NUDIST HISTORY
Just Who Was Dr. Ilsley Uncle Danny
Boone?
First of all, nobody called him Ilsley. He insisted everyone call him Dr. Boone
or Reverend Boone,
or, if he liked you, just plain Uncle Danny.
He was one of the early pioneers of the American
nudist movement, who endured years of legislative and political abuse that allowed the naturist clubs and resorts we enjoy today to gain a beachhead during the Depression era.
His ground-breaking magazine, Sunshine and Health, thrived for decades despite numerous attempts to shut it down, but in the end, he and his monthly journal won the Supreme Court battle which today allows all nudist publications to exist.
And for nearly 25 years he ruled the American Sunbathing Association, the precursor to today's American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR) with such an iron hand that he was at once admired and reviled by its members and club owners.
Ilsley Boone was, to say the least, an American original.
Nudist historian Cec Cinder, in his monumental work The Nudist Idea, states: There is little question that Ilsley Boone has been the most controversial figure in the American nudist scene. Opinions of him range from the fervent and unyielding admiration of some of his contemporary followers . . . to the loathing of some of his detractors, who considered him a pretentious phony and an unctuous con man. . . . I also think he was an unusual man, intelligent, talented, courageous and idealistic.
A Methodist minister (although no record of his ever attending a school of theology or receiving a doctorate degree exists), Boone didn't become a nudist until he was fifty years old, when he chanced upon Kurt Barthel's fledgling Sky Farm nudist camp in New York. Barthel, a disciple of the German Freikorperkultur (Free Body Culture) movement, wanted to create more nudist camps in other states but his business required he remain in New York. He turned to the charismatic Boone as his successor.
In 1937, Boone incorporated the ASA in New Jersey and soon opened Sunshine Park as its headquarters. From there, Boone recruited others to open affiliated clubs throughout the United States.
Boone maintained control over the movement by calling himself the Executive Secretary and never letting the membership rolls out of his hands. He wrote the ASA Constitution and By-Laws himself, although he had no legal or parliamentary procedure training. Although the document was confusing and contradictory, under Boone's heavy-handed control, the document was rarely referred to.
Over the years, several attempts were made to wrest control of ASA from Uncle Danny, but none was successful until August 1951 when a very well organized opposition orchestrated his demise.
Boone immediately drove home and tied up both the membership roster and the corporate funds, refusing to give them to the new administration. It took a full year and a court order against him (the judge called the ASA By-Laws legal gobbledygook
) before he would release the files to his successors. Nudism is not ready for democracy,
he reportedly told the court in his own defense.
Of Boone's other major contribution to the nudist movement, there is no equivocation. On January 13, 1958, his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to allow nudist magazines — even those with full-frontal nudity — to be mailed through the U.S. Post Office was affirmed in a landmark decision. Ironically, by 1963, Boone's Sunshine Publishing Company was out of business and Boone himself was broke. He died on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 1968, at age 83.
Boone was one of three charter members of the ASA Hall of Fame when it was established in 1964. The other two were Alicia Lloyd, founder of the first nudist travel club (in Los Angeles), and Kurt Barthel, Boone's old mentor. ASA became AANR in 1995 and each year, in honor if his 1958 court victory, the national organization presents its Ilsley Boone Award for the best club newsletter.
As AANR approached its 75th anniversary in 2006, the organization decided to give the old dictator one additional honor. They created The Illsley,
a foot-tall obelisk that would be passed around the country, club-to-club, similar to an Olympic torch. The obelisk was finaly buried in a time capsule at DeAnza Springs in California during AANR's 75th anniversary convention there.
It is not without irony that this messianic man, who grew to be so loathed and detested during his lifetime, would become a revered nudist icon 38 years after his death.