers, valued members of the community.”76 Pulis held up her experiences in her New Jersey community as a successful model to follow. During the war, she worked as the secretary of the Civilian Defense Council and was later appointed chair of Community War Services. After the war, she twice served as president of a high school PTA and later acted as the county social hygiene chair in the PTA. In addition, she boasted of being the secretary of her local political club and continued to be a member of her nearby Woman’s Club. Asserting “[I do not] know of a single instance where I have lost a friend because of my acceptance of nudism,” Pulis called on other nudists, especially women, to act as representatives of the movement in their communities.77
The effort to reduce the disproportionate attendance of single men in nudist clubs by bringing more women into the movement resulted in increasingly balanced sex ratios. In 1956, Frederick Geib surveyed over seventy adult members of a northeastern nudist camp and found a ratio of thirty-seven males to twenty-nine females at the camp.78 Geib’s data confirmed that the “restrictions the movement places on unmarried persons” accounted for the lack of younger members and the familial makeup of the camp’s membership.79 Far more likely to be single when young and also lacking the discretionary income to join a camp, the average member waited until he or she approached middle age to begin participating in a local club.80 The vast majority of members fell between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five with the youngest being twenty-three and the oldest being seventy-seven. This resulted in a mean age of 40.7 years—significantly higher than the average age of most Americans, which, according to the 1950 census, was 31.9 years.81 In addition, 81 percent of the adult membership reported being married, 9 percent reported single status, and the other 10 percent represented widows, the divorced, or the separated. Although the incident involving Otis Paulsell and his children at the Cobblestone Suntanners Club showed that the problem of child molestation persisted regardless of the marital status of the men at a camp, the number of children who attended nudist clubs did not decline in the postwar period. Of the 91 percent of the nudists in Geib’s survey who were married or had been married, 77 percent had children and brought them to camp.82 According to Geib’s data, the organization’s unfriendly stance toward single men and its promotion of families resulted in an overwhelmingly middle-aged, family-oriented membership.
National Negro Sunbathing Association
The fear of the single man and his uncontrolled eroticism was not the only threat to the American nudist resort. The continued migration of African Americans from the South to work in war industries heightened fears of racial mixing around the country.83 As a result, many presumably white nudists remained “fearful” that the interaction of naked white and nonwhite bodies would negatively impact the image of the movement and “considered any discussion of this question as untimely.”84 One man, fearful of what he assumed to be hypersexual African Americans, wrote to the editor claiming that only a person with a “sinister object in mind” would want to bring other races into nudist camps.85 Urging members to “keep the nudist camps free from scandals,” he suggested that “separate camps for Negro and separate camps for white can hurt no one.”86 The discrimination and prejudice that structured American society, specifically with stereotypes of the hypersexual racial other and the rampant fears of racial mixing, shaped a nudist policy of racial exclusion.
Even though few African Americans frequented camps, white nudists conformed to a society still divided along lines of race. One camp in Jamal, California, explained its policy of exclusion with the statement, “Double prejudice is a long row to hoe.”87 As a “naturally suspect group,” nudists felt that they had to “bend over backwards” to comply with the “rules and morals of a community.”88 While they might not necessarily want to discriminate and exclude nonwhite people, many nudists believed that the “presence of Negroes would jeopardize the very existence of their camps because of pressure from prejudiced neighbors.”89
The effort to exclude the nonwhite body conflicted with the way American nudism idealized and romanticized the racial other in its ideology and principles. Since the 1930s, nudists had held up the indigenous body as an example of health and uncorrupted morality. In the context of the Second World War, when American soldiers came in greater contact with nonwhite peoples around the world, this trope did not abate.90 One 1944 article declared, “The original American Indian wasn’t subject to colds. The same applies to the Eskimo and other primitive races. The South Sea Islanders were the most healthful people of earth until the missionaries put Mother Hubbards on them and doomed them to extinction.”91 Pointing out that the white man, bundled up in suits and several layers of garments, had brought the “common cold, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and kindred ailments,” the writer suggested that the reader take a “few lessons from our more primitive brothers.”92 He commended the “Indian, the African native, the Polynesian” for only wearing clothing when “necessity demanded” since this allowed the skin to gather strength and resilience.93 To eliminate ill health in modern Western society, the writer asserted that we only had to “prove ourselves as smart as the unlettered savages.”94 As a part of the distant natural world and landscape or a forgotten historical trope, the bodies of the racial other posed little threat to American society or nudism.95
