It may be hard for students today to fathom a holiday weekend without female Dartmouth students both attending and hosting festivities, but in Green Key's early years the presence of women was limited to those bussed to campus from neighboring colleges for short visits. The role of women, who competed in pageants and attended balls in past Green Keys, transformed with the advent of coeducation in 1972.
Although in the '20s and '30s the tea parties, pageants and promenades attended by eager dates were more formal affairs than the Green Key festivities of today, even then the weekend was filled with female participation in musical performances and carousing.
By 1935, 700 to 800 women from nearby colleges such as Smith, Wellesley, Vassar and Mount Holyoke attended the weekend festivities at the invitation of the Dartmouth men, according to several local newspapers.
Up to 1,200 women were invited to Dartmouth for each Green Key by the 1950s. Both local and regional newspapers, as well as The Dartmouth, printed the names and hometowns of all of the men's dates, organized by fraternity.
The weekend, which elicited excitement among college women from a multitude of eastern schools, featured back-to-back fraternity parties, a junior promenade and various sporting events.
"There is nothing like a weekend in Hanover to boost a girl's morale," a 1942 Boston Herald article reported.
Women who attended the Green Key festivities in the 1960s also competed in the Miss Green Key Sweetheart and Miss Bike pageants.
Jerome Herlihy '63 remarked on the large number of "Dartmouth imports" over Green Key weekend, describing the women as "young Bermuda-wearing collegiate misses" in a 1960 issue of The Dartmouth.
That year, Judy Pringle, a legal secretary and the date of Theta Delta Chi fraternity member William Miller '61, was crowned Miss Green Key Sweetheart in a contest that was judged by a panel of Dartmouth faculty and WDCR staff.
The Miss Bike title that same year went to Linda Clark, who was nicknamed the "sumptuous Skidmore sophomore from Seattle." Although Clark had reservations about competing in the pageant at first, she was convinced by friends who assured her they had "no doubt about her appearance in a swimsuit," The Dartmouth reported in 1960.
In the late 1960s, Betsy Heitz then a student at Colby Junior College crammed into her roommate's five-person car with six other women to drive the half hour from New London, N.H. to Dartmouth for a weekend of fun, she said.
"I wasn't husband-hunting or anything," Heitz said. "I was just having a good time."
Some of the visiting women felt the "guys were a bunch of drunks" and were "grossed out by the drinking, parties and frats in general," Heitz said, adding that she felt comfortable and was well-treated by the Dartmouth men. Heitz said that she often played pranks on fraternity brothers when she visited the College.
One of the male dormitories was temporarily converted into a residence for visiting women during Green Key, according to Charles Monagan '72, a member of the last all-male graduating class.
The social progressiveness of the 1970s led to a relaxing of College rules governing dormitory visits by members of the opposite sex, Monagan said.
Before the '70s, College rules regarding female visits to male dormitories were fairly strict, although by the end of his freshman year there "were no rules of any kind," he said.
"I started school in one era, and finished that year in another," he said. "That tells you about how social change changed just in that one year, from something very strict and standardized into something that was very new and exciting for us, and almost impossible to police by the College."
Female participation in Green Key celebrations underwent another transition when the College became coeducational in 1972. Newly-enrolled women sought to engage themselves completely in the activities of the weekend, despite the fact that some men were unhappy that women were admitted to the College, according to Deborah West '76.
Women enrolled at the College received unique treatment from the Dartmouth men, who were unaccustomed to "dealing with women on a daily basis," according to West.
"Most of us were there for education, not to be their girlfriends," West said. "They didn't know how to treat us, but they [were] used to having girls bussed in for the weekend and then they didn't have to deal with them [after the weekend]."
The buses that brought women from other colleges to Dartmouth for Green Key were known as "cattle buses," West said.
Despite the fact that females were "totally outnumbered" at the College, women were quick to embrace Dartmouth traditions.
"I was very good at [pong]," West said. "I think I was one of the best females on campus."
Women also became more involved in student groups that performed during Green Key.
"The Aires would sing on the steps of Dartmouth Hall [during Green Key], and they were the only available a capella group a very good, all-male a capella group at that time," she said.
By the time West was a senior, a newly-formed female a capella group the Distractions began performing during Green Key as well.
The group chose its name because "that was what [women] were called at the time," West said.
Staff writer Eliza Relman contributed to the reporting of this article.
