Sex in the Field: Photography at the Kinsey Institute

Alfred C. Kinsey (1894-1956) and a small research team comprised of Clyde Martin, Wardell Pomeroy, and Paul Gebhard conducted the most comprehensive studies on American sexual behavior during the mid-twentieth century ever attempted. Not surprisingly, Kinsey's landmark research, generally considered to be the first scientific investigation of sexual behavior to have wide popular impact, has received much more attention than the collection of supplementary materials related to sex amassed in conjunction with the research. Kinsey and his colleagues collected a wide range of media, which was a significant resource for the team of sex researchers and continues to be an archive of great importance. Even though the materials they collected were diverse in subject, aesthetic quality, and intended purpose and use, photographs were of particular value. The affordability and realism of the medium made it important to the researchers. Moreover, the steady accumulation of images over the years and the size of the archive, the employment of a staff photographer, the elaborate organizational system designed specifically for the photography collection, and Kinsey's statements about the value of images reveal a sustained interest in photographic representation in relation to a scientific study of human sexuality that has not been examined in depth, until now. This dissertation assesses the importance of photography at the Kinsey Institute during its early years, examining its prominent role in the institute's federal obscenity case, the multiple roles of visual representation in a scientific research institute, and the meaning of the photographic archive as a whole. This project attempts to evaluate the functions of the collection and the meaning of the photo raphic archive by examining it in relation to relevant subjects such as twentieth-century American culture, history, and science, censorship and the law, the politics of collecting, some of the precedents of classifying objects and images and the impact of this activity, as well as the history of sexuality and sex research.