Memories
Revised 8/11/23
Over the decades that nude male swimming competition was the norm in many places, it would not be unreasonable to assume ample evidence of it was left behind in yearbooks. This apparently occurred to others as well and some of them felt it incumbent on them to create such evidence.
It also bears repeating that some correspondents insisted that no nude shots were ever included in their yearbooks despite the practice of their team’s swimming nude. One must always be wary of sweeping generalizations.
Therefore, each of the available examples deserves its day in court, so we shall examine them in turn.
The heading on this image notwithstanding, this is a yearbook page from New Trier High School of Illinois. Some may remember New Trier as the school where image 28 of “The Good” posting originated. It was from a 1950 issue of LIFE magazine. In the diving picture included here, it will be noted that a 48-star flag is displayed in the background. That puts this yearbook firmly in the 1950’s during which time it was known beyond any doubt that nude male swimming was practiced at that school.
Having said that, the fakery here is undeniable. Beyond that fact there is the question: What was New Trier’s policy on male swimming? Did they change policy between 1950 and 1957? Did they only countenance nude swimming in gym class, but the team suited up? Was the team normally nude but suited up for the posed yearbook shots? I doubt that any living person has the answer to this.
One last note is that an altered version of the captains and coaches picture in the upper left appears in “The Bad” as image 29. Curiously, it was not altered in the faked version of the yearbook page here.
On November 16, 2013, the top image was faked on a Mac using Photoshop.
For what it’s worth, this is a page from the 1967 Topeka High School (Kansas) yearbook.
This faker went to more than the usual amount of trouble. Not only did he de-pants the models, but he recobbled the page with new titles, text, captions and a legitimate photo from another source. He found it necessary to do this because this is not a page from a yearbook but from a gay soft-core porn magazine from 1975. The deck at the bottom of the original page tells that tale.
Curiously enough, this particular porn publication did not deal in nudes. None of the models were shown sans their undies. That meant that the swim suits had to be Photoshopped away in the usual manner. Giving the devil his due, the invented verbiage does hang together in a more or less convincing way.
This one is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The ‘shopper didn’t leave any tracks in the form of metadata, which seems to be the case for all of these faked yearbook shots.
They saved a lot of ink by not including any captions with these pictures.
The season record boxes suggest that this is from the yearbook of “MC” which appears to be a college that competes with recognizable schools stretching from Maryland to North Carolina. If all of these have women’s sports on the varsity level, that might indicate that these images date from after the promulgation of Title IX in 1972.
The two shots of male subjects are puzzlers. The guy on the left that seems to be launching into a racing dive has a van dyke and frankly looks kind of old. The right image of an apparently naked guy lulling at the feet of some women poolside is an enigma.
I believe that this page contains doctored and/or foreign images. I’m calling “fake.”
The year is 1972 and we are on page 110 of the yearbook of the Park Hill High School of Kansas City, Missouri. Apparently to be on the swim team, your name had to be John (check the captions). What is clear is that there were no frontal (or other) nudes in the swimming page of this yearbook. Another fine job of Photoshopping.
We’re at Washburn High School in Minneapolis in the 1950’s. And the ‘shoppers were here first. I particularly acknowledge the skill of the forger that rendered the guy doing the backstroke very believably nude. Even zooming in very closely doesn’t fully disclose the trick.
This is an interesting fake. Not only were swimming trunks deleted, but the pictures themselves were rearranged. I suspect the forger was daunted by the number of figures he would have to alter (and provide penises for), so he opted to delete one group shot and leave the other untouched. Dirty business either way.
These guys hail from Minneapolis Central High School (now defunct) in 1963. This is the school team alluded to in the Washburn page – image 7. Like Washburn, this page has been ‘shopped.
They have their own distinctive look. In competition, they don’t sit or stand around in their swim suits between events, but don long white robes like medieval monks. Then they switch to FBI agent costumes for their team picture.
Even this much more recent item did not escape the malevolent attentions of the ‘shoppers.
We’ve seen the picture in the upper right of this page before. See image 5 of The Unknown posting. That image is analyzed extensively there. With regard to this page, it is amateurishly composed, but appears to be authentic. The timeframe is affirmed by the small brimmed hats worn by the two end figures in the photo on the lower left. That type of hat was in style in the late 1950’s through early ‘60s. Approved.
At first blush, this seems to show all suited guys in competition – some in light and some in dark trunks. However, if you look at the two pics in the lower right, you’ll first notice that they are the same photo cropped two different ways. On closer inspection, you then discern that one of the standing figures (to the right of the clock) appears to be sans suit. Below is the blow up of the frame on the left.
The guy on the left edge of this image is our quarry. The res is far from great, but if you compare him with the guy in the light-colored suit immediately to the right, the distinction is striking. He seems to be the only one nude.
The string of speculations has to run through how he came to be in his birthday suit among his suited fellows to how he managed to be included in the yearbook in that state. One clue to the first question is that the caption indicates that the photographed competition was held in a YMCA. Nudity would normally be the rule there. That turns the question on its head: Why was he the only one nude? They should all be in their birthday suits.
Digressing: Notice that some of the (dark suited) competitors are in swim caps – seemingly well ahead of the practice at this time. (See the discussion following Image 7 in The Ugly posting.)
Let’s summarize what we’ve learned. There remains scant evidence nudes got into yearbooks. Even schools that may have practiced and competed sans suits put’em on for the yearbook photographer. That probably included staging action shots for diving and racing starts. The conclusion is that if we’re looking for photographic evidence of organized nude male swimming, we’ll have look elsewhere.
For the next post we’ll return to the detective work on unattributed photos. There are some very compelling images yet to come.
Historical Nude Male Swimming Images 