Naked

by Brian S. Hoffman

  55. Shaw, Body Taboo, 158. Ophelia Ring’s trial was later postponed until after the outcome of her husband’s trial. This may have been to ensure that their two children would not be abandoned should the couple both be convicted and sentenced to jail.

  56. Gardner, “Nudist Leader Is Found Guilty of Indecencies,” 3.

  57. Michigan v. Ring (1934), Brief for Appellant, 1–2, State Law Library, Library of Michigan, Lansing, Michigan.

  58. Linda Gordon, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America (New York: Grossman, 1976); Chauncey, Gay New York; Reagan, When Abortion Was a Crime.

  59. Reagan, When Abortion Was a Crime, 237; David J. Garrow, Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of “Roe v. Wade” (New York: Macmillan, 1994).

  60. Michigan v. Ring (1934), Brief for Appellant, 22, 32.

  61. Ibid., 10.

  62. Ibid., 11.

  63. Ibid., 52.

  64. Ibid., 51.

  65. Ibid., 54.

  66. Ibid.

  67. Ibid., 57.

  68. Michigan v. Ring (1934), Record, 24.

  69. Ibid.

  70. Ibid.

  71. Ibid.

  72. Ibid., 17.

  73. Ibid., 24.

  74. Ibid., 17.

  75. Virginia Gardner, “Allegan Nudist Trial Opens to Capacity House,” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 24, 1933, 3.

  76. Ibid.

  77. Ibid.

  78. Ibid.

  79. Michigan v. Ring (1934), Brief for Respondent, 22, State Law Library, Library of Michigan, Lansing, Michigan.

  80. Ibid.

  81. Ibid.

  82. “Michigan Nudist Leader Is Given 60 Days in Jail,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 19, 1933, 20.

  83. “Wife of Nudist Pleads Guilty; On Probation; Mate, Fred C. Ring, Is Now in Jail,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 21, 1934, 15.

  84. Frederick Arthur Geib, “The Sociology of a Social Movement” (master’s thesis, Brown University, 1956), 24.

  85. Ibid.

  86. Ibid.

  87. “I.N.C.,” Nudist, May 1933, 2.

  88. Ibid.

  89. Ibid.

  90. Ibid.

  91. Ibid.

  92. Kathleen McLaughlin, “Doctors Call Nudism Loony,” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 29, 1933.

  93. Ibid.

  94. Gretta Palmer, “I’ll Be Seeing More of You,” Commentator 1, no. 4 (May 1937): 95–99.

  95. Anthony Turano, “Nudism Denuded,” American Mercury 38, no. 150 (1936): 161–166.

  96. James Whorton, Nature Cures: The History of Alternative Medicine in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 95.

  97. Ibid., 195.

  98. Gordon, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right, 249–300.

  99. Nancy Tomes, The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 58; also see Daniel Freund, American Sunshine: Diseases of Darkness and the Quest for Natural Light (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).

  100. “Cures by Sun’s Rays to Be Studied,” New York Times, August 12, 1928, 6.

  101. William Goldsmith, “Sunshine and Health,” Nudist, January 1935, 18.

  102. Ibid.

  103. Maurice Parmelee, Nudism in Modern Life: The New Gymnosophy (New York: Knopf, 1931), 109.

  104. J. Henry Hallberg, “How the Sun Builds Health and Beauty,” Nudist, September 1933, 23.

  105. Ibid.

  106. Ibid.

  107. Martin S. Pernick, The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of “Defective” Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures since 1915 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Lisa Cartwright, Screening the Body: Tracing Medicine’s Visual Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995); Leslie J. Reagan, Nancy Tomes, and Paula A. Treichler, eds., Medicine’s Moving Pictures: Medicine, Health, and Bodies in American Film and Television (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2007).

  108. Eric Schaefer, “Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!”: A History of Exploitation Films, 1919–1959 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 41.

