© 1997 Lawrence University Press
The Role of Milwaukee-Downer Traditions
Tradition served several purposes at Milwaukee-Downer. It functioned to foster cohesiveness within the student body, since all Milwaukee-Downer students were heir to a common body of ritual that had developed gradually at the school. It also served to foster loyalty within each class, as many of the events were the particular province of either the freshmen, the sophomores, the juniors, or the seniors. And it further provided a way in which individual students could mark their own progress through the four-year college experience, since the traditions described a cycle that was renewed with the entrance of each new freshman class and culminated in the annual graduation of the seniors.
Traditions, then, might involve the entire student body, or they might call for the participation of one or more of the individual classes. Outstanding in the former category was Miss Brown's annual Christmas play, which will be described in some detail later. Another, also in this category, was the Washington's Birthday Cotillion, originally a Downer College tradition that was continued after the schools merged. The Student Handbook of 1915 described it in this way:
In the morning of Washington's birthday there is always a "shirt-waist" cotillion, when every girl dresses in white and those acting as men wear a black band around their arms. There are all sorts of charming figures [a "stately" Minuet chief among them] and some of the prettiest little favors you ever did see. That night each hall has a banquet, when patriotic songs are sung and some program is given.
Dining room entertainments involving all students were also traditionally carried on at Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day, and St. Patrick's Day. Although entertainment was generally part of traditional events at the college, it was by no means always the central goal. The entire school participated annually, for example, in a project known as the "Missionary Fair." This evolved out of the connection that had existed between old Downer College and Congregationalist and Presbyterian missionary interests and became an effort by students to raise funds to support missionary work in China. This effort, like the Christmas play and the Washington's Birthday Cotillion, was co-operative in nature; although each of the classes set up its own booth and sold the handcrafts that its own members had made, there was no air of rivalry about it but rather a camaraderie produced by working for a common cause.
More numerous than the traditions at Milwaukee-Downer involving the entire student body, however, were the traditions that invited the participation of a particular class or classes. There were, for example, events at the opening of the school year, in September and early October, that were directed toward initiating freshmen into the College community. On the first Friday of the college year, a reception was held by the YWCA (the most active student group on campus) with the specific purpose of having the "new girls" and "old girls" meet. It was customary, as well, for classes to be paired such that "the juniors champion the freshmen, while the sophomores look for advice and aid in class difficulties to the seniors." The first freshman class meeting was in fact traditionally called by the president of the junior class, and this facilitated the subsequent election of freshman class officers.
The most significant aspect of this occasion, however, was the ritual in which the freshmen were presented with "their" color by a representative of the preceding year's seniors, whose color it had been. Possession of a color -- which could have been yellow, green, lavender, or red -- gave the freshmen membership in the college community and proceeded to serve as a symbol of class solidarity for them during the entire period of their life at Milwaukee-Downer. The importance of the class color was reflected in the ceremony with which it was bestowed:
The classes started around the horseshoe [circular driveway in front of Holton, Merrill, and Johnston Halls] at 4:30 promptly, led by a trumpeter and singing the "Colors Day March". . . . The freshmen. . . were [clad] in white. Each of the presidents of the senior, junior, and sophomore classes welcomed the freshmen, and each class sang its class song. The juniors presented a red rose to the [incoming] Class of 1926, for them to have as their symbol. Sara Pratt, 1922 [a graduate of the previous June], presented the red of her class to the new class. . . . Following [the singing of other songs and more words of welcome], the Alma Mater was sung, and the procession again wound its way around the horseshoe, but this time every girl had a color.
Once the freshmen acquired membership in the college community, they could proceed to establish their unique "personality" as a class. To this end, during the second decade in the life of Milwaukee-Downer, Freshman Rally was conceived and instituted, the feeling being that this would give freshmen a distinctive means of self-expression.
Freshman Rally called upon all the freshmen to participate in compilation and oral presentation of the best written work they had produced during freshman year. A literary motif was to be dominant, the programs for the event taking the form of a current periodical, and allowing latitude to incorporate the class's color, or any other identifying traits, in the title. Thus, in the spring of 1912, the freshmen (Class of 1915) initiated what was hoped would become a Milwaukee-Downer tradition:
. . . the Class of 1915. . . selected as the name of its periodical, The Freshman Evergreen, a title suggested by the time-honored color of the class. It prepared for so-called publication a great body of material gleaned exclusively from assignments made in English class. These were revised, rehearsed, and ultimately presented by their authors, who were appropriately introduced by the chairman of the freshman committee, otherwise designated editor-in-chief. The Rally was pronounced a success, justifying not only its existence but also its continuance in years to come.
