Green Key: 103 Years of Debauchery

Monday, May 13, 2002

Editor's Note: Most of the following is taken from a May 20, 1992 article by Doug Beekman, Vikran Srimurthy, and W. Gundars Valdmanis entitled, 'Green Key: Wine, Women, Song.' Though the article was written ten years ago, it still provides a Green Key history essential for any socially-literate Dartmouth student. The editors have made necessary updates and added other relevant information.
—JLS
In a column in the Boston Globe, appearing in 1951, Bill Cunningham '20 wrote: 'It may come as a surprise to modern prom hoppers that [the original] Green Key Weekend had nothing to do with their sort of business. Instead of soft lights, hot music, and gentle dabbles in romance, it came straight out of the he-man's world of blood, sweat, and leather.'In 1899 the class of 1900 held the first Junior Prom on the Saturday of a four-day May weekend, thus commencing what would become the modern Green Key celebration. The tradition continued until 1924 when the faculty and administration decided to cancel the prom because of 'alleged misconduct and rather wild behavior in the previous years.' It is generally believed the ban on the prom resulted from an incident involving a visiting woman who rode around the Green on a bicycle bereft of the traditional prom attire, or any other attire, after copious drinking. While students, no doubt, enjoyed the scene, the administration was not amused.

The Junior Prom did return to Dartmouth for another five years. There is no indication that anything else filled the void during the heart of the Roaring Twenties, but during this time, unrelated events transpired which would allow for the return of this festive May weekend.

In 1921, the Dartmouth football team left for Seattle to play the University of Washington. The Dartmouth team was greeted at the station by uniformed Washington students who took charge of baggage, bought refreshments, and served as guides. Until then, it had been a tradition of Dartmouth students to view visiting athletic teams with hostility. This warm welcome by the University of Washington's Knights of the Hook inspired the formation of a similar organization at Dartmouth, and, on May 16, 1921, the Green Key was born as a sophomore honor society.

About two years later, the Green Key members voted to become a junior society. Nominations to the society were to be made by the outgoing members. In 1936, the society was reorganized and the process of selecting new members was drastically altered. No more than forty-two sophomores were to be selected annually, and they were to have a GPA greater than 2.7, or a 3.0 or better for the first two terms of the sophomore year. A fixed number of representatives were to be selected from different campus organizations such as the Daily Dartmouth, sundry student organizations, and the Dartmouth Outing Club. A few at-large members were also selected from the sophomore class.

Initially, the society had three aims—entertaining representatives of other institutions, acting as freshman rule enforcement committee, and selecting from its ranks the head cheerleader and the head usher of the College.

Only the first of these aims remains today. About two years after its inception, the society voted to turn its 'vigilante function'—forcing freshmen to wear their caps—over to sophomores. In time, the function of selecting the head usher and cheerleader was turned over to various College departments.

In 1927, at the faculty's request, society members wore their uniforms of white trousers, green sweaters, and green caps with the key emblem during freshman week to help clueless frosh find their way around the College. The society also sponsored Red Cross drives and campus ceremonies, and supervised fraternity pledge night. To meet the expenses of entertaining visiting teams, the society sponsored an annual fundraiser. In 1929, this became the Green Key Spring Prom.

The administration felt that the weekend would be better organized and take on an air of civility if the Green Key Society oversaw the activities. In 1931, the College banned fraternity house parties because of frequent occurrences of what it called 'disorderly conduct.' President Hopkins, at one point, threatened to ban Green Key festivities, writing in a letter to Inter-Fraternity Council president Albert Bidney '35 that 'the Green Key Promenade cannot be held unless definite assurances can be made that propriety will attend it.'

During the years that followed, Green Key Weekend took on epic proportions. It became the font from which Dartmouth alums drew their most fantastic stories of life at Dartmouth. The Boston Herald and the New York Times carried accounts of the weekend and published a guest list of the largest yearly party in the Ivy League. The list was no small undertaking, considering that around 1200 women from all over the Northeast made the pilgrimage to Dartmouth.

The fraternities took on the enviable task of housing this flood of eager women. The April 15, 1942, issue of the Herald carried accounts of Green Key Weekend: 'There is nothing like a weekend in Hanover to boost a girl's morale...The boys turn over their fraternity houses lock, stock, and freezing sleeping porch...The Dartmouth man's attitude isn't always the best, BUT we put up with it.'

Those women who did not have a place to sleep for the weekend participated in the tradition of 'outdoor sleep' by spending the night on the golf course in sleeping bags. From this tradition came the practice of 'sneaks,' wherein ambitious Dartmouth men would attempt to sneak past the watchful eye of the police and Dartmouth officials. Most of the accounts of these sneaks came from those poor souls unfortunate enough to get caught.

The revelry continued during Green Key Weekend with traditions such as 'wetdowns' and 'old-timers' day.' Not for the faint of heart, wetdowns would violate every hazing law ever written. Reminiscent of the anachronistic torture of running the gauntlet, the seniors would form two lines on the Green and literally flog the underclassmen as they ran past. Old-timers' day was a less painful tradition, but no less entertaining. The seniors would skip classes, dress in strange costumes and disrupt the whole campus for a day. The administration permitted this frivolity to continue until 1948 when a group of seniors played a baseball game while driving in their cars. Another spring tradition that emerged from Green Key Weekend was the Strawberry Festival. This, however, amounted to little more than a euphemism for a knock-down, drag-out, drink-till-you-can't-see party.

'Hums,' a major bone of contention over the years, was another Green Key staple. During Hums each fraternity composed a small ditty, typically racy, which they entered into a competition. The Hums were, as Professor Emeritus Richard Stoiber remarked, 'touching tributes to the coeds, spiced with the dirtiest lyrics this side of 42nd Street.'

The adminstration gradually became less and less tolerant of these amusing tunes, and in 1979 Real Hums, sponsored by the IFC, was introduced, free from college censure. Expressing bitterness over an administration lacking a sense of humor, a Professor of Government commented that 'the most pious and puritanical element of the College appears to retain a veto over what is acceptable. If we were to exclude everything that someone might find offensive, there would be nothing left to sing about—people would literally be humming.' Real Hums caught on for a while, and was even reported to be the best party of the year at one time by Playboy magazine. Many memorable pieces of lyric poetry are remembered from past Hums, including 'Our Quahogs,' to the tune of 'Knick-knack Paddy-whack,' which is still sung in some irreverent circles.

What was once Green Key Weekend is now but forgotten. Green Key staples like Hums and Wet-downs have been replaced by more friendly alternatives. Administrative and local law enforcement crackdowns have succeeded in watering down the May festivites. A 1987 sting operation by the Hanover Police Department found eight fraternities guilty of serving alcohol to minors. Police sent an 'undercover' eighteen year-old Plymouth State student into fraternities with the mission of procuring a beer, which she then poured into a vial and kept for evidence. While police dropped all charges against these houses, Dartmouth College punished them.

The modern Green Key is far less revelous than Green Keys past. The derecognition of Phi Delta Alpha heralded the end of the Webster Avenue Block Party. Today the biggest bash is Alpha Delta's Lawn Party with its three story funnel. Other houses hold events, but none can compare to the bacchanalia of yesteryear. Green Key lives on, but, at times, it appears to be struggling for breath.

Green Key: 103 Years of Debauchery

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