  109. “Chi Censors Pink 2 Pix; Others Nix ‘Elysia,’ Nudie,” Variety, January 1934, 4; “Boring but Banned,” Variety, November 21, 1933, 31; “Ban Nudie Pic,” Variety, December 1933, 14.

  110. Schaefer, “Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!,” 271.

  111. Elysia, directed by Bryan Foy (1933; Something Weird Video, 2009).

  112. Ibid.

  113. Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).

  114. Elysia.

  115. Ibid.

  116. Augustus Rollier, Heliotherapy (London: Oxford Medical Publications, 1923), 23.

  117. Samuel Watson, “Heliotherapy in Tuberculosis,” Southwestern Medicine 9, no. 1 (1925): 8.

  118. Plato Schwartz, “Heliotherapy,” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 191, no. 4 (1924): 243.

  119. Arnaldo Cortesi, “Pope Denounces Nudism as Pagan,” New York Times, March 6, 1935, 3.

  120. Ibid. For historical studies of German nudism, see John Williams, Turning to Nature in Germany: Hiking, Nudism, and Conservation, 1900–1940 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007); Brandon Taylor and Wilfried van der Will, eds., The Nazification of Art: Art, Design, Music, Architecture and Film in the Third Reich (Winchester, UK: Winchester Press / Winchester School of Art, 1990); Josie McLellan, “State Socialist Bodies: East German Nudism from Ban to Boom,” Journal of Modern History 79, no. 1 (2007): 48–79; Chad Ross, Naked Germany: Health, Race and the Nation (Oxford, UK: Berg, 2005); Karl Eric Toepfer, Empire of Ecstasy: Nudity and Movement in German Body Culture, 1910–1935 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).

  121. Cortesi, “Pope Denounces Nudism as Pagan,” 3.

  122. Ibid.

  123. Ilsley Boone, Joys of Nudism (Binghamton, NY: Greenburg, 1934), 102.

  124. Henry Strong Huntington, “Nudism and Religion,” Nudist, October 1933, 14.

  125. Boone, Joys of Nudism, 102.

  126. Methodist Minister, “Nudism at First Hand,” Nudist, May 1933, 4; “Nudism and Sex,” Nudist, June 1933, 22; A Congregational Minister, “Slowing Down Life’s Tempo,” Nudist, June 1933, 25; An English Minister, “Sunshine, Clothes, and the Body,” Nudist, June 1933, 25; Henry Strong Huntington, “Nudism and Religion,” Nudist, October 1933, 14; Episcopalian Minister, “The Passing of False Shame,” Nudist, April 1934, 23; Congregational Minister, “The Verdict,” Nudist, August 1934, 23; Alexander Frederick, “Yet Another Heaven,” Nudist, December 1934, 19; Henry Strong Huntington, “The Ecclesiastics and Nudism,” Nudist, May 1935, 8; Rev. David Cole, “Why I Am a Nudist Believer,” Nudist, September 1937, 9; Donald Craigie, “Three Score Years Ago—and Now,” Nudist, February 1939, 7; Carl Easton Williams, “He Still Creates Us ‘Naked and Unashamed,’” Nudist, September 1940, 9.

  127. Boone, Joys of Nudism, 102.

  128. Ibid., 103.

  129. Ibid.

  130. Ibid., 114.

  131. Ibid., 113.

  132. “Founder of Cult Defends Nudism at Faith Session: Minimizes Sex Interest,” Chicago Tribune, September 13, 1933, 3.

  133. A Congregational Minister, “Slowing Down Life’s Tempo,” 25.

  134. “Founder of Cult Defends Nudism at Faith Session,” 3; A Congregational Minister, “Slowing Down Life’s Tempo,” 25.

  135. A Congregational Minister, “Slowing Down Life’s Tempo,” 25.

  136. Francis Merrill and Mason Merrill, Nudism Comes to America (New York: Knopf, 1932). The authors explained that they focused on founding members of camps or people who were interested in nudism prior to visiting a camp. They left out “converts” and those who came into the movement through friends. This selection process was determined by available information.