Freshman Rally, a Milwaukee-Downer rite of spring, marked the fact that the freshman class had come a long way. Having begun the year literally without "color," they were able to end it with the assertion of their own distinctiveness, assuring themselves and those around them of their competence to assume the role of sophomores.
Both the ability of freshmen to undertake the responsibilities of sophomores, as well as the strength of their solidarity as a class, were put to the test in the Hat Hunt, probably Milwaukee-Downer's most outstanding and well-known ritual. As in the case of acquiring the class color, introduction to the ritual of the Hat came very early in freshman year, at the First Hat Banquet, always on the third Friday after the opening of college. Freshmen learned that Hat Hunt was an event in which only freshmen and sophomores participated; it was, indeed, a contest between them. Hat Hunt challenged sophomores to hide the Hat so ingeniously that the freshmen would be unable to find it and mandated that sophomores tender the freshmen a Second Hat Banquet if the latter achieved success in finding the Hat during the four-week period prior to the 29th of May. For freshmen, Hat Hunt was really a year-long ritual, in which the First Hat Banquet served as the setting for rites of initiation into the college community. The college yearbook for 1912 made it sound like the sort of ritual that precedes acceptance into a sorority:
This banquet is the initiation of the freshmen into the mysteries of the Hat, by the upperclassmen. The freshmen were dressed in ridiculous costumes, as demanded by the sophomores. . . . They carried a towel and large safety pin with which they were blindfolded and carefully led about by the sophomores. . . . They took the vow of "Loyalty to the Hat and its Traditions" in the privacy of a senior's room. Then came the banquet. . . . The legend of the Hat and the rules regarding the hunting of it, were read by the president of the senior class, and the banquet ended with a "Cheer to our Alma Mater."
The legend of the Hat explained what Hat Hunt was all about. It seems that in the days of the old Downer College, even before Ellen Sabin, students borrowed the silk topper of Methodist Parson Ames for use in a play and, despite frantic search, could not find it so it could be returned to him afterwards.
Wherever the original "beaver" was hidden, it did not turn up until after its owner had been placated by the gift of a new one, and then he bequeathed the old one to the seniors of the college. Apparently for some years all classes competed for its possession and it did not evolve into a sophomore-freshman contest until the move to Milwaukee. Hunting. . . [was] confined to the outdoors, since that historic day when Miss Sabin's voice interrupted an excavation project with the stern command, "Girls, this must stop! You are undermining the foundations of your college!"
Indeed, elaborate rules governing Hat Hunt evolved over time, specifying permissible hiding places and hunting hours. The Hunt itself marked the culmination of freshman year; the Second Hat Banquet became the setting in which freshmen received confirmation that they had "passed the test" and were now entitled to claim the exalted status of sophomore. As freshman year drew to a close, the most celebrated individuals on campus were the person who had found the Hat, designated the First Hat Girl; the president of the freshman class, who was Second Hat Girl; and a Third Hat Girl, chosen by the other two as having been the most diligent hunter. It was these three who, just three days after the Second Hat Banquet, were responsible for hiding the hat again, so that the whole process could be reenacted by the next year's incoming freshmen.
Interclass competition was not limited to freshmen and sophomores at Milwaukee-Downer. Crew races, early established at the college as a tradition of late May, saw all classes vying against each other for primacy in rowing. The Annual Regatta on the Milwaukee River was an event that raised class spirit to fever pitch:
The coxswain's call echoing across the water, rowers straining at their oars in slim racing boats, the judges' launch chugging along the course, spectators on the riverbank cheering and screaming as the crews near the finish line, and finally the thrust of a flag high into the air as the judges of the finish indicate the winner -- all combine to make the Milwaukee-Downer Regatta a memorable occasion. The crowd rushes to the dock to witness the triumphant landing of the winning crew. Cameras are poised to click as the coxswain is tossed into the river, while classmates cheer themselves hoarse.
The Regatta, then, provided a climax to interclass athletic competition at Milwaukee-Downer. It also, like many of the traditional events of May, marked closure for each class, for anything in which they would henceforward become engaged would be approached from a different place within the college status hierarchy.
