The Rise and Fall of the Freshman Beanie: A Century of College Tradition
The freshman beanie, a seemingly simple piece of headwear, holds a significant place in the history of American college life. From the early 1900s to the mid-20th century, these caps were a ubiquitous symbol of freshman status, representing both a rite of passage and a target for upperclassmen antics. While the practice largely died out in the 1960s, the memory of the freshman beanie persists, offering a glimpse into a bygone era of collegiate tradition.
The Beanie Era: Identification and Initiation
The tradition of requiring freshmen to wear beanies emerged in the early 20th century. Institutions like Hardin-Simmons University (HSU) and Penn State University implemented the practice around 1906-1909, with the first mention of freshman beanies at HSU appearing in a 1909 edition of The Corral, an early newsletter from the university. By the 1920s, the tradition had become a fully fledged rite of initiation.
These beanies served multiple purposes. Primarily, they visually distinguished freshmen from upperclassmen. As noted in Trinity College, originally, freshmen were expected to wear a Trinity beanie at all times, “by which they may be identified at all hours.” At Michigan State, freshman males were required to wear beanies to signify their class status. Often called “caps” or “pots,” the only time freshmen were exempt from wearing them was on Sundays or if they were married. At Penn State, in 1906, upperclassmen at Penn State decided that freshman should wear small beanie hats -- called "dinks" -- to distinguish them from the other students.
The beanies also fostered a sense of unity among the incoming class. As Smith from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology said, “It means you’re not alone in it, you always have a study buddy.” Hardin-Simmons University sees the tradition as treasured as is it odd on the Forty Acres, and it provides common ground for all students.
At some universities, like the University of Wyoming, the tradition of beanies apparently goes back to 1908 when male students had to wear green caps and women green stockings.
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Rules, Rituals, and Hazing
Wearing the beanie often came with a set of rules and expectations, enforced, sometimes overzealously, by upperclassmen. At Penn State, freshmen were required to wear their dinks in class, traveling around campus, and at sporting events, and to tip their caps to passing upperclassmen. Removing the caps in public could lead to punishment by upperclassmen, the lightest sanction being a paddling. John McCool, a historian who previously worked at the University of Kansas, documented instances of first-year rebels who took off their beanies being forcibly dunked into the nearby Potter Lake.
Ohio State University freshmen men were required to wear the caps from Freshman Week at the beginning of the term, until Cap Bonfire on Tradition Day, in June. Students caught without their beanies, or violating one of the freshmen rules, were punished. As one Alumni Monthly article put it, “Irregular meetings of Bucket and Dipper are held when freshmen are chased from the Long Walk and from the steps of University or Derby Hall.” These meetings convened on the edge of Mirror Lake and ended with the offending freshmen taking a swim.
At Trinity College, this requirement changed in the 1950s to require beanies only during the first two weeks of the semester, during which freshmen were also expected to carry the furniture of the upperclassmen on move-in day.
These hazing practices were unsurprising given that beanies were most popular from the early 1900s to the 1950s, the “golden era” of fraternities. During that period, college life was rife with symbols representing one's importance and standing on a campus, said John R.
Some institutions incorporated the beanie into specific events. At Michigan State, every year starting in 1906, an event called “Cap Night” was held during commencement week. All of the students would gather in front of the Library and line up according to class. The band would lead the procession, followed by seniors, then juniors and sophomores, and finally freshmen. The seniors would carry their course books while the freshmen, clad in their nightshirts, would wear their beanies. They would all proceed to a spot on campus dubbed “Sleepy Hollow,” where a large bonfire was burning. Speeches were given, fight songs sung, and fireworks were set off as part of the ceremony. The seniors would then burn their course books and the freshmen would burn their caps.
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At the University of Wyoming, according to a September 1967 article in the UW school newspaper, Branding Iron, freshmen only needed to don the head wear until the first home football game of the season. After the UW Cowboys scored their first touchdown, the students threw their beanies in the air and never had to wear them again.
Colors, Customs, and Class Conflict
The color and design of the beanies often held specific meaning. At Hardin-Simmons University, though beanies are made in HSU purple and gold today, the notable headwear was green and yellow until 1959. The HSU insignia on the front is a newer addition, as well, as the front of the hats once included a stitched-on applique of the students’ graduation year. At Penn State, male freshmen wore blue-and-white dinks - except from 1932 to 1937, when dinks were green (to denote the "green" students' lack of understanding of how to behave in college). Female freshmen wore green ribbons in their hair until 1954, when they also adopted the dink.
A second possible reason behind the green “Slime Caps” at a purple and gold school hides in an old edition of The Corral, which infers that President Sandefer lacked trust in his students if he could not see them.
At the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, the beanies worn are green and yellow. These are not the School of Mines’ colors, but those of its rival, Black Hills State University. The beanies are made by a local chapter of the P.E.O. Sisterhood, a philanthropic organization that provides scholarships to women. First-year students receive the beanies during orientation and wear them for about a month until homecoming. Seniors also wear a billed white hat off and on throughout the year. The seniors will often pin their freshman beanie to the back of their hats and also attach pens and markers that people use to sign the hats. Smith said the senior hat symbolizes surviving the School of Mines’ difficult degree programs.
The annual struggle between the freshman and sophomore classes during the spring semester marked the end of the beanie-wearing season for the freshman. From the 1910s to the 1960s, freshman students were required to wear beanies everywhere they went on campus, from their first day of school until the freshmen-sophomore tug-of-war, held during the spring semester. In the early part of the 20th century, the competition involved first- and second-year students playing King of the Mountain on a 120-foot iron water tower located on campus. This tradition continued until 1913 when wily sophomore Robert McCutcheon knocked down the freshman flag with a well-aimed rifle shot that severed its staff. Painting class years on the tower became the preferred method of braggadocio in the early 20th century, until 1937, when the unused water tower was sold for $800 by the university to supply the war effort in Europe.
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At Ohio State University, in June the freshman waged a two-day war on Bucket and Dipper. The “war” usually consisted on a tug-of-war across Mirror Lake-where the freshman consistently ended up in the lake. That night, students would gather for the Cap Bonfire, when some freshman opted to burn their beanies. In 1926 Bucket and Dipper attempted to delay the burning; in the melee that followed, 103 freshman were thrown in the lake and the police were called. Ironically, it was a policeman that gave a freshman a concussion, not a trip into the lake.
The Decline and Disappearance
The freshman beanie tradition began to fade in the mid-20th century, largely disappearing by the 1960s and 1970s. Several factors contributed to its decline.
The shift largely began after an influx of World War II veterans on college campuses. These beneficiaries of the G.I. Bill looked at the beanies with a degree of disdain, Thelin said. McCool wrote about how veterans on the Kansas campus refused to wear the caps, which were largely promoted by a group known as the K-Club, a collection of top campus athletes.
As enthusiastic as the class of 1956 may have been to carry on the tradition at Trinity College, following classes progