Pamphlets

[BlueTrain]

Naturism originally began because cities were crowded and dirty places to live. Some still are, others not so bad. It's so easy to forget what places were like in the past--especially before you were born. But it all depends on where you live or maybe on where you want to live. I grew up in a small town that was a very pleasant place to live, there being no smokestack industry. But sometimes even very small towns have serious pollution issues, like if you live near a coal mining area. Later, while I was still in high school, we moved to the country and I finally had enough private woods to explore. That was when I started nude hiking, although I never thought of it as hiking. I've mentioned all that before, I think.

Now I live in the suburbs, still surrounded by woods. Although the woods are small and nowhere near private enough (they aren't mine, after all) for nude hiking. Another difference is that here, the woods really are full of animals, unlike the woods where I lived back home. There, all animals are seen as something that needed shooting and consequently, the woods have almost no wildlife. But I'm only speaking of that one place, not where you live. Where I live now, I see deer, sometimes from the windows of my house, as well as raccoons, groundhogs and even foxes. There are squirrels everywhere. I haven't seen any mountain lions or bears but I figure it's only a matter of time. Bears have been seen in the county and this is just outside of Washington, D.C. I think I have seen at least one coyote, too. Hunting is actually allowed around here (for deer), but only with bow and arrow, and the places behind the house where I go walking in the woods are posted for hunting in season.

[jbeegoode]

I figured that that was all gone. I was reminded where I lived from 1955 through five more years in Falls Church, Va. Our back yard had been woods, until it was cleared of everything but the trees. I could walk to the end of the street and down into a creek area. We would spend lots of time there, catching crawdads, or frogs, damming up the flow, or just exploring. Across the street, behind the neighbors the woods had a spot where tortoise would lay eggs. Those places were important to me, they gave me the beginning of my sense of nature.

I seem to remember getting wet stripping off in those private glads, but not for long, as it could be big trouble to get caught in such a "nasty" deposition.
Jbee

[Greenbare Woods]

Naturism originally began because cities were crowded and dirty places to live. Some still are, others not so bad. It's so easy to forget what places were like in the past--especially before you were born. But it all depends on where you live or maybe on where you want to live. I grew up in a small town that was a very pleasant place to live, there being no smokestack industry. But sometimes even very small towns have serious pollution issues, like if you live near a coal mining area. Later, while I was still in high school, we moved to the country and I finally had enough private woods to explore. That was when I started nude hiking, although I never thought of it as hiking. I've mentioned all that before, I think.

In 1900 there was still about 90% of Americans living on family farms.  The Industrial revolution was only beginning to make inroads into farming.  One cylinder "hit and miss" gas engines ran everything from a threshing machine to mom's laundry washer.  But it was very labor intensive.

Even with a McCormick harvester it took 40 men and 40 horses to harvest wheat.  By the 1920s they had horse drawn combines that did the harvesting and threshing in one operation, but it took 20 horses to pull it and 20 men to operate.  Add 20 more of each loading, unloading, and driving wagons to take the wheat off the fields.  The unemployment of the 1930s was, in part, due to replacement of farm men and horses with machines.  By 1950 there were half as many farmers, and some of those had cars or pickups good enough to move into town.  By 2000 there are only about  10% of Americans farming and 90% town folk.  A reversal in percentages in one century.   

I grew up in a town dominated by fruit trees, an agricultural community.  We lived almost in the center of town but we could walk to where orchards took over.  It was easy to ride a bicycle to the edge of town where the mountains began.  Many times I climbed to the top of our local mountain, sometimes to stand naked on top.  The river was too big, deep, and fast to swim, and too dirty.  All the towns just dumped sewage into the river.  Soon they built an aluminum smelter a little way out of town, and across the river a plant that made ferro-silicate.  Both were dirty.  We had migrant farm workers in the fall, mostly "Okies." 

Times and towns have changed a lot. 

[jbeegoode]

What you two are saying, when I put the two together adds to the perspective of the story that early FKK naturists were escaping from the cities to a more natural romantic more user friendly place. What a contrast from exploitative, dirty poorly planned industrial cities to a farm and the sensual benefits.

So, city people started naturism as escape? Or farming people used to skinnydip? Or how about those small homes, often one or two rooms and those big families crammed into them? It is a wonder that the Victorian BS that we have inherited actually exist. I'd think that we would have naturist nudist values.