This romantic view of nonwhite peoples, however, established a foundation for some nudists to call for the integration of camps. Having long sympathized with the “negro, who probably suffers more greatly from undue clothing than does the dominant race,” one writer reminded readers that nudists should “not look for the emergence of a race of white nudists alone.”96 The fight against fascism during the Second World War also pushed nudists to address the role of race in their movement. Alois Knapp, in his June 1943 “President’s Message,” recognized that the “sons of all mothers the world over are now fighting aggression in the far-fl
ung corners of the globe.” He noted that the “blood of many of them mingles into one pool, oozing out of the body of the white man, Negro, Indian, yellow man, [and] brown man.”97 On the basis of these observations, he then went on to assert that nudists could not “seriously criticize the anti-social philosophy” of their enemies until they themselves “get the all human viewpoint.”98 Stating that American nudism never made any test of politics, religion, or philosophy, he called on nudists to have the “courage” to add “race and color” to the rubric.99 Inspired by the African American community’s Double Victory campaign, many nudists felt the need to open their movement to African Americans.100
The abstract debate over racial integration in Sunshine and Health became reality when Lewis Harding White, the secretary of the Western Conference, visited an African American husband and wife at a nudist camp near Los Angeles.101 He asserted that he was “proud to meet” them and recalled their good sense, sanity, and balance when discussing nudism. The couple impressed White so much that he called for any African Americans interested in nudism to write to him personally for more information. He specifically asked them to include an account of themselves, including their background, whether they had practiced nudism, and if they spent any time in the army. E. J. Samuels, the African American man whom White met in Los Angeles, went on to write several columns in Sunshine and Health addressing the racial integration of nudism. Samuels reasoned, “You were born without clothes. You were born without racial hatred. You were taught to wear clothes. Likewise, you were taught racial prejudice.”102 Now that nudists had become “unconventional enough” to remove their clothing, he thought it would be “just as easy to remove racial prejudices.”103 Rejecting assumptions that his ideas were too idealistic, he recounted his pleasant experiences visiting White’s home club. “Unmistakably Negroes,” he and his wife went “swimming, played volleyball, took long hikes, lolled in the sun” just like any other nudist. Recalling the experience, he stated that he and his wife “never had so much fun in all [their] lives.” Welcomed as a frequent dinner guests, visiting other guests in their trailers, and making true and fast friendships, he enjoyed the atmosphere of “friendship and brotherly love.” This initial experience influenced him to join the club, although he hoped to form a club of his own that would “open [its] doors to all nudists, regardless of race, color, creed, or national origin.”104 Samuels positioned his and his wife’s first experience at a nudist camp as a successful example of racial integration.
In a long, well-illustrated 1951 article by Herbert Nipson titled “Nudism and Negroes,” Ebony also used Samuels and his wife, the “first Negro delegates ever to attend a nudist convention in America,” as an example of racial progress.105 Using pseudonyms, the article recalled the feelings and experiences of the Samuelses’ first visit to a nudist camp. Throughout their first day, they experienced “absolute racial equality” dining, playing, swimming, hiking, and sleeping in the same rooms with the white nudists.106 The Ebony article then related the struggles of nudists as an extreme minority to the experience of African Americans in the United States. Nipson explained that the lifestyle had been “outlawed in many parts of the country, . . . groups have been hounded by the police, snickered at by the general public, shadowed by peeping toms, . . . and even felt the lash of . . . the Ku Klux Klan which has stamped anything ‘so different’ from the accepted norm as evil and un-American.”107
Despite the best efforts of the Samuels to advocate for integration and Ebony’s presentation of nudism as a symbol of racial progress, many white members of nudist clubs remained opposed to interacting with nonwhite nudists, and others worried that the interaction of naked white and nonwhite bodies might provoke unwanted attention. The ASA responded to calls for integration with a policy of segregation. Based primarily in the Northeast, upper Midwest, and West, the ASA proposed the development of independent “groups of nudists of the colored race” at a moment when unprecedented numbers of African Americans relocated to urban centers of these regions in order to take advantage of wartime job opportunities. Recognizing the increasing fears of racial mixing within the movement and in society as a whole, the national organization felt it would make for “greater sociability and congeniality on the part of any distinctively social or racial group if it were to support and develop its nudist tendencies within its own group.”108 Nudist leaders proposed that future “Negro nudists” form their own organization, under the title of the National Negro Sunbathing Association, with its own elected officials, headquarters, and magazine.109 Sunshine and Health would help the development of this proposed organization by running a separate column devoted to “negro activities,” listing the new groups forming, and providing information about the formation of the organization.110 Hoping to deflect accusations of racism, the ASA explained that this policy of segregation was designed “purely” to encourage “the happier development of the local social unit or group.”111
