Word: sociale
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...monosexuality of life amidst the monuments of New Haven during the week may be an overemphasis, yet an Eli's social life is geared for the weekend, much in the same manner as that of a girl at an isolated women's college. For on weekends the campus is indundated with females from Vassar, Connecticut, Smith, and other foreign territories...
These are the two distinct worlds of which Harvard's Final Clubs find themselves a part. One is the world of Society, whose population is found largely on the pages of East Coast Social Registers and whose habitat lies far beyond the borders of Cambridge 38. Here Harvard is often equated with the Clubs, and a father tends to measure his son's college success not by the rank of his degree, but by the prominence of the Club he makes...
There are 11 Final Clubs, so called because once an undergraduate joins one he cannot join any other. The Porcellian and the A.D, the oldest and socially most prominent, perch unobtrusively above shops (J. August and Briggs & Briggs) along Mass. Avenue. In the rather vague hierarchy of social desirability, the next group includes (alphabetically arranged) the Delphic, better known as "the Gas" (on Linden St. opposite the University Squash Courts), the Fly (on Holyoke Place in front of Lowell House), the Owl (Holyoke St. diagonally across from the I.A.B.), and the Spee (corner of Mt. Auburn and Holyoke Sts.). Then...
During these affairs the host members will be carefully on the lookout for the punchee's social grace, his dexterity with a fingerbowl, his conversational adroitness. Both pomposity and too much reticence score bad marks; general friendliness and sophistication are the qualities looked for. These punching dnnners, despite the emphasis on gracious living, are often conducted with a certain flamboyant gracelessness. Several nearby country clubs, whose premises have been rented for large Club dinners, have furiously prohibited the Club from ever returning, so vast was the damage in shattered glass and splintered wood. And returning from one of these extravaganzas...
...first time, are made to undergo initiating rituals of varying degrees of pomp, ceremony, and drunkenness, and are given the symbolic Club ties and front door keys. On most occasions, initiation nights turn ultimately into alcoholic brawls, and the University Police place them high on their winter social calendar. The Cambridge Fire Department also is usually summoned to provide entertainment for this event. Hook and ladder teams descend noisily on the Fly Club in response to false alarms turned in from the box on the Fly's wall by gleeful members of rival clubs...