The annual Winter Carnival weekend is packed full of traditions that go back nearly a century. One, however, has been out of fashion for the last 50 years: the crowning of a “Winter Carnival Queen.”
Prior to the College’s June 1969 unanimous vote to admit undergraduate women, male students at the College often sought romantic relationships with women from other nearby institutions, including Bennington, Smith, Skidmore, and Mount Holyoke. Record articles covered this phenomenon with headlines like “Freshmen Sample Fruits of College Womanhood.”
During the early days of Winter Carnival — when weekend festivities centered around ski meets and house parties — women flocked to campus and male students prepared to impress. “This week, books tossed aside, corduroys banished, hopeful mustaches assassinated, dress shirts swell the laundry bag to bursting, the tailors wax fat, and our mirrors receive many a stealthy glance; all this because fair femininity is once again amongst us,” the Record reported in 1905.
As the traditions of Winter Carnival solidified — many of which are analogous to those observed last weekend — students began to participate in unique festivities of the College’s all-male past: They attended the Carnival Dance held in the College gym and chose their Carnival Queen. At the Carnival Dance, visiting female guests entered a pageant-like competition on behalf of their escorts’ campus houses.
The Carnival Queen selection process developed over time. Chosen by a panel of five judges, the 1941 Carnival Queen Cynthia Burrage competed against a preliminary field of 207 other women for the title. After an initial judging round that narrowed the field to seven finalists based on their beauty and hobbies, Burrage and the six other contenders paraded through the gym during the dance. A Record article from 1941 names Burrage the first ever Winter Carnival Queen, though there is evidence that less formal versions of the process had taken place earlier.
Sometimes, the judges were members of the College administration. “A search for beauty among houseparty dates will be climaxed at the dance when Dean Robert R. R. Brooks chooses and crowns a Winter Carnival Queen,” the Record reported in January 1949. “Each social unit is being asked to choose one girl to compete for the honor.”
The College’s involvement in the tradition extended to the highest levels of administrative authority — in 1954, then-College president James P. Baxter III, Class of 1914, presented Eleanor Riggins, that year’s Queen out of 417 competitors, with her crown.
“Females of all sizes and shapes launched their campaign on the various ski slopes and the dimly-lit chaos of the fraternities,” the Record wrote of that year’s competition.
The Carnival Queen had ample responsibilities, including various public appearances, the Record reported in 1950. “Carnival Chairman Roland Palmedo ’50 has made extensive plans to open the new 35-meter jump on Sheep Hill,” the Record wrote. “The lucky young lady who is chosen Carnival Queen Friday evening will do the honors by cutting a tape across the runway and then taking a toboggan ride down the landing hill. The Queen will also present awards to winning competitors at a beer party given for the eight visiting college ski teams on Sunday afternoon.”
Things started to change in the late 1950s, when women expressed a desire to enroll at the College. A 1957 article quoted that year’s Queen, 17-year-old Maury Ballantyne, telling the Record, “I just wish I could go to Williams too.” The Record article continues: “Eleven hundred Williams men roared their approval for her admission by making her their 1957 Winter Carnival Queen.”
The eventual move towards coeducation, though, was not always widely accepted. With it came the end of the Winter Carnival Queen tradition, as the Record reported in a 1984 reflection on the weekend’s history. The final Winter Carnival Queen was chosen in 1969 — Susan Milliken, escorted by Roger Kaufman ’71.
A 1970 Record article by Jim Deutsch ’70 titled “Where is the spirit of yesteryear?” explored the decline of Winter Carnival enthusiasm. “Somehow, Williams students just aren’t getting up for Winter Carnival anymore, and the consequences of such apathy could prove dangerous,” Deutsch wrote. “This year’s Carnival will have no Queen contest, very few snow sculptures, and apparently little enthusiasm.”
Deutsch recalled that in his first year in 1967, his Junior Advisors told him to leave campus if he couldn’t find a date for the weekend due to “social stigma.” In 1970, he wrote, “As the College plunges into coeducation and with the relaxation of parietal hours, girls abound on the Williams campus at all times. Dates are not just a weekend thing, and as a result, the notion of studying hard for five days and then exploding for the weekend has vanished.”
In a Feb. 1972 Record op-ed, James Grubb ’74 commented on the changes to Winter Carnival that came from abolishing fraternities and admitting women to the College. “Some formerly integral features of Carnival have succumbed entirely,” Grubb wrote. “The tradition of a Carnival Queen crumbled before the women’s lib movement last year, and no attempt has been made to reinstate it.”
In an email to the Record, Grubb reflected on the tradition over 50 years later. “Williams did abolish the Carnival Queen contest early on,” he wrote. “It was grossly sexist, and women would have nothing to do with it. [After coeducation], Williams men realized quickly that women students were smarter, worked harder, brought civilization to what had been something of a Wild West culture, rose immediately to leadership positions, and generally made the institution much better in a very short time.”
However, he recalled another story about the tradition not present in the Record archives. “There was a tiny movement to restore the Carnival Queen, and I recall that it came from a very different source,” he wrote. “Williams did have a small band of gay students, not organized or often vociferous, but definitely there. There was a rumor afoot that somebody in drag might enter the contest; the rules, after all, did not specify that the queen had to be female.”
Despite Grubb’s enthusiasm for this idea, the College shut it down. “That was something that the powers that be could not possibly allow, so the Carnival Queen idea was squelched definitively,” he wrote. “But at the time I thought it amusing, possibly even able to shake the place up a little. Williams then was often dour, without much of a sense of humor or playfulness, especially in winter.”
Although the Carnival Queen tradition may be a relic of College days long gone, the spirit of Winter Carnival, as we all witnessed last weekend, remains. Decades later, the weekend’s snowy festivities continue to imbue campus with a distinctive wintery excitement — despite the notable lack of pageantry.
