Smith College is known for many things: its top-tier academics, its socially conscious students, and the fact that it often acts as a safe haven for LGBTQ+ students. But what it isn’t known for – at least not anymore – is its raging house parties.
Sanctioned house parties are shadows of their former selves. Although a house community can put in a lot of effort decorating, advertising, and planning an event, you’ll be lucky if campo’s maximum occupancy standards haven’t dwindled the party down to twenty semi-sober people dancing to a pre-made playlist. During convocation 2018, Residence Life and campus authorities were circling the quad on golf carts closing down parties before they even started, at which point students dejectedly returned to their respective rooms. This year convocation parties were outright banned in the Friedmans, with no option to have one “legally.”
Alumni we talked to assured us that this isn’t the way it used to be, and the Smith archives backed this up. Although up until the ‘60s house mothers and chaperones kept strict hours for Smithies, this didn’t keep students from partying. When the Charleston craze swept America, house mothers complained to President Neilson that the plaster ceilings were falling down from all the shaking. The Charleston became prohibited above ground floor. Life Magazine wrote, “Because Smith College girls are unusually smart as well as unusually attractive, and because their hospitality is rightly famous, Smith proms are generally ranked top by most Eastern college men.” And that for the 1933 annual Supper Dance – an event where every house would hold their own dance, open to the entire college – “went 1,081 male guests, the majority of them from Yale and Dartmouth” who “cavorted with 1,312 Smith belles.”
House mixers in the 1960s were held so frequently and were so popular that they were the subject of many a distressed memo in the administration. For example, in 1961, it was discovered that one night, a blanket invitation had been sent to all of Brown. “Traffic was so heavy on Paradise Road that one-way traffic was established. Even so, two of our Watchmen barely escaped being run over by speeding cars and it is the feeling of our own that some of this recklessness was deliberate.” In another such mixer the same year, “At 11:20 p.m a student in Hubburd [sic] House reported boys throwing outside furniture about and uprooting bushes. Sunday 4:15 a.m. Mrs Elllis reported a car being driven around the President’s front yard. There was evidence of drinking having been done by the many number of beer cans and bottles gathered up around on the campus grounds.”
Over reunion this year, one alum recalled that the newfound liberalism of the late 1960s caused a shift in the social scene. She noted that strict policies for Smith students were all but eradicated, and the parties seemed to get even wilder.
Some ‘90s alumni, reminiscing about their antics, even recalled the Talbot porch collapsing at the long-standing Immortality party one year. There was no shortage of attic parties, huge keggers, and above all, a deeply felt sense of camaraderie and nostalgia ebbing from these memories that gelled classes together. Wild and indulgent stories from alums abound, which begs the question: what happened?
One can only speculate what forces, exactly, obliterated Smith’s party culture, but it’s obvious that between 2011 and 2016 parties dried up on campus. One alum noted that Residence Life was pushing an agenda to cut back on parties due to issues of accessibility for Ada Comstock scholars: because they couldn’t regularly access traditional Smith student housing, it was unfair for house parties to be the center of party life on the grounds of exclusivity, she guessed.
When we spoke with campus police about why the rare parties that do get thrown today are shut down, they said that they try not to interfere with the party scene unless they receive a noise complaint. Even after receiving a complaint, so long as the party seems safe, they give a warning for noise levels, and only return to shut the party down if they receive another complaint. So we may also have a culture among students of legitimately not enjoying the party scene, or at least of students that are more likely to file a complaint against their neighbors. Today’s Smith students may be more likely to file a complaint against their neighbors or, on the flipside more worried about campo showing up about a noise complaint – or maybe Smithies don’t like partying that much anymore.
Still, we do not want to nostalgize these parties too much. There was undoubtedly classist peer pressure and housekeeper and custodian jobs were likely made infinitely harder, as evidenced by alumni recounting how sinks were ripped out, and water got everywhere. That being said, parties do help students de-stress and build community. It is also safer for Smithies to party in their own space, where they have control over guests and the area. Current Smithies deserve a time and place to join in on a true Smith tradition – throwing an absolute rager.
