Though Winter Carnival is still one of the most celebrated weekends on campus, it now exists only as a pale version of its former self.
When Winter Carnival hit its peakin the 1950s and 1960s, CBS reported the festivities from the Green, Pepsi made commercials in front of Wheeler Residence Hall and the selection of the Queen of the Snow captured the attention of the entire campus.
The Queen of the Snow competition has since disappeared, the hype of the fraternity snow sculpture competition is a thing of the past and the ski jump at the Freshman Hill is now obsolete, but certain traditions of Winter Carnival such as the central snow sculpture and ski races at the Dartmouth Skiway, still continue to this day.
Since its inception in 1910, people from all over the country have journeyed to Hanover to partake in the tradition of Winter Carnival.
The idea for Winter Carnival originated 88 years ago when The Dartmouth published a letter from Fred Harris '11 in a December issue. 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 featured only 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's letter also suggested the creation of a "ski and snowshoe club," which later became the Dartmouth Outing Club.
Carnival at its peak
Winter Carnival's reached the height of its popularity in the 1950s as more and more party-goers from around New England and beyond heard about the "crazy weekend."
In 1952, an eight-mile long traffic jam crowded the roads into Hanover on Carnival weekend.
For the police and State troopers who monitored the Carnival, 1958 was a busy year. According to The Claremont Eagle, the College was filled with so many eager partiers that 32 driving violations were reported on in Hanover that weekend. One car, heading to Hanover from Stamford, Ct.. was stopped with two people riding on its hood.
The Carnival had a history of attracting women to the all-male College. 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 Snow and the Duchess of Dartmouth contests.
The Queen of the Snow 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 directorate of The Dartmouth then received the winner of the contest at the Norwich, Vt. train station and provided her with an escort.
The first contest was held in 1934 and attracted 97 entrants. The following year, there were 351 entrants.
The national spotlight
Winter Carnival has garnered much attention through the years from both the media and famous participants in the weekend.
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 of Bones Gate fraternity to construct a snow sculpture of the Playmate bunny on their lawn.
Dartmouth students were also featured in a Winter Carnival-themed Pepsi commercial that was taped in front of Wheeler residence hall in 1974.
In 1979, Winter Carnival was featured on Home Box Office, the same year that "Animal House," a movie based on Alpha Delta fraternity and co-written by a Dartmouth graduate and a Harvard graduate, was released.
The College's Carnival has also appeared on a commercial for Studebaker cars.
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 AD and Psi Upsilon fraternity, 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.
Carnival and politics
Throughout its 88-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 alcohol, was repealed.
However, the students eventually recanted and held the festivities, ironically, two weeks before the amendment was overturned.
The Carnival weekend was canceled in 1943 because of World War II.
Winter Carnival has also provided students with an opportunity 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.
The new history
Although Winter Carnival continues with the traditional ski races and the massive snow sculpture, some distinct new traditions have formed since the inception of the weekend.
With the creation of the keg jump in the 1980s by Psi U, students created a provocative new tradition vital to the current Carnival weekend.
Although Psi U has made an ice rink in front of their fraternity house since before World War II, the keg jump as it currently is began with the decision to make the jump into a charity event in 1984.
Many students could not imagine Winter Carnival without the well-known and daring Polar Bear Swim where students, harnessed to a rope, jump into a hole cut in the ice of Occum Pond.
For all the popularity of the swim, most students do not realize the idea for a swim in Hanover originated with Rachel Gilliar '98.
Her idea first came to fruition in the winter of 1994, and with the first plunge, the event swam its way into the Winter Carnival history.
