University of Virginia Library

The 'Absorbing' Wahoo Spirit Never Changes

By DARLENE SPRINKLE

Moral standards, dress, and
customs have changed drastically in
the past 100 years, but the nature of
the University student remains the
same: liquor, women, and sports
continue to be the popular subjects
they were in the 1890's. Today's
student's hair is a little longer, he does
not usually wear a suit, and often he's
even female.

But nothing has really changed the
rowdy, comic, and critical student of
the past; he simply expresses himself
differently. The proof is in the print,
beginning with the first College Topics
of the 1890's and continuing through
The Cavalier Daily of modern times.

The standing reputation of the
University as a "drinking school" had
already been established as early as
May, 1890, when the Topics' editorial
page observed: "These men seem to
desire to obtain the reputation of
being fast, of drinking, or gambling, or
breaking college regulations, or of
anything else which they think will
make them appear horrid, wicked
creatures and cause the girls to scold
them...."

Or, as an 1898 editorial
recommended: "Every Saturday night
towards the hour of 12 a small band
of students parades the Lawn and
Ranges singing the tiresome song of
Jesse James, disturbing those who are
trying to rest..... Let them leave
college every Saturday afternoon and
go about ten miles down the railroad
track, and there sing until they are
hoarse...."

At the time, the German Club
sponsored most of the dances,
consequently referred to as Germans.
(The German and PK Club later
merged to form today's PK German.)
Mssrs. Thornton, Tuttle, Fitzhugh and
Dabney appeared regularly in the
newspaper, whereas today they simply
name buildings around the
Grounds.

"These Men Seem To Desire The Reputation Of Being Fast"

It was also the time of the Spanish
American War, when these editorial
sentiments foreshadowed today's
anti-draft arguments:

"...Not a single speaker failed to
commend the students for the
generous enthusiasm evoked by their
sympathy with the struggling
Cubans.... The question is: Can we
serve our country better by offering
our raw, untrained services as soldiers
when we are not needed, or by
remaining at college and completing
our studies?"

Women were not always spoken
of favorably. The following
appeared in an 1895 editorial when
women were petitioning the Virginia
Legislature to coeducate the
University.

"The gods forbid that we shall be
here to see the day when feminine
hands shall hurl bottles at the electric
lights," (a popular sport of the times),
"or direct hostile bullets at the clock,"
(another sport – and the reason the
Rotunda's clock is now covered with a
bullet-proof face), "...We would find
ourselves elbowed and overawed by
the angular, acrimonious, spectacled,
meal bag variety of female, whose
only ideas are the higher education of
women." One can guess the kind of
"ideas" they wanted their women to
have.

In addition to shooting at the
clock and hurling bottles at the white
globes of streetlights, the 1890's
student uncovered activities equally
annoying to their peers:

"In a point of fact there are some
sections of college, especially Monroe
Hill and the West Range, in which a
man can hardly study in his own
room. This is owing to the fact that
many men are inconsiderate of the
habit of playing baseball in front of
their neighbor's doors, and at the same
time hollering in a loud tone...Of
course, a gentleman is too polite to
complain of such a thing..." This
brings to mind the rough-and-tumble
football games today in front of
Humphreys on warm days.

Football in the "Gay Nineties,"
too, was just as popular as it is today.
Thanksgiving was described as being
"the culmination of the whole
football season; it is that toward
which Virginia works all during the
fall; furthermore, it is the game that
decides the Southern Championship.
Carolina and Virginia usually meet
each other in Richmond on
Thanksgiving Day with an unbroken
record of victories against Southern
teams..." And the May 20, 1893 issue
announced, "The University of
Virginia now holds the proud title in
football and baseball..."

The "Roaring Twenties" brought
an end to humorous editorials, the
space being filled by an
overabundance of sports and news of
other Ivy League counterparts. The
first photographs ever to appear in the
paper were of star athletes. Movies
were 10, 15, and 20 cents, and Dr.
Edwin A. Alderman was President of
the University. New inventions
showed themselves in the ads, such as
ancient-looking typewriters, fountain
pens, and raccoon coats.

Smooth Era

Men's hair was supposed to be
"fashionably smooth" during this era.
The following appeared with a
drawing of a '20's couple: "He's
making a tremendous hit She has just
told him that he has hair like Rudy
Valentino's. But he doesn't know
whether to pretend that it came that
way or confess that he did it with his
little bottle of 'Vaseline' Hair Tonic."

Although everyone probably
blames today's housing shortage on
the recent expansion of the
University, housing has been a
source of grievance since 1924, and
possibly earlier. An editorial around
this time read: "A survey of the
present building situation at Virginia
has brought to light the crying need
for new and better student
dormitories. The present rooms on the
Lawn and Range, rich in tradition, but
poor in modern conveniences, are
always greatly in demand and only
about 16% of the student body can be
taken care of on the campus proper.

"An investigation has disclosed the
fact that the state legislature hesitates
to spend money to further the
rooming facilities, fearing that the idea
of rooming in dormitories will not be
readily accepted by the students."

