A blustery snowstorm arrived in Northampton on the heels of Thanksgiving Break, covering the Smith campus in a blanket of white. The appearance of snow people on Chapin Lawn and the Grecourt Gates adorned with lights shows that Smith is getting into the spirit of the season. To find out what Smithies of the past did to celebrate this wonderful time of year, I took a dive into the Smith Archives. Some of the traditions we celebrate today — events like Winter Weekend and Vespers — have deep roots in Smith history, going back more than one hundred years.
Let’s begin with Christmas. “There are many heralds of the Christmas Season at Smith College,” boasts an article from Dec. 1929. Gauging from the article and photos I found in the archives, Smithies have always loved to sing. In addition to the annual Vespers performance, students used to mark the holiday season with a variety of different caroling sessions. The “Quad Christmas Sing” would take place the Sunday before the college closed for vacation, and consisted of the members of each house standing outside and singing back and forth across the Quad to each other. Each of the houses would be completely dark except for a single candle lit in each window. Another musical tradition involved the college song leader leading the student body around campus to serenade the President, the deans, and the warden in their residences. And if that weren’t already enough singing— on the first morning of winter break the freshman would wake up the seniors in their house by caroling loudly at 6:30 in the morning, marching up and down the stairs, closing down the house for their brief respite from classes.
What about house traditions? The annual Winter Weekend celebrations have been happening as far back as the early 1900s, and have used a variety of themes: for example, an article from 1932 describes Morris’ theme as “masquerade.” That same year Capen threw a formal dinner, Lawrence hosted a costume-chimney-sweep-street cleaner party, and Emerson hosted their traditional Old English party (which began in 1931 and consisted of court jesters, medieval monarchs, and a banquet table adorned with a boar’s head). They even sent out invitations inscribed in black letter on parchment to faculty members, urging them to attend in costume.
There has been a long standing tradition of gift-giving within the houses, too. According to a 1930 article, “each student is presented with a gift from the five-and-ten-cent stores…The gift is, in every case, accompanied by a “grind,” a short poem bringing out some assailable trait or characteristic of the person who receives it.”
Some houses had winter traditions that were created and maintained by a single dedicated individual. If you lived in Gillett House in 1929, for example, you would be visited by resident faculty member, Miss McElwain, who came every Sunday evening beginning in mid-November to read Charles Dickens to the residents of the house.
Smithies have a long tradition of enjoying outdoor winter activities as well. In the winter of 1891 a legendary snowball fight took place between the freshman and sophomore class, lovingly referred to in a caricature drawing of the event as “freshies” and “sophs.” The snowball fight was led by the two heads of the classes, Capt. Gain on the side of the freshies and Capt. Wilcox leading the sophs. The snowball fight went so far as to gain an audience with the New York Police Gazette — they described the Smithies as “pretty girl students.” Referring to the accompanying caricature featuring girls pelting each other with snowballs with unmatched intensity, “we were thrilled and shocked! Note the costumes of the young amazons.” Ultimately, the sophs beat out the freshies, and the battle was over.
Many Smithies of the past took to snow sculpting. Photographic evidence shows things like a horse made of snow with a sign that reads “Hopkins Horse” (presumably built outside of Hopkins House) from 1952, a high society snow lady who looked as if she could carry a parasol outside of Plymouth Hall in 1898, and finally, a massive kangaroo with a baby in its pouch in an undated picture. At the foot of the kangaroo giant kneels a girl holding an encyclopedia opened to the kangaroo entry to compare for reference, while another uses a saw to shape the kangaroo’s majestic back.
Other popular winter outdoor sports included snowshoeing, skiing, and sledding, but, naturally, the most entertaining pieces of Smith history come from rebellious students. In an article titled “They Hitch No More” from the Hampshire Gazette on Feb. 4 1897, Smith students were described as “hitching,” an activity that involved hitching a ride on strangers sleighs in downtown Northampton. Were this not scandalous enough, witnesses saw them “hitching” in skirts that did not fall past their knees! Though President Seelye adamantly condemned the behavior of the students, it is good to know Smithies have never been particularly taken with following the status quo.
As we enter December and battle through finals in order to get to our break, let’s take a moment to remember the generations of Smithies past that have enjoyed this very same campus and its winter wonderland — for the winters we spend here, we may remember forever. As Clara M. Greenough said, a witness to the great Snowball Fight of 1891, in a statement from 1959, “how those frozen snowballs hurt! I can feel them still, 68 years later.”
