04/08/2006 May Day - Research (Part 2)

Yale Junior Promenade Committee 1936


“Yes, I went up with him twice --to the Pump and Slipper and the Junior prom” (page 88).

The ever helpful Manuscripts and Archives department at Yale informed me that there is no record of any “Pump and Slipper” dance (page 88), however there was a Junior Prom that was held at Yale until February of this year. The Junior Prom, called so because the Junior class was in charge of putting on the event, was a three-day event held once a year. By 1893 the faculty, worried that their students may not be studying enough moved the event from mid-February to within two weeks of the beginning of Spring term.

“Students spent so much money on the Prom that they eventually demanded reform. It was customary for the young Yale man to pay for his date and her chaperone's traveling expenses and hotel fees. The committee worked yearly to reduce students' expenses, at one point passing a resolution that men should send no flowers to their dates” (Hsu, ‘Girls’ on Campus Once a Year).


Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “May Day”. Tales of the Jazz Age. First Pine Street Books: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2003.
Hsu, William. “‘Girls’ on Campus Once a Year”. Yale Daily News. May 19, 2000.
“Winter Ball’s Demise Marks Cultural Shift.” Yale Daily News. February 17, 2006.
The picture is from, Yale University Manuscripts and Archives