In a column published in Sunshine and Health, Samuels explained his opposition to segregated nudist camps. He felt that segregation would simply not work economically because a future group of African American nudists would not be able to support their own network of clubs financially, let alone their own magazine.112 He proposed that all nudists should belong to the same organization and that local clubs or groups be left free to choose who may or may not be admitted to their club. He then asserted that the word “Negro” should be used for “identification purposes and not discrimination.”113 Further, Samuels thought all clubs should have the right to vote in white or black members regardless of the racial traits of their membership. However, the persistently unfriendly racial climate of the country influenced Samuels to recognize the need for nudist organizations to remain “careful in selection.”114 He understood that the “standard for the Negro has always been the worst Negro.”115 If “one bad Negro is discovered—that is the end of the Negroes in that camp,” and the “entire race is penalized for the misconduct of one.”116 Although Samuels rejected an official policy of segregation, he also recognized the risk involved in admitting African Americans into nudist camps and reluctantly endorsed high membership standards.
Many nudists also considered the ASA’s segregation proposal racist. In a letter to the editor of Sunshine and Health, Dr. and Mrs. L. S. Bambauer felt “surprised and disappointed” that the ASA would support a policy of segregation.117 Believing that this policy could only be the “offspring of race prejudice,” the couple felt the need to “register a strong protest against any such move.”118 They thought nudism stood for the “principle of the inner worth of every man and woman, regardless of religion, social position, or accidental color of one’s skin.”119 Echoing the argument that other nudists had made in defense of single men, the Bambauers asserted that a policy of segregation “would do great harm to the whole nudist movement” by further “dividing” the group at a time when nudism needed all the support it could get.120 They hoped that, rather than create an entirely separate organization, the national association would “encourage [African Americans] into [nudists’] fellowship, not out of it.”121 However, these calls for racial unity fell on deaf ears. For many individual clubs, the need to suppress any potential hint of racial mixing was far more important than incorporating any future contributions that nonwhite nudists might make to the movement.
“A Nudist Mecca”
To overcome the challenges posed by the sexual anxieties and racial fears of postwar society, the American nudist movement transformed its fledgling network of isolated rustic camps into well-equipped resorts ready to cater to young, middle-class, white families in search of leisure and recreation. American nudism benefited directly from the increasing availability of leisure in the 1950s. With over half of American families owning a car by 1948, more workers earning paid vacations than ever before, and an expanding interstate highway system, travel became easier, more affordable, and potentially anonymous.122 While many families packed in the car to experience
the nation’s natural scenic beauty by visiting patriotic landmarks, camping at national parks, or concluding their trip at a popular amusement park such as the recently opened Disneyland,123 others could just as easily veer off the beaten path to escape the stresses of modern life with a relaxing, therapeutic, and fun-filled day of nude sunbathing, swimming, and volleyball.
Nudism fit seamlessly into an already well-established culture of camping. Late-nineteenth-century reformers, concerned about the rise of industrial capitalism and the expansion of the corporate workplace, organized a summer-camp movement to help children and their parents escape squalid urban environments and the monotony of office work.124 The locations, activities, and climate of these summer camps shared the back-to-nature idealism of the postwar nudist resort. Located outside urban centers near major highways and with campers enjoying outdoor exercises, hiking, swimming, and rowing, nudist camps were essentially summer camps without clothes.125 Even this difference seemed to fade away at times. In addition to children occasionally choosing to skinny-dip at the local lake, Kenneth Webb, one of the main promoters of organized camping in the United States, suggested as part of his back-to-nature philosophy that campers embrace nudity at campsites.126 Nudists nestled into an already well-established tradition of camping with similar activities and values.
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