Once Upon A Time

A History of the Quad In 1895, life at the University was forever changed. The Quadrangle was built, providing University students with a common area to live, work and socialize. Before the Quad was constructed, most students lived either with their families or in rooming houses in the West Philadelphia area, according to Associate director of the University Archives Hamilton Elliot. Elliot said when the campus was located downtown in the 1760s, the University had some dormitories around 4th and Arch streets, but none were immediately built when the campus moved to its present site. As the 19th century progressed, though, Elliot said there began to be a "very strong plea to have dormitories on campus." And when the Quad was finally built and opened to students, he said, it was a great success. In 1897, the provost wrote in his annual report to the University Board of Trustees that the dorms began their second year of operation with a full number of tenants. Elliot added that the rooming houses located in West Philadelphia suffered from the popularity of the Quad. "[The rooming houses] took a big hit in business when the dorms opened," he said. But life in the Quad of yesteryear differed drastically from the ways in which today's Quad residents live. Move-in day meant more than bringing your stereo, computer, bicycle and other possessions that the first year student lugs with them to school in the 1990s. In the early part of the twentieth century, it was not uncommon for students to bring in baby grand pianos and entire sets of furniture. Students from wealthy families would completely refurnish their rooms. Some rooms even had open fireplaces. Mikel Huber, the executive secretary general of the Alumni Society, said the practice of completely remodeling a dorm room basically stopped after the Great Depression and World War II. "After World War II, people didn't bring furniture with them," he said. "You had a desk, chair and a bed. People didn't bother to bring in elaborate furnishings." Although students in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s may not have had rooms as lavish as their brethren in the earlier part of the century, these students still enjoyed a luxury many students today would love to have --cleaning ladies to pick up their rooms. Huber, a University alumnus, said when he lived in the Quad there were housekeeping services. "They were called the 'P' ladies," he said. "The 'P' was for Pennsylvania." The 'P' ladies cleaned individual student's rooms, hallways and the bathrooms, Huber said. He added that students generally treated these women nicely, inviting them to Mask and Wig shows and other student performances. While students living in the Quad may have had more comfortable surroundings in the first few decades of the twentieth century, they also had many more rules and regulations they had to abide by. The Parietal Committee was in charge of looking after the behavior of students living in dormitories. The Committee consisted of five people, four of them proctors who lived in the dormitories. For men, gambling, drinking and having women in a dorm room were all violations of University policies, which the Parietal Committee enforced. Huber said, although there were regulations about drinking, they were not observed much. The ban on women in rooms was strictly enforced, however. In 1917, the University Committee on Student Residences voted to not approve "houses offering accommodations to both sexes." "You could not have women in the dorms at all during the week," Huber said. "There were some hours on weekends but even then you had to keep your door open." Working in tandem with the Parietal Committee was the University's Housing Committee, a group that set the rules and regulations for not only the dormitories, but the fraternities and rooming houses as well. In 1931, the Housing Committee, in its report about student residences on and off-campus, had an entire section devoted to the issue of finding women in a room with a man. "If women are entertained without permission or proper chaperonage, the Committee assumes that they are there for no moral purposes and acts accordingly," the report read. Students who chose not to live in the Quad were restricted in where they could live. University policy dictated that students had to live with their families, or in a dormitory, fraternity or rooming house registered with the University. Students found in a non-registered house were required to leave within ten days. The Housing Committee sent proprietors of all rooming and boarding houses, hotels and apartments a letter asking them to register with the University. In the letter, there was a list of all University rules and regulations. Landlords were expected to make sure students followed these rules. In addition, rooming houses were inspected by the University's Housing Committee three or four times a year. As living on campus became more popular over the years, the Quad became the center for a University student's social life. "[The Quad] was sort of a crucible for University culture," Elliot said. Bonfires were commonly lit in the Quad, he added. And the Quad was generally the center for class fights and rivalries, specifically between freshmen and sophomores. "If you were a freshman and you lived on campus you lived in the Quad," Huber said. "I think this did a lot for class spirit." Huber said this class spirit manifested itself in the form of freshmen hazing that took place in the Quad. A group of sophomores known as the Vigilante Committee were in charge of enforcing freshman regulations early on in the semester. Freshmen were expected to always wear a black knit tie and a red and blue hat that resembled a skull cap to class. Huber said if the Vigilante Committee thought they saw someone who was a freshman not wearing the tie and cap then they would pull the student aside and ask for his ID card. Violators of the rule would be sent back to their room to get their tie and cap. However, Huber added that the freshmen regulations were really a hoax. The Vigilante Committee would not take any disciplinary action if students did not go back to their rooms. This tradition fell apart after World War II. Huber said with so many veterans of the war coming back and attending school, it was foolish to expect a war hero to wear a skull cap. "Are you going to tell a guy who fought his way through the battle of Guadalcanal that he has to go back to his room and get his tie?" he said. Much of the social life in the Quad centered on athletic competitions. Huber said students played a lot of touch football and other sports. "It was a male society in there," he said. Perhaps the most infamous of campus traditions originated in the Quad -- the Rowbottoms. The Rowbottoms grew out of an annual Crockery Break that occurred at the end of each school year. Students threw their wash bowls and pitchers out their windows, figuring the school year was almost over and assuming they would not need them at home. During one Crockery Break in 1910, legend has it that friends of University student Joseph T. Rowbottom called up to his room asking him to come out and party with them. Rowbottom, being a student in every sense of the word, ignored their cries and continued working. His friends persisted and began shouting "Yea, Rowbottom." Eventually the entire Quad joined in the chant. In subsequent years, "Yea, Rowbottom" came to symbolize the fun and social interaction that took place in the Quad. Following a cry of "Yea, Rowbottom," students would go out and wrestle with each other and engage in other athletic contests. But "Rowbottoms" did not always consist of good, clean fun. With greater frequency throughout the 1940s and 1950s Rowbottoms became more rowdy as students would leave their dorms and take to the streets. On May 3, 1956 the most violent Rowbottom occurred as 138 students were arrested for overturning cars and setting up barriers on Spruce and Locust streets. For the greater part of the early twentieth century the Quad was the source of campus life and the only choice for a student who wished to live on the University's campus to stay. "Nobody thought of it as desirable or undesirable back then," Huber said. "That's all there was." Today, students have a variety of choices for where they want to live. The Quad is no longer a student's only on-campus option. Still, many freshmen choose to live their first year at the University in the Quad, the one dormitory on campus steeped in almost a century of tradition.