Slouch : posture panic in modern America / Beth Linker.
Material type:
TextPublisher: Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2024]Description: vii, 377 pages : illustrations ; 25 cmContent type: - text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780691235493
- 069123549X
- Posture -- United States -- History -- 20th century
- Posture -- United States -- History -- 21st century
- Posture -- Social aspects -- United States -- History -- 20th century
- Posture -- Social aspects -- United States -- History -- 21st century
- Human body -- Social aspects -- United States -- History -- 20th century
- Human body -- Social aspects -- United States -- History -- 21st century
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Shelving location | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
|
Main Library | NonFiction | New | 613.7809 L756 | Available | 33111011339401 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
The strange and surprising history of the so-called epidemic of bad posture in modern America--from eugenics and posture pageants to today's promoters of "paleo posture"
In 1995, a scandal erupted when the New York Times revealed that the Smithsonian possessed a century's worth of nude "posture" photos of college students. In this riveting history, Beth Linker tells why these photos were only a small part of the incredible story of twentieth-century America's largely forgotten posture panic--a decades-long episode in which it was widely accepted as scientific fact that Americans were suffering from an epidemic of bad posture, with potentially catastrophic health consequences. Tracing the rise and fall of this socially manufactured epidemic, Slouch also tells how this period continues to feed today's widespread anxieties about posture.
In the early twentieth century, the eugenics movement and fears of disability gave slouching a new scientific relevance. Bad posture came to be seen as an individual health threat, an affront to conventional race hierarchies, and a sign of American decline. What followed were massive efforts to measure, track, and prevent slouching and, later, back pain--campaigns that reached schools, workplaces, and beyond, from the creation of the American Posture League to posture pageants. The popularity of posture-enhancing products, such as girdles and lumbar supports, exploded, as did new fitness programs focused on postural muscles, such as Pilates and modern yoga. By 1970, student protests largely brought an end to school posture exams and photos, but many efforts to fight bad posture continued, despite a lack of scientific evidence.
A compelling history that mixes seriousness and humor, Slouch is a unique and provocative account of the unexpected origins of our largely unquestioned ideas about bad posture.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
The making of a posture science -- Posture epidemic -- Posture commercialization -- Posture queens and fitness regimes -- The geopolitics of posture -- The perils of posture perfection -- The posture photo scandal.
"This book is a historical consideration of how poor posture became a dreaded pathology in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. It opens with the "outbreak" of the poor posture epidemic, which began with turn-of-the-century paleoanthropologists: If upright posture was the first of all attributes that separated human from beasts - and importantly a precondition for the development of intellect and speech - what did it mean that a majority of Americans slouched? By World War I, public health officials claimed that 80% of Americans suffered from postural abnormalities. Panic spread, setting into motion initiatives intended to stem the slouching epidemic, as schoolteachers, shoe companies, clothing manufacturers, public health officials, medical professionals, and the popular press exhorted the public toward detection. Wellness programs stigmatized disability while also encouraging the belief that health and ableness could be purchased through consumer goods. What makes this epidemic unique is that, in the absence of a communicable contagion, it was largely driven by a cultural intolerance of disabled bodies, with notions of "ableness" taking hold for much of the twentieth century. The author traces this history through its consequential demise, as social movements of the 1960s prompted people to push back against invasive and discriminatory standards. Large-scale physical fitness assessments designed to weed out defective bodies relied on compliant participants, and the Civil Rights and Women's Movement, as well as the anti-Vietnam war protests and Disability Rights Movements eventually halted that supply, and in the 1990s a public outcry destroyed many of the archives and materials collected. Nevertheless, anxiety over posture persists to this day"-- Provided by publisher.