What was it that enforced the insanity of clothing? Long winter's habits? Church? Where is the practicality?

Cripe, the kids got shingles from being cooped up in clothes because of Victorian textile obsession.
Jbee

[BlueTrain]

One source says 60% of Americans lived in rural areas in 1900 but 90% is close enough.

Yes, it was city people who started naturism and, moreover, it was a few people who thought of the idea. That's the way change happens. Remember, in Germany, people don't live out by themselves on big farms. They live in villages. Germany seems no more crowded than it does where I live. I don't know about those small houses you mention, though. You must be thinking of all those little post-war developments (with houses made of ticky-tack). The house I grew up in, built sometime before 1930, is bigger than the one I live in now. I lived in Germany for two years and never saw any places good for skinny-dipping and there were none where I grew up, either. That would be Minnesota, land of ten thousand lakes.

You will also note that summers in Germany are cool. Clothing is not insane. If you want people to consider nudism, you need a better argument than that. 

[jbeegoode]

I'm thinking about the cabins, the shanty shacks, or the apartments in cities. "The Honeymooners" had it pretty good. Homes were smaller, bungalows in the 20's thirties were nice homes, but previous in rural areas those poor farm workers had tight quarters generally.

The established farm houses were roomy, even two story, but little house on the prairie, sod houses and such immigrant housing was not so spacious. People were generally poor. The great middle class hadn't really happened.

This has lots to do with my impressions, observations of small towns and old folks talking, history books, old photos, but I believe not so far off.
Jbee

[eyesup]

People put up with a lot of irritants for the things they value in a city. Everyone has a threshold for that. I’ve been through small communities in Louisiana and Mississippi that are near paper mills. Those produce a foul smell that the word nasty comes to mind. Talk about pollution.

But they are the economic lifeblood of that area.

Where I grew up, we had a creek that flowed year round and we did the same thing, Jbee. Must be a kid-in-the-woods thing. What fun! We would franticly build an earthen dam a couple feet high and then wait for it to bust. Big enough to go wading in.

That was the woods I 1st went naked in. Last I saw of that area it had been cleared and a golf course built. Errrrrr!

Be careful, Jbee, of basing anything on what you see coming out of Hollywood.

Duane

[jbeegoode]

Hollywood and the internet, Eyesup.

Small towns east and farming towns mid-west, old mining towns in the west, all had smaller homes. "A People's History of the United States" has a clearer picture of the lifestyle of those whose homes were not worth preserving, or were added on to and then preserved. It also gives a picture of unhealthy American city life. German cities had to have many similar short comings, but then they were demonstratively industrious, organized and clean generally, when I visited. Their cities conditions would have to be reflective of that, when America's wildcat explosive economics and population growth made (make) a mess out of things. 

But then, the movement began in Germany, pre-war. When I lived and traveled in Europe, it was post war mid-ninetee-sixties. I remember new things and the recovery. That not destroyed by the war were small cottages in the country and small apartments and conversions in the cities. People were often living in small medieval structures. I dunno, perhaps someone who is from there would do better speculation on conditions in the cities that naturism would have grown out from.

Cramped conditions are conducive to less body shame, and a matter of fact casual nudity practices.

Something that just occurred to me, is that people couldn't eat the crap that makes most of the modern populous overweight. There was less inundation of ideal body images in a less bombarded style of media. These could be mitigating factors in the rise of FKK and naturism here. They were into health and natural ideals. They would show themselves healthy, exercising displaying fitness. There were many photos and films of them dancing in those older styles that are great exercise and stretch and in my experiences associated with more ancient dances expressing earth based Gods, Goddesses and deities. Free Body Culture. Again, speculation.

There would be many different reasons to attract people to naturism and social nudity. For all I know what is purported to have been happening, the philosophy, etc., could be just the hype being repeated.

We know what our own experiences are today, and these would be true back in the day. If the caricature of the culture given corresponds with what truths we know, then that part is probably true. 
Jbee

[BlueTrain]

I'd say it's too easy to overlook living conditions of the past. There was serious pollution in many places, and not just in the industrialized cities, as I think I mentioned. Those conditions continued in this country well after WWII. Today, however, many city folk couldn't imagine living on a farm because they'd say it was so dirty and polluted, ironically, but true to some extent. And imagine what city streets were like when horses were more common. However, I have no reason to believe that cramped or crowed conditions leads to more casual nudity. If you only took one bath a week, in the kitchen, there was no reason to be nude the rest of the time. Besides, you can be pretty sure that teenage girls wouldn't care to have their brothers, if they had any, staring at them when they were naked. Even one bath a week might have been a luxury for some and considered unnecessary for others.

