Although Winter Carnival experienced numerous transformations throughout its 85 year history, the advent of coeducation made a significant impact on the tradition.
Co-education shifted the emphasis of Winter Carnival from the one weekend in the term where men could look forward to finding a date on campus to a collective experience for both men and women.
Prior to 1972, the year the College implemented coeducation, trainloads of girlfriends and blind dates arrived in Hanover for Carnival to participate in the weekend festivities.
The women competed for the position of the annual Carnival Queen, starting in 1923, when Ms. Mary Warren became the first Carnival Queen. Most queens chosen prior to co-education were dates of the students and came from their hometowns or nearby colleges.
Among students, it was considered a "joke" to be the date of the Carnival Queen, since the Queen would be too preoccupied with Carnival activities to give much attention to other matters.
The tradition of the Carnival Queen peaked in the 1950s, and slowly waned in the 1960s and 1970s, as the momentum for co-education mounted.
After the advent of coeducation, few women entered the competition. In 1975, only five women participated in the event, compared to dozens in the decades before. Shortly afterward, the pageant no longer occupied a place in the schedule of events for the weekend.
In interviews with The Dartmouth last year, several administrators expressed their ideas on the impact coeducation brought to Winter Carnival.
"Coeducation changed Carnival because Carnival was the time where lots of women came to campus," said Dean of Residential Life Mary Turco.
Dean of the College Lee Pelton said, "It seems to me that student interest in Winter Carnival today seems to be less than it was 10 or 15 years ago."
But although the focus has changed, students are still interested in Winter Carnival, said Programming Coordinator Linda Kennedy.
"We've tried to expand Carnival so that if you don't like the cold, you can still have a good time. As diversity has increased at the College, we've tried to make Carnival grow along with it." she said.