  137. Ibid., 86.

  138. Ibid., 101. In addition to their own survey, Francis an
d Mason Merrill also listed the religious statistics of the American League for Physical Culture. The 111 applications seemed to corroborate their own findings. “The religious classifications are as follows: 38 no religion; 27 Protestant (no sect indicated); 14 Roman Catholic; 12 Lutheran; 8 Episcopalian; 6 Hebrew; 2 Unitarian; 2 Theosophist (man and wife); 1 ex-Baptist; 1 Hindu (an East Indian).”

  139. Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race (Elmsfield, NY: Maxwell, 1969), 180.

  140. Peter Gardella, Innocent Ecstasy: How Christianity Gave America an Ethic of Sexual Pleasure (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 130–141.

  141. “Founder of Cult Defends Nudism at Faith Session,” 3.

  142. Ibid.

  143. Ibid.

  144. Howard C. Warren, “Social Nudism and the Body Taboo,” Psychological Review 40 (1933): 160–182.

  145. Ibid., 177–178.

  146. Ibid., 181.

  147. Maurice Parmelee, “Adventure in Many Lands,” 14, folder 8, Maurice Parmelee Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, New Haven, Connecticut.

  148. Ibid., 373.

  149. Ibid., 389.

  150. Ibid.

  151. Parmelee, Nudism in Modern Life, 175.

  152. Havelock Ellis, foreword to ibid., 1–2.

  153. Maurice Parmelee, Personality and Conduct (New York: Moffat, Yard, 1918), 267.

  154. Ibid.

  155. Jennifer Terry, An American Obsession: Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 183–184.

  156. Jan Gay, On Going Naked (Garden City, NY: Garden City, 1932), 55.

  157. Ibid., 26.

  158. Maurice Parmelee, “Play Function of Sex,” 83, folder 48, Maurice Parmelee Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, New Haven, Connecticut.

  159. Ibid., 51.

  160. Ibid., 85.

  161. Henry Huntington to Maurice Parmelee, May 1963, folder 10, Maurice Parmelee Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, New Haven, Connecticut; Maurice Parmelee to Henry Huntington, May 8, 1963, “Henry Huntington, 1963–64,” ibid.

  162. Maurice Parmelee to Wallace Keynes Walker, September 6, 1959, folder 7, ibid. Parmelee demanded that Rev. Boone pay him royalties for the fifty thousand copies of Nudism in Modern Life that Boone claimed to have sold through the Nudist. The dispute created a major rift in their relationship and served as an early example of Boone’s dubious management of the nudist movement’s finances.

  163. “Fifth Annual Meeting of the International Nudist Conference (Newly Named the American Sunbathing Association),” Nudist, November 1936, 7. The title “Fifth Annual Meeting of the International Nudist Conference” was likely chosen to associate the fledgling American nudist movement with the more established Nacktkultur groups in Germany. Very few, if any, of the guests at the conference traveled from international locales.

  164. Ibid.; these states included California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

  165. Ibid.

  166. Ibid.

  167. “Nudists’ Rigid Cliques and Creed Told,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 24, 1936, 1.

  168. “Nudists’ Rigid Social Cliques and Creed Told,” 1; “Nudists Report Ranks Grow,” New York Times, August 23, 1936, N8; “Nudists Elect New Officers,” Los Angeles Times, August 25, 1936, 11; “Nudism Strips Mind of ‘Decay,’ Says Its Editor,” Washington Post, August 24, 1936, X4; “International Nudists Elect New President,” Hartford Courant, August 25, 1936, 9.

  169. “Nudists’ Rigid Social Cliques and Creed Told,” 1.

  170. Ibid.

  171. Ibid.

  172. Ibid.

  173. Ibid.

  174. Ibid.

  175. Ibid.

  176. “Nudists Call on America to Take Off Its Clothes,” 3.

  177. “Fifth Annual Meeting,” 9.

