This article was taken from Nudist History:
Cec Cinder, Ph.D. (1927-), pseudonym for Cecil Snyder, a California college professor. He was in on the early formation of the U.S. Free Beach Movement back in the early 70's. He chaired the first Free Beaches Committee that met in California and was active in obtaining or trying to obtain legal nude beaches throughout the state. This is a fight that continues today. Dr. Cinder's greatest accomplishment is the book he recently published after years of research on the nudist movement worldwide. His book, The Nudist Idea, covers the history of the nudist philosophy in depth all the way from Richard Ungewitter back in turn of the century Germany through the American Free Beach Movement of the 70's.
Cec Cinder has been a nudist since February, 1954. He has been a member of the Olive Dell Nudist Ranch since 1956. He was a founder/charter member of the Doffer’s Club, near Beaumont, CA (now extinct). During the 1960’s, he was associate editor of four nudist magazines: Utopia, Arcadia, Sol and Nudistory. He wrote for still other nudist magazines, providing the kickoff article series for Ed Lange’s Ankh. He is a published nudist photographer and was a member of the (now defunct) Association of Nudist Photographers. He was asked to turn the A.S.A. Bulletin from a newsletter to a tabloid newspaper in 1972, and did so, editing the first three editions.
He is a founder/charter member of Beachfront U.S.A., and that organization’s second President (1975-76). He also served as BFUSA’s Secretary (1977) and has been a BFUSA Director since the organization’s inception in October, 1973. During his Presidency, he re-organized the loose organization into a “leaner, meaner” one.
He participated many times in setting up and manning the BFUSA booth at Venice Beach during the 1970’s.
He created Beachhead, which appeared as a supplement in the (now defunct) independent nudist newspaper Bare in Mind, and edited this freebeach journal (originally “The BFUSA Supplement”) for the first 44 issues.
He edited The Olive Dell News for many issues during the 1970’s.
Over the years, he has written a couple of hundred articles, reviews, editorials, letters and similar ephemera for the nudist press, beginning in 1958.
As stated above, he is the author and publisher (in 1998) of The Nudist Idea, a 704-page hardcover book, which is now in print and selling steadily.
He was (with Rolin Bruno) the founder of the revived Beachfront U.S.A. in 1986. This organization grew out of Western Sunbathing Association’s Public Relations Team South. He has remained a director of this organization since its inception.
He edits The Free Beach News, the house organ of the revived Beachfront U.S.A., now at its 170th issue.
His 25-page white paper FB Venice 88 set the direction for subsequent Beachfront activist efforts.
As BFUSA’s legal chair, he directed the organization’s challenge in the Federal courts to the Los Angeles City’s anti-nudity ordinance of 1974, which was turned back in 1993 by the United States Supreme Court, which refused certiorari[1]. As continuing BFUSA legal chair, he directed the organization’s efforts to pursue an injunction against the municipality of Rancho Palos Verdes’s anti-nudity ordinance canceling nudity at Smuggler’s Cove, a traditional freebeach which sits on City property. The BFUSA lawsuit failed, and the organization was unable to pursue an appeal through lack of funds.
He founded, and is the Administrative Director, of The Callen-Davis Memorial Fund, which is BFUSA’s war chest and a separate account from the BFUSA treasury. The Fund has collected over $38,000 thus far and is still growing. (The CDMF spent $25,000 on the attempt to secure an injunction against Los Angeles City).
He has been a Director and Vice-President of the Western Sunbathing Association, holding office continually for a decade.
He has been a member of the American Nudist Research Library since 1980 and is currently a director of the Western Nudist Research Library.
He maintains the Archive of the Institute for Nudist Studies, the third largest collection of nudist material in the world, including books, periodicals, still photos, audio cassettes, films, badges, brochures and other memorabilia.
He helped plan “Nude Beach Day” at Zuma Beach, California, in 1976, a rally which drew 1,200 nudists and about 70 police officers.
He spoke at Laguna Beach in the mid-1970’s at an overflow crowded meeting of the city council regarding the outlawing of a freebeach in that city.
He spoke before the San Diego County Planning Commission in the late 1980’s in an attempt to prevent the outlawing of nudism at Samagatuma.
He is well traveled, and familiar with many nudist clubs and freebeaches in the U.S., Jamaica and Europe, including in the latter case Sylt, Montalivet, Cap d’Agde, Delegyhaza, Fiveacres, Spielplatz, the Athena Club, the Ile du Levant and the like.
He was elected Western Sunbathing Association “Man of the Year” three times, in 1986 (shared with Hap Hathaway in a tie), 1989 and 2002. He was elected to the American Association of Nude Recreation's Hall of Fame in 2003.
He edited and supplied The Beachfront U.S.A. Papers, a publication of the Institute for Nudist Studies (1968), copies of which were placed in the American Nudist Research Library, Kissimmee, FL; the Archive of the Naturist Society, Oshkosh, WI; and the Special California Nudist Collection of the Pomona California Public Library.
He is the founder and President of The Ultraviolet Press, a nudist publishing company. He had Richard Ungewitter’s Die Nacktheit translated, wrote an extensive introduction and notes and published the English version of “the Old Testament of nudism” in 2005. The Ultraviolet Press is currently preparing Dennis Craig Smith’s Naked Fear for publication in early 2007. (Smith is the author of The Naked Child: Growing up without Shame).
For information concerning The Nudist Idea (hardcover $24.95) or Nakedness (softcover $17.95), both in print, see the Ultraviolet Press web page available through the Beachfront U.S.A. website at http://www.bfusa.org.
SOURCE: Nudist History