Apart from the Regatta, the end of the school year was marked by several occasions that highlighted the passage of the individual classes to a new status. Just as freshmen had to demonstrate their competence to be sophomores by successfully hunting the Hat in late May, so the sophomores had to demonstrate that they had what it took to move into the upper echelons of the hierarchy. Their opportunity to do this also came in the month of May each year, when they presented an original production, known as the May Play, to the entire student body in an outdoor "theatre" on campus. A picture of solemn ritual is conjured in this student's description:
The procession, consisting of all the sophomore class, in white dresses, formed between the infirmary and McLaren [a dormitory], with the trumpeter at the head, next a violinist, behind her Robin Hood, followed by four girls dressed as his men. Then came two little girls as pages, and a jester, and then the rest of the class, two by two. When the audience had gathered, the trumpeter gave a bugle call and then played "Blow Trumpet," leading the procession singing, down into the theatre.
The May Play was not really a play at all; it was a ceremony in which the crowning of the May Queen was enacted. Characters like Robin Hood and his men always appeared, and though their role was usually to escort the May Queen to her throne, there was no story provided telling how they came to do this. The May Play was essentially a vehicle that was used by the sophomores to display their ingenuity at making costumes and out-of-door sets, to demonstrate their good choice and rendition of appropriate music, and to perform the ever-popular May Pole Dance. This presentation in a sense symbolized sophomore competence; it verified their fitness to undertake the increased social and academic responsibilities of juniors.
There was no such ceremony to mark the passage of juniors to senior status. Instead, the juniors functioned throughout the year as guardians of the freshmen, and at year's end as catalysts in the process of ushering the seniors out of college and into the wide world outside. Events that were part of this latter process included an annual luncheon and day-trip that the juniors gave for the seniors, essentially to bid them farewell. Juniors also traditionally escorted the seniors to Hawthornden, a spot on campus used for outdoor classes during the year, for the annual senior Class Day program, ". . . an organized presentation of the character and philosophy of the class, as it had been moulded by four years on the campus. . . ."
Typically, the talks that the seniors gave on this occasion recounted their life at Milwaukee-Downer, speculated about what the future held in store for them, bequeathed some sort of gift to the college, and frequently tendered some parting advice to the juniors now about to enter their own graduation year. It is significant that on this occasion the juniors were clad entirely in white, reminiscent of when they were freshmen about to receive their initial college identity (i.e., their color) on Colors Day and now about to assume their final college identity as seniors.
As the school year drew to a close, the focus of the seniors was increasingly upon leavetaking. They had observed all the rituals that the four years at college had required of them and now engaged in those that would bring their experience at Milwaukee-Downer to a close. These closing rituals began with Class Day in May, described earlier, followed, over a period of several days in mid-June, by activities and events associated with the official Commencement.
Having just imparted advice to the juniors at Class Day in May, the seniors now found themselves the recipients of "advice," as various college and outside dignitaries elaborated what would now be expected of them as women college graduates. All that would now remain for the seniors to do, in terms of completing the cycle of Milwaukee-Downer traditions, would be to bestow their color upon the new freshmen who would enter the college the following September.
Traditions, then, described a cycle that enabled students to mark their progress through college. Some were annual events involving the entire student body, like the Christmas Play, Washington's Birthday Cotillion, Missionary Fair, and several holiday celebrations. Some required the participation of one or more individual classes and often signified a change in the classes' status. Thus, freshmen were the particular focus of traditions that contained initiation rituals, like the YWCA reception, the First Hat Banquet, and Colors Day. Having thereby acquired legitimate identity as freshmen, they were then expected to demonstrate the unique personality of their class at Freshman Rally and later to prove their competence to be sophomores by successfully hunting the Hat. The demonstration of competence, however, was not unique to freshman traditions; it was also the motive behind the traditional sophomore May Play, as well as behind the role the juniors played as guardians of the freshmen and supporters of the outgoing seniors. Finally, some of the traditions marked culminating points in either the history of the college or the history of one or more of the individual classes. The Annual Regatta, in which all classes participated, called for a show of class solidarity as it drew the college's athletic season to a close. And, for the seniors, Class Day and Commencement were traditions through which they could take final leave of their college days.
The Teachers: Women Without Men