  178. Ibid.

  Chapter 3: Between the Covers

  1. Paul S. Boyer, Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America from the Gilded Age to the Computer Age, 2nd ed. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), 208–211; Marjorie Heins, Not in Front of the Children: “Indecency,” Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), 25.

  2. Margot Canaday, “Building a Straight State: Sexuality and Social Citizenship under the 1944 G.I. Bill,” Journal of American History 90, no. 3 (December 2003): 935–957; John D’Emilio, Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin (New York: Free Press, 2003); David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006); Andrea Friedman, “The Smearing of Joe McCarthy: The Lavender Scare, Gossip, and Cold War Politics,” American Quarterly 57, no. 4 (2005): 1105–1129; Leslie J. Reagan, When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867–1973 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 162–164.

  3. Henry Huntington to Maurice Parmelee, May 4, 1963, “Henry Huntington, 1963–64,” Maurice Parmelee Papers; Maurice Parmelee to Henry Huntington, May 8, 1963, ibid.

  4. Maurice Parmelee, “Adventures in Many Lands: An Autobiographical Memoir,” 2, unpublished ms., MS 1744, Box 3, folder 7, Maurice Parmelee Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

  5. Ibid., 4.

  6. Ibid., 5.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Ibid.

  9. Parmelee, “Adventures in Many Lands,” 6.

  10. Edward De Grazia, Censorship Landmarks (New York: Bowker, 1969), xi.

  11. Molly McGarry, “Spectral Sexualities: Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism, Moral Panics, and the Making of U.S. Obscenity Law,” Journal of Women’s History 12, no. 2 (2000): 8–29; Leigh Ann Wheeler, “Rescuing Sex from Prudery and Prurience: American Women’s Use of Sex Education as an Antidote to Obscenity, 1926–1932,” Journal of Women’s History 12, no. 3 (2000): 173–195; Andrea Friedman, Prurient Interests: Gender, Democracy, and Obscenity in New York City, 1909–1945 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000); Heins, Not in Front of the Children; Leigh Ann Wheeler, Against Obscenity: Reform and the Politics of Womanhood in America, 1873–1935 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004).

  12. Arthur Cauldwell, “Maurice Parmelee, a Nudist Pioneer,” 6, unpublished ms., American Nudist Research Library, Cypress Cove Nudist Resort, Kissimmee, Florida.

  13. Parmelee v. United States, 113 F. 2d 729, 730 (1940).

  14. Ibid. at 730.

  15. Kenneth Clark, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (New York: Fantheon, 1956), 3.

  16. Marguerite S. Shaffer, “Marguerite S. Shaffer on the Environmental Nude,” Environmental History 13, no. 1 (2008): 126–139; Lynda Nead, The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity, and Sexuality (London: Routledge, 1992); Helen McDonald, Erotic Ambiguities: The Female Nude in Art (London: Routledge, 2001); Clark, Nude; Anne Hollander, Seeing through Clothes (New York: Viking, 1975).

  17. Parmelee, “Adventures in Many Lands,” 7.

  18. Samuel Walker, In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999), 83–84.

  19. Parmelee, 113 F. 2d at 731.

  20. Ibid. at 731, 732.

  21. Parmelee v. United States, Brief on Behalf of Appellant, 4, Ni. 7332, 1939, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland.

  22. Ibid., 5.

  23. Ibid.

  24. Ibid.

  25. Ibid., 6–7.

  26. Parmelee, 113 F. 2d at 736.

  27. Ibid. at 737.

  28. Ibid.

  29. Ibid. at 732.

  30. Ibid. at 735, 736.

  31. Ibid. at 735.

  32. “Nudity in Art Upheld as Proper By Court,” New York Times, May 15, 1940, 14; “Court Reverses Ruling against Nudist Book,” Washington Post, May 15, 1940, 19.

  33. Frank Waldrop, “Case of Mr. Parmelee,” Washington Times-Herald, February 25, 1942, 10.

  34.
Parmelee, “Adventures in Many Lands,” chap. 28, pp. 3–4.