Cane Rush

Spectators Watching Cane Rush

Canes have a long and varied tradition at Dartmouth. During the 18th and 19th centuries freshmen were not allowed to carry canes. The carrying of canes was reserved for upper class students only, as it was a symbol of maturity, class and distinction.

Cane rush is one of a number of rushes that have come and gone in the history of the College. These rushes (different from rushing a fraternity) usually involved the physical removal or capture of some item or items. The competitions usually took place between the freshman and sophomore classes.

Members of the Class of 1886 following the
Cane Rush of 1883 against the Class of 1887

In 1868 the faculty abolished a long-standing tradition called football rush because they found it disruptive and destructive to both students and property. Its loss was much lamented by the students who felt the need for some physical outlet for energies that had been bottled up in the course of study. In the spring of 1869 they replaced the football rush with a new custom, cane rush.

For cane rush, freshmen would appear in a prominent place, often at chapel, carrying canes. The sophomores would then respond en masse trying to remove the canes from the freshmen. As with football rush, this was not a gentle competition and usually resulted in damage to property and persons. Cane rush was banned by the Faculty on several occasions, but this had little effect and the tradition appears to have carried on into the early-20th century.

A piece of a cane removed from a member of the Class of 1885

Ask for Rauner Photo File: Cane Rush, and Rauner Vertical File: Cane Rush

100 Years of Winter Carnival Posters

In celebration of 100 years of graphic design fun and folly, the Friends of the Dartmouth College Library and the University Press of New England are happy to announce the publication of Winter Carnival: A Century of Dartmouth Posters. The book features full-color plates of each of the Winter Carnival posters housed in the Rauner Special Collections Library and essays by Steven Heller, Gina Barreca '79, Jay Satterfield and Peter Carini.

An exhibit in Baker-Berry Library accompanies the publication. The text for the exhibit is taken directly from the book and the images are from Rauner Library's vast collection of photographs documenting the history of Dartmouth. The essays are both celebratory and critical of the posters and of the social milieu that created them. We could never hope to capture the full spirit and history of Winter Carnival in a single exhibit, so we have opted to try to illustrate the sentiments expressed in the book. While you are there, don't miss the 40 posters hanging down Berry Main Street by the circulation desk!

A Foley House New Year's Resolution

Aegis, 1971

In January 1971, Foley House, then a fraternity within Dartmouth's Greek system, published a resolution to cease to exist as a fraternity but remain a social organization on campus arguing: "the brothers and sisters of Foley House believe that the fraternities should not and can not play a significant role in Dartmouth College's future as a coeducational institution." It was not a surprising statement from the house that had been bucking the system for several years. Foley House was among the first of the Greek houses to break with their national chapters over race black balling and, in 1966, they dropped their Greek letters and renamed themselves in honor of History Professor and fraternity alumnus, Al Foley. In 1969 they went co-ed before the College by accepting two women as members during one of Dartmouth's co-education weeks--the women were students at Dartmouth, they reasoned.

Aegis, 1971

At the time of the "resolution," Pilobolus founding-member Robert "Moses" Pendleton, and future Congressman Paul Hodes were both members of the house. But, like so many New Year's resolutions, this one was short lived. Foley House remained in the Greek system for another 15 years. The organization still exists as an affinity house devoted to communal living.

Through the College Archives, you can piece together a rich history of many social organizations on campus. Perhaps you should resolve this year to visit Rauner and explore the history of a part of Dartmouth important to you.

Robert Frost's Christmas Cards

In his December 24, 1929, letter to Robert Frost, Joseph Blumenthal, head of the Spiral Press, writes that he and his wife feel privileged to have the pleasure of using Frost's poem "Christmas Trees" for their Christmas card that year.

Apparently Frost himself thought the idea a good one; in 1934, he and the Spiral Press began a formal collaboration on annual Christmas chapbooks, which was to last through Frost's final Christmas in 1962. Used by the Blumenthals and Frost, as well as collectors, friends and family, the cards were illustrated by a number of artists, including a favorite illustrator of Frost poems, J.J. Lankes.

