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Have you ever noticed how happy children are when they are allowed to play in the nude? This is because they are so much more closely attuned to nature than the adults who have grown away from that.
-Karl Ruehle, "Where Are You Standing?"
What we do is for the benefit of the young generation which we wish to grow up healthier and cleaner in mind and action. . . . They need nudism more than anyone else.
-Karl Ruehle, Sun Valley News
Nudism originated at the turn of the twentieth century as part of a broad "life reform" movement aimed at moderating the impact of industrialization on the health of the German people. With a strong focus on physical health, evident in the popularity of nude gymnastics and hiking, nudists believed that nude recreation would allow people to take full advantage of sunshine and fresh air, and promote greater care and respect for the body. They contended that nudity was a wholesome, natural state of being, and appealed to youth, workers, and families alike. Through the promotion of individual health and "eugenically purposeful sexuality," nudism promised to form the foundation of a healthier, stronger nation.1
During the interwar period, nudism spread through western Europe, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Organized nudism became established in Canada after the Second World War, as European immigrants with nudist experience provided an influx of leaders and members to the fledgling Canadian movement.2 Clubs emerged on the periphery of cities across the country but were most numerous around Vancouver, British Columbia, and in southwestern Ontario. By 1960 there were about twenty nudist clubs operating in Canada, with memberships ranging in size from ten to more than four hundred members. Nudism's development coincided with the postwar public recreation movement, the proliferation of national and provincial parks, and the "golden age" of the family vacation. Nudist clubs were facilitated by greater leisure time, disposable income, and car ownership, and by ongoing urbanization. Despite the implication of the common misnomer "nudist colony," nudist clubs were not utopian places of residence, but weekend and summer recreational sites that served as alternatives to modern public beaches, parks, and campgrounds.3
Concern over mental health-and its correlation with normative sexuality-came to the forefront of...