Dartmouth's Winter Carnival, which grew out of one student's desire to take advantage of the snowy Hanover winters, has grown to a mammoth celebration that in its history has encompassed everything from pageants and ski races to student protests and Pepsi commercials. Indeed, this celebration of winter is anything but a typical college party weekend.
Since 1910, people from all over the country, including such notables as author F. Scott Fitzgerald and Republican presidential hopeful Patrick Buchanan, have journeyed to Hanover to partake in the tradition of Winter Carnival.
The idea for Winter Carnival originated 86 years ago when a letter from Fred Harris '11 was published in a December issue of The Dartmouth.
Harris proposed a "meet or field day" in which students would organize winter sporting events to take advantage of the cold New Hampshire weather.
Ten days after the letter was published, The Dartmouth printed an editorial recommending a "winter carnival" as the final outdoor sports meet of the season.
Two months later, on Feb. 26, 1910, the "first field day of the Outing Club" was held on the golf course.
The first Carnival weekend only featured sporting events. Participants competed in snowshoe and skiing races, a hockey game and a basketball game.
The Carnival was such a hit that the next year it was expanded to include more ski events, a dance and a concert.
Harris' letter also suggested the creation of a "ski and snowshoe club," which later became the Dartmouth Outing Club.
New traditions and popularity
The hallmark of today's Winter Carnival, the snow sculpture, was absent from the first Carnival. The first sculpture, a medieval castle, was not constructed until 1925.
Past sculptures have depicted College founder Eleazar Wheelock grasping a beer mug, a fire-breathing dragon and a 47-foot snowman, which is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's tallest snowman.
The snow sculpture tradition quickly caught on, and soon it inspired the men of Dartmouth to competition. Thus in 1927 the fraternities started holding their own sculpture contests -- each fraternity produced a mini-sculpture on its front lawn.
The first Carnivals did not even have themes -- this tradition did not begin until 1935. The first theme was "Jotunheim Iskarneval," commemorating the traditional Scandinavian ice carnivals after which Dartmouth's was modelled.
Past themes have included "Northside Story" in 1962, "Winter Land of Oz" in 1972, "Snow-Spangled Salute" in 1976, "Great Cold Rush" in 1979 and "The Rise and Fall of the Frozen Empire" in 1983.
Last year's theme was "Call of the Wild" and this year's is "'Round The Girdled Earth They Roamed: A Prehistoric Carnival."
Winter Carnival's popularity probably reached its peak in the 1950s as more and more party-goers came up to the College for Carnival weekend.
In 1952, an eight-mile long traffic jam crowded the roads into Hanover on Carnival weekend.
And in 1958, according to The Claremont Eagle, the College was filled with so many eager partiers, 32 driving violations were reported on Carnival Weekend in Hanover. One car, heading to Hanover from Stamford, Ct., was stopped with two people riding on its hood.
One reason explaining the popularity of Winter Carnival was its success in attracting females to the all-male institution.
According to the Feb. 9, 1951, issue of The Dartmouth, hundreds of "invading girls" descended upon the College for Carnival.
In 1951, 1,500 women attended Winter Carnival.
The large number of female visitors to campus resulted in the establishment of two now-extinct Carnival traditions, the Queen of the Snows and the Duchess of Dartmouth contests.
The Queen of the Snows was a beauty contest which was first held at the 1923 Winter Carnival.
The female guests and their escorts paraded beneath an ice archway at Occom Pond before a panel of students and professors on the first night of Carnival.
The more literary Duchess of Dartmouth competition required female contestants to send explanations of their desire to attend Winter Carnival to The Dartmouth.
The letters were judged by the staff of The Dartmouth on style, wit and originality. The winner of the contest was provided with an escort for the weekend and was received at the Norwich, Vt. train station by the directorate of The Dartmouth. The first contest was held in 1934 and attracted 97 entrants. The following year, there were 351 entrants.
Celebrities and controversies
As Winter Carnival's fame increased, the College began to attract figures of some distinction. Perhaps the most well-known visitor -- and one of the most celebrated stories in the history of Carnival -- came in the form of Fitzgerald in 1939.
That year, Fitzgerald, the author of "The Great Gatsby," visited Dartmouth during Carnival weekend to make a movie based on the book "Winter Carnival," which he co-wrote with Budd Schulberg '36.
After spending the weekend drinking in the basements of various fraternities, including Alpha Delta and Psi Upsilon, Fitzgerald was fired from the production of the movie in front of the Hanover Inn and reportedly was admitted into a New York sanitarium to recover from the weekend's festivities -- or more specifically, an overdose of fraternity beer.
Throughout its 86-year existence, several events have resulted in the postponement or cancellation of the Carnival festivities.
In 1933, the men of Dartmouth decided to postpone Winter Carnival until the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited the manufacture, sale and transport of intoxicating liquor, was repealed.
However, the students eventually recanted and held the festivities, ironically, two weeks before the amendment was eventually overturned.
Winter Carnival was canceled in 1943 because of World War II.
Throughout its history, Winter Carnival has also provided an occasion for students to voice their grievances on controversial issues.
In 1979, students painted the snow sculpture red, green and black to protest inadequate recruitment efforts of minorities and the lack of minority representation in the faculty and administration.
And in 1991, students protested the Gulf War by throwing paint on the snow sculpture and painting a large red peace sign in front of Dartmouth Hall.
Carnival's national coverage
Winter Carnival has garnered much media attention through the years.
A television crew from CBS came to Hanover in 1960 to film activities at the College during Winter Carnival weekend.
In 1971 Playboy shot its "Playmate of the Month" feature during Winter Carnival and paid brothers at Bones Gate fraternity to construct a snow sculpture of the Playmate bunny on their lawn.
Dartmouth students were featured in a Winter Carnival-themed Pepsi commercial that was taped in front of Wheeler residence hall in 1974.
Winter Carnival was featured on Home Box Office in 1979, the same year that "Animal House," a movie co-written by a Dartmouth graduate and a Harvard graduate and based on AD, was released.
And the College's Winter Carnival has also appeared on a commercial for Studebaker cars.
One year the festivities were the subject of a Campbell's beef bouillon soup commercial, causing beef bouillon punch to become a popular beverage at fraternities.
