Slouch (eBook)

Posture Panic in Modern America

Beth Linker (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024
392 Seiten
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-23550-9 (ISBN)

Infos

The strange and surprising history of the so-called epidemic of bad posture in modern Americafrom 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 panica 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 paincampaigns 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.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 9.4.2024
• Zusatzinfo: 39 b/w illus.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Studium ► Querschnittsbereiche ► Geschichte / Ethik der Medizin
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Schlagworte: Adrelene • African American • Afro-American • American Chiropractic Association • American Medical Association • American Physical Education Association • American Posture League • Anglo-Saxon • Antioch • Arons • Atwell • Black Americans • brackett • Bureau • burt • Buster • Camco • CAMP • Chicago Defender • Churchill • Clevenger • Cold War • Columbia Presbyterian • Cutler • Darwinian • devore • Dubois • Duke • Fundies • Great Depression • Great War • Greek • Ground Gripper • Hackley • Hale America • Harvard Slouch • Holt • home journal • Hooton • institutional review boards • International Association of Physical Education and Sport for Girls and Women(IAPESGW) • Ivy League • Iyengar • Java • Jewish • Joint Board • keds • kennedy administration • Kiphuth • Knight • Krao • Kraus-Weber • lamarckian • league • mackinnon • Marsh • McKenzie • Miss America • Miss America Pageant • mount holyoke • National Anthropological Archives • National Association • Native Americans • Nazi • Neanderthal • New York Radical Women • New York Times • Olympic • Ortner • Pembroke • pithecanthropus • Posture Clinic • Posture Week • progressive-era • Sandow • Second World War • Siam • Smithsonian • stimson • Student Alumnae Association • swedish • Trupedic • tuskegee • U.S. public health service • Vassar • Victorian • Viennese • wac • Wellesley • Women Against Pornography (WAP) • World War • ymca
• ISBN-10: 0-691-23550-3 / 0691235503
• ISBN-13: 978-0-691-23550-9 / 9780691235509