A German acquaintance of mine said that "Free Body Culture" is the current politically correct term, the former expression being "naked culture." I'm not sure how much significance there is in a different name.

As far as the idea that more people are overweight now, a more likely reason is that food is relatively cheap and available everywhere, all the time. A gas station used to be where you went to buy gas. You know, the places with Mail Pouch signs and a red Coca-Cola cooler. But now, a gas station is full of food inside. Some of them have the best hot dogs, too. On the other hand, the percentage of overweight people can shoot way up just because someone says you should weight this much now instead of what they used to say you should weigh. When I was little, I thought I was underweight.

[jbeegoode]

I have know the habits of large families and small homes to be more casual in most of my experiences.

Brothers and sisters are taught to not lust, it is incest. It was okay to be simply seen, because "he is my brother," or "we're family."  Brother's friends, no. Mom, dad were generally okay. Parents occasionally need to be privy to their child's body for health reasons.

I don't know about families now, with these larger homes with several bedrooms and baths, who does.

But back in the day and across the world, in smaller homes, it is/was too practical to not be normal to not expect siblings and other family to be more casual.

As for these body image issues, if I sit in a grocery and watch people and what is in their carts, the heavier and unhealthy are pretty consistently eating the processed crap. It isn't as much the quantity, but the nutritional quality of the food. It is very apparent, even laughable.

Interesting what the German acquaintance said. Free body and naked could mean basically the same thing, or not. FKK stands for Free body in German, Freikörperkultur (FKK). It was coined in 1898 with the advent of a club according to Wikipedia under google "Freikörperkultur." I suspect that your friend was mistaken. What would be his source? Wiki is fallible, but the established fact of a "club" is pretty good stuff. I suggest going to the German version and just use google translate. My German died in College in 1971. I'm sure that we could be more scholarly.

There is interesting information there stating that in the later 1800's (Victoria) common nudity became less socially favorable. This was a response to that.
Jbee




 

[BlueTrain]

My friend's source was first hand. He grew up in Germany, as did a couple of other people I used to work with. When I would ask them about German nudism, they always laughed. Germany at the time (this was going on 40 years ago) was quite formal. But it also depended on exactly where in Germany you were referring to.

[jbeegoode]

Good point regional differences.

I've been referring to the origination of the term FKK to the greater flourishing into the 1930's, so 120 to 95 years ago. Your friends were very old? Like they said this to you 40 years ago and they were kids back when the term didn't have anything to do with direct translation? I've gotten confused the way you put this.

Why would they laugh, when you brought it up?
Jbee

[BlueTrain]

I think they laughed because they thought the idea of nudism to be funny. These people were probably born in the 1930s, although I don't know were in Germany. Two were war brides, the other was a man.

[eyesup]

An ability to ignore inconveniences is almost necessary. If you can do that it doesn't mean you like them, just that you have learned to live with them.

Speaking of Hollywood, did you ever see that movie, “Mosquito Coast”? That is a fiction put on the screen and it tells a story for your consideration. When do you help someone and when do you allow them to help themselves? Just because we don’t see what others see doesn’t mean what they see and appreciate is somehow invalid or wrong.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to help, just make sure that the cure doesn’t cause more problems than what you are attempting to get rid of. As Joni said, “You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.”

When you go for something new be prepared to let go of what you had.

Duane

[BlueTrain]

That is an interesting point you make, about letting go. It applies to a lot of things, especially people. Change happens and, ironically, sometimes the things we cling to because the give the comfort of familiarity and security were not always that way. They were merely that way when you appeared on the scene. They become your base reference.

Change is happening all around us, even when you don't realize it. The tree is growing (or dying), just imperceptibly. When you return to some place you used to live, maybe even briefly, the changes may be startling. And sometimes, it is equally startling when something is still the same, too. The place may be the same, mostly, but the people won't be the same. In fact, for me, when the people that you knew are gone, replaced by strangers, of course, it's different. It's different, too, when just one person is no longer there. It's something you can't quite put your finger on or describe, but a sense of emptiness or loneliness is close. It's usually not a happy feeling.