Sleepovers on the golf course, 40-piece orchestras, mayoral elections and piano smashing contests -- just a few of the elements that have characterized Green Key weekend over its 108-year history. While this year's Green Key may lack certain elements of vandalism and violence that mark the event's past, the weekend still represents a time for revelry and release among Dartmouth students.
The history of Green Key weekend begins in 1899, when several fraternities on campus held simultaneous house parties. Documents from the time suggest that the parties became popular as they provided an excuse to bring women onto the all-male campus.
The weekend evolved over subsequent decades, becoming a staple on the Dartmouth calender. By 1920, the weekend coincided with a spring prom ball, a packed sports schedule and a theatrical performance of "Rise, Please!" by the Dartmouth Players. Nightly dances hosted at various houses on Webster Avenue also began that year.
Much of this changed, however, with the founding of the Green Key Society in 1921. The organization soon became responsible for planning and hosting the events of the weekend, relying on profits garnered from the weekend's various performances to provide its operating budget for the year.
An annual variety show was replaced with a campus-wide dance and soon hundreds, if not thousands of women came to Hanover for the weekend.
The names of students' dates were printed in The Dartmouth, as well as in national newspapers such as The New York Times, the Boston Herald and the Herald Tribune.
"Hanover is God's gift to women this weekend, as hundreds of the proverbial fair sex invade the New Hampshire plain from the world at large. By train, car, hook, or crook, the bells will barge into this normally peaceful hamlet," a 1938 editorial in The Dartmouth said.
In these years, fraternity houses were opened to the women while their dates slept by themselves on the porch or lawn. Gifts of fruit or makeup compacts for these women were not uncommon.
Although such pleasantries were shown to the campus' female guests, Dartmouth freshmen were not as fortunate. Members of the first-year class were not allowed to participate in any of the weekend's events, including the fraternity parties, and were known to spend much of the weekend in Thayer dining hall.
The "Junior Promenade," the ball that was the weekend's main feature in the early 1920s, was short-lived, as the administration cancelled the event in 1924 in response to complaints by neighbors and town officials. Records also imply that by the 1930s the Hanover mayoral elections were no longer associated with the weekend as they had been in the past.
The weekend resumed under the banner of the Green Key Society in 1929.
In 1931 Green Key Weekend was cancelled. The historical record is unclear, but either Lulu McWoosh, a female visitor to the College, or an unnamed Dartmouth undergraduate, rode naked through Hanover on a bicycle. Several dozen complaints by community members led the administration to make its decision.
"The administration of Dartmouth College has served notice on the student body that its social functions must be kept 'within bounds' or dispensed altogether," the Woodstock Standard said later in a 1935 edition.
By the 1960s, the "Junior Promenade" reemerged as the "Green Key Ball," as the society became inextricably linked with the festivities.
The most infamous moment in the weekend's history came in 1967 when George Wallace, the former governor of Alabama and a segregationist, spoke on the preceding Friday. Wallace, who blocked the door to the University of Alabama in order to stop desegregation, was unable to leave campus when students rioted and surrounded his car.
This uprising resulted in the official cancellation of the Green Key Ball, though Green Key weekend has continued in its current form ever since.
Aside from fraternity dances, the various machinations of Green Key weekend throughout its history have included professional orchestras and bands, as well as games and competitions between Greek houses.
Earl Fuller's Jazz Band made an appearance in 1929, followed by legends Tommy Dorsey and Artie Shaw in 1938.
By 1963 rock 'n' roll had arrived at Green Key and in 1978 the Grateful Dead performed as the signature act of the weekend.
Nighttime festivities were matched with daily activities sponsored by Greek organizations.
"Hums" were popular in Green Key's early years as the fraternity houses competed with each other in song.
Through the 1950s Beta Theta Pi and Psi Upsilon fraternities organized a bicycle marathon, and in the 1960s Chi Phi and Pi Lambda Phi fraternitites held a well-attended piano-smashing contest.
A longstanding tradition dating back to the 1880s was the "Wetdown Ceremony," where the new members of student government were pelted with food and drenched with water as they ran across the Green.
This evolved into the Greek Games. At one point, students ran through human walls of seniors, among other contests.
In response to the liabilities of such proceedings, the College administration suggested in 1966 that the fraternities have chariot races as an alternative.
The chariots, consisting of a seat and two wheels in the Roman fashion, were pulled by four men as one drove. The chariots had to make three laps around a circuit while participants were pelted with fruit.
Chariot races were discontinued in 1984 following a series of incidents, most notably a fist fight between Gamma Delta Chi fraternity and Beta in 1976.
The Greek Games continued in the form of athletic competition through the late 1980s.
The Green Key Ball, proms and live orchestras have given way to bands and house parties in recent years, as Green Key has mellowed as a result of the administration's toughened policies and the imposition and enforcement of a higher drinking age.
Rolling Stone featured the weekend in a 1992 expose on Alpha Delta fraternity, which is currently known for its Green Key lawn party and live musical performances.
Although much of the weekend now centers on the crowded Webster Avenue dance floors of Friday and Saturday evenings, it is still very much considered to be a rite of spring.