Shown here is the cover of the 1941 card, with a Lankes print about to be used in the upcoming publication of A Witness Tree, in 1942. Frost inscribed this card to Dartmouth librarian Harold Goddard Rugg:

Picture of a Witness Tree
As in my book about to be;
Which see

1951 Christmas card inscription to Mrs. Eberhart, wife of poet Richard Eberhart

1942 card, with a hand-colored illustration by J. O’Hara Cosgrave

Come to Rauner to see the entire collection.

Winter; or, The Causes, Appearances, and Effects of the Great Seasonal Repose of Nature

Robert Mudie, born in Scotland in 1777, was a teacher, author, editor and illustrator, who wrote or compiled nearly 90 volumes in his lifetime. Among them is Winter…one of his 4-volume series on the seasons.

Of particular interest in this book, as well as several other of Mudie’s works on the natural world, is the frontispiece by George Baxter. Baxter, born in England in 1804, is credited with developing the first commercially viable system for producing color prints. His method combined intaglio and relief printing methods, starting with a key engraved metal plate and employing as many as 20 subsequent color blocks or plates. Using oil ink to print, allowing each color to dry before adding the next, and demanding perfect registration, Baxter’s intention was to create fine color prints at a price that would make artwork more commonly available.

Baxter patented the Baxter Process in 1835, and later sold licenses to other artists of the time. After Baxter’s death in 1867 the process fell out of use, with the introduction of faster, and cheaper, chromolithography.

Ask for Illus B334muw.

Pop-up Opera

Nobody would accuse Bartok of being "pop," and his Bluebeard's Castle is a notoriously difficult opera.  Filled with abstract language and minimal movement, the one-act opera challenged performers and their audiences. But, in 1972, book artist Ronald King produced a dark pop-up version that takes Bartok's work to a new level of abstraction.

Through a series of silk-screened pop-up openings, the book presents seven rooms that Bluebeard unlocks for his new wife.  Each room is progressively more surreal and sinister, exposing the inter-workings of Bluebeard's mind.

Come in and take the tour by requesting Presses C495kibl.

Happy Birthday to the Dartmouth Charter

In 1754, Eleazar Wheelock established a school for tutoring and training Indians in Lebanon Connecticut.  Wheelock’s school began modestly, but he soon realized that if it were to grow he would need to incorporate it, both so he could maintain control of the school, but also so that the school itself could hold real property.  This was the beginning of what would prove to be a long process to acquire a charter.

One of Wheelock’s star students was Samson Occom, a Mohegan Indian who became a well-known minister.  Occom’s success boosted Wheelock’s reputation and that of his school.  Soon several Colonies were courting Wheelock to locate his school in their province.  Despite his growing stature in the colonies, Wheelock tried three times to obtain a charter without success.  One stumbling block was that several of the Colonies (Connecticut and Massachusetts specifically) were incorporations in their own right, and under eighteenth-century English law, one incorporated body could not create another.  Another factor was the growing tension between the Colonies and the Crown, which made obtaining a royal charter in England almost impossible.

Undeterred, Wheelock continued his campaign and in 1767 he began to look for a way to obtain a charter within the colonies.  New Hampshire was an obvious place to seek such a solution, in part, because it was a Royal Colony and thus was not incorporated.  But also because the young Governor, John Wentworth, expressed a willingness to grant a charter, something not specifically in his power, but for which there was precedent.

Encouraged by Wentworth’s interest in the school, Wheelock drafted a charter based largely on that written by William Smith for New Jersey College (later Princeton University).  He, rather boldly, wrote in the title of the institution as college rather than academy.  He was also careful to place himself in a central position within the new institution, thus minimizing the oversight from his English trustees, some of whose religious leanings were unpalatable to him.  Wentworth appears to have been as anxious to bring the school to New Hampshire as Wheelock was to obtain a charter, because he made almost no changes, and the document was signed into law on December 13, 1769 very much as Wheelock had written it.

A transcription of the charter is available on our website. To learn more about the charter, ask for Jere Daniell's Eleazar Wheelock and the Dartmouth College Charter (Hanover: Dartmouth College, 1969), D.C. History LD1420.D3.