Despite the fact that many current Dartmouth students perceive Green Key Weekend as not having the same historical significance as other big weekends, the springtime celebration has had a long and rich history since its inception in 1929.
During Green Key weekends past, students have danced at sedate formal dance functions, competed against brothers of other fraternities in singing contests, participated in human chariot races -- even participated in piano stomping contests.
The weekend's long and diverse history began in the spring of 1899, when members of the class of 1900 held the first Spring House-Parties weekend. This precursor to Green Key Weekend celebrated the arrival of spring after a particularly severe winter.
As the name indicates, many Greek organizations hosted parties over this weekend. A traditional prom was also held.
However, administrators cancelled the weekend in 1924, citing the rowdy behavior of students and their dates during the holiday weekend as a cause.
The weekend came into its current form, though, in 1929, when members of the recently founded Green Key Society hosted the first annual Green Key Ball.
The traditional Green Key Ball continued to be held until 1967, when administrators opted to permanently discontinue the dance after a student riot when segregationist George Wallace gave a speech in Hanover during Green Key weekend.
Student activists surrounded Wallace's car for five hours to prevent him from leaving campus.
Formal date functions remained popular Green Key events in the years before coeducation.
Busloads of women were "imported" from nearby women's colleges, such as Smith and Mount Holyoke, to keep men company during Homecoming, Winter Carnival and Green Key.
These young women generally stayed in their dates' fraternity house, while the brothers themselves found accommodations elsewhere.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the "outdoor sleep" became a popular Green Key custom.
Dartmouth students and their dates would bring blankets, pillows and mattresses to the Dartmouth golf course and spend the night beneath the stars.
However, the tradition abruptly died out in 1965 when a local parent complained to the College about his young sons' exposure to these couples' behavior.
In response, at dawn that morning, Dartmouth sent golf course groundskeepers armed with sprinklers to chase away anyone asleep on the lawn.
In addition to formal date functions, musical events also became popular traditions during Green Key weekends of old.
From 1899 through the 1970s, brothers of various fraternity houses competed against each other to harmonize to old tunes in a popular singing contest known as "Hums."
As part of a more eccentric musical competition, members of Chi Phi and Pi Lambda Phi vied to become the "champion piano smashing team" of Dartmouth College in the 1960s.
Many well-known bands from outside Hanover have also come to entertain during Green Key weekends, in both distant and recent years.
In 1938, Tommy Dorsey and Artie Shaw played swing tunes at Dartmouth, including a song titled "Green Key Jump" written especially for the occasion.
In more recent years, Alpha Delta fraternity has also hosted several well-known groups at its famed lawn parties, including Anthrax in 1982 and Blues Traveler in 1988.
Students have also entertained themselves at athletic competitions during Green Key weekends past and present.
For 30 years after the first Green Key Ball in 1929, students competed against each other in an annual bicycle marathon, which a contemporary issue of The Dartmouth referred to affectionately as "Dartmouth's answer to the Tour de France."
"Miss Bike," the winner of a beauty pageant conducted among dates of Tuck students, crowned the winner of the annual competition.
Members of the Tuck and Thayer Wives' Club would prepare refreshments to serve to the cyclists.
In 1966, students first participated in the first of several annual human chariot races during Green Key.
Teams of four students pulled "chariots" made of materials ranging from baskets to kegs, vehicles which rarely made it through the race. As pelting the chariots with eggs, flour, and fruit quickly became popular, administrators discontinued the races after 1984.
For several years in the 1980s, members of Greek houses competed against each other in the annual "Greek games", but the games waned in popularity so much that they were discontinued after the late 1980s.
Yet although it's specific highlights have changed slightly over time, Green Key weekend has held strong as a cherished tradition at Dartmouth for over a century.