The Grounds were an object of
concern then as they are today. As a
1924 editorial noted, "No one needs
his attention called to the deplorable
way the grass on the Lawn and other
parts of the campus looks. It has
finally become necessary for Dr.
Lambert, who is chairman of the
Committee of University Grounds, to
complain to this paper concerning the
indifference students have shown this
year in regard to keeping the campus
in a sightly condition.

"The appearance of the Lawn is a
thing that every student of Virginia has
always taken personal pride in
maintaining. Walking across the grass
has been an unheard-of habit at the
University."

Frizzy Hair And Bobby Sox

By 1940, the newspapers looked
like the old war movies of the same
decade; sweater girls with frizzy hair
and bobby sox were a regular pictorial
feature, notices were posted about the
rationing of fountain pens due to the
metal shortage of the War, and the old
newsreel headlines were often on the
front page.

When FDR died, Easters Weekend
was canceled: Fraternities were having
their heyday at the time, contributing
a major portion to the front page.
Rushing was not much different than

it is today, as the succeeding, "First
Year Fantasy", proves:

The University was still far from
having adjusted to its co-eds in the
40's. This emotional letter to the
editor says more than any description
could:

"Twenty years from now I shall
remember the U. of Va. as very
beautiful. I shall remember the first
thrill of seeing and feeling the
serpentine walls, of seeing the rumpy
Rotunda, and the low quaint rooms
stretched out across the Lawn, and the
view of the Chapel through the
three-forked tree – I'll remember that
too.

"But deeper and more singingly I
shall remember the attitude of the
boys to a co-ed. It is not funny to be
ignored, snooted, and laughed at. It is
no pleasant feeling to be perpetually
surrounded by that atmosphere of
'we don't want you around.' It is
discouraging to feel you are not part
of the school or its spirits or its
traditions. It is disheartening to feel
you are committing an unpardonable
sin for attempting to get an education.
We realize you didn't ask us to come
here ....

"For years and years I have heard
of the glorious tradition of a
'gentleman' at the University of
Virginia. This is no gentleman I have
found here. This is a narrow-minded,
backward, and utterly detestable
egoist! This is assuredly a snob – in
the worst and most warped form."

Creating Disturbances

By 1957 students were still
drinking and creating disturbances as
they do today, to the irritation of
some, including a Princeton graduate
who sent in this letter to the editor.

"I found your editorial,
complaining of the unwillingness of
the administration to entrust the
control of student behavior to the
students, quite amusing. I found it
especially amusing last night, at about
11:30 p.m., when a group of
undergraduates armed with some sort
of primitive lighting equipment, a
large bass drum, and vast quantities of
some alcoholic beverage, (transported
for the most part inside their persons),
and making noises like Noah's Ark in a
thunderstorm, marched, (or possibly
staggered), past my window....

"Nowhere else, have I seen a
student body as ready to absorb

alcohol at the slightest provocation or
as easily influenced by it. ...Are
students who decide, at four o'clock
in the morning, that the best way to
combat their frustrations is to steal
garbage can covers and go about
clanging them like cymbals entitled to
self government?"

High Alcoholic Consumption

In answer, another student replied,
"I have become increasingly disturbed
lately over the abundance of criticism
of the high alcoholic consumption
here at the University of Virginia." He
went on to propose a campaign to
inform the public that drinking was
not bad:

"In this campaign, our most
erudite professors, our most eminent
administrators and our most successful
athletes will endorse drinking. For
example, one of the venerable
scientists on our faculty can pose in
front of the Rotunda with a highball
to illustrate a 'Lord Calvert'
advertisement.

"Under my plan, we shall
inaugurate a widely publicized course
to teach the art of mixing drinks, and
we shall have gleaming, well-stocked
bars installed in the dormitory rooms,
class rooms, and Chapel. We shall send
colored photographs of these bars to
the leading national magazines as
proof to the public that we are
interested in the happiness and welfare
of our students..."

Perhaps the worst driver in history
was alive and driving around the
University in 1957. The following
news article appeared on the front
page of the Cavalier Daily: "Visiting
Professor of Law Edwin W. Patterson
may be pardoned if he is seen around
the Grounds making stump speeches
for better parking facilities at the
University.

"Yesterday afternoon, Paterson,
maneuvering his automobile in the
crowded Law School parking lot,
collided with five cars, causing
extensive damage. Accidentally
accelerating backwards too rapidly, he
hit two cars behind him. Upon coming
forward again, he scraped a car beside
the parking space he was trying to
enter, rolled down a 25 foot
embankment, and collided with two
other cars at the bottom." It sounds
as if it wasn't just the students who
where doing the drinking.

The Corner also made news in
1957 editorials, though as we can see
today it never accomplished anything:
"We hope that the other merchants at
the Corner will soon take steps to
remove the incongruously loud and
blatant orange sign which presently
adorns the front of Lloyd's Rexall
Drug Store. It is a definite eyesore,
and is decidedly not in keeping with
the other places of business at the
Corner."

Conservatism in the fifties was
widespread in America, and the
University of Virginia was no
exception. But it is hard for us today
to imagine the prudishness of the
fifties, and the following editorial
demonstrates how ridiculously