By Nicole Findlay

Tract houses with manicured lawns framed by white picket fences, Sunday drives with the family, are among the cultural references used to envision life in the 1950s.  Like a David Lynch film, the pristine images belie the societal transformation underway.

The post-war decade is often recalled as a time of social conformity and conservatism. Mary-Ann Shantz, a doctoral candidate in the Department of History, is turning this notion upside down.

Shantz’s research traces the rise and impact of “social nudism” in Canada. She positions her work within the relatively new area of historical study referred to as the “history of the body” and focuses on the changing cultural construction of the body.

“The main focus of my work is on understanding the ways in which nudist attitudes towards the body and nudity both reflected, and departed from, the attitudes of mainstream society, of which nudists were a part,” said Shantz.

Although Canada’s nudist movement traces its roots to the 1939 inception of Vancouver’s Van Tan Club, it truly blossomed in the post-WWII period between 1946 and 1965.

According to Shantz, like their suburban neighbours who spent their Sundays at the public beach or campground, nudists felt the need to get away, but did so in the buff.

In contrast to the perception that nudists were at the vanguard of social change, Shantz is finding that these groups adhered to and actively reinforced traditional values. Although often portrayed as sexually promiscuous swingers, nudist members actually sought to promote “family-friendly” values.

Nudist clubs, commonly mislabelled “colonies”, enforced rules that extended membership to married heterosexual couples, limited memberships to single males, and frowned upon homosexuality. Physical affection, even among couples, was discouraged and alcohol prohibited as activists for the movement sought to separate nudity from sexuality.

“They also embraced gender norms, and suggested that nudism would help men and women better fulfill their respective roles, and would help raise children who would be sexually ‘well-adjusted,’” said Shantz. “In other words, help them grow into adults who would also enter into heterosexual marriage and embrace the appropriate feminine or masculine gender identity.”

The post-war period also gave rise to increased interest in psychology. Although never endorsed by the profession, Shantz’s research indicates that psychology was nonetheless cited by the nudist movement to counter what they viewed as mainstream society’s repressive attitude toward the naked body.

Advocates of the nudist movement cited child psychologists’ admonishments to parents against instilling children with embarrassment over the development of their bodies. This would lead to social taboos which fostered deviant behaviours.  Nudism, they countered, contributed to “normal” and “healthy” psychological development.

Today, faced with an aging membership, nudist clubs are re-positioning themselves in a bid to attract the young families of yesteryear.   “The clubs have also become more elaborate, often marketing themselves as “resorts” to appeal to a middle-class clientele,” said Shantz. “Whereas the earlier clubs were much more rustic and required members to contribute to the maintenance of the club.”

Even so, Ontario’s oldest club, Glen Echo Family Nudist Park, is shuttering its clubhouse at the end of this month.

Not only can Shawn Graham time travel back to Roman antiquity, he can change the course of history.

Graham, an assistant professor, digital humanities, Department of History, combined his love of archaeology with computer programming to develop a virtual simulation that provides users with an immersive history lesson.

The idea for a computer simulation occurred to Graham during his doctoral work in early imperial Roman society.

“History runs only once, but in the computer it can run over and over again,” said Graham.

He compares his simulation to the film Groundhog Day. Each morning, Bill Murray’s character, Connor, awakens to a replay of the previous day, meeting the same people, and encountering the same situations.  The only variable that can change is Connor’s reactions to events.

“My research provided a static picture of the City of Rome’s patronage networks in each of the Roman dynasties but it was not clear how we got from one kind of network to the next, or how they evolved,” he said.  “How did power shift through the social network? How did society advance? ”

Apparently the answers can be found in the very bricks upon which Roman cities were built.

Brick and tile in Roman antiquity often were stamped with the seals of the landowners, the consular dated year, the estates upon which they were made and sometimes the warehouse for which they were destined.

Each tidbit of information is like a puzzle piece that when assembled provides a picture of the individual landowners, slaves and suppliers that comprised the empire.  However a different picture emerges when the puzzle pieces are rearranged.

“An understanding of the outcomes that could have occurred, allows historians to “better understand what actually did take place.”

Graham is now looking the social and economic networks of ancient resource exploitation by using a simulation of the settlement history of Western Quebec and its timbering history as an ethnographic parallel for antiquity.

He has contributed to a number of game-based learning projects. Graham has also worked in the commercial heritage industry in the Ottawa region, most notably completing the heritage inventory of Gatineau Park for the National Capital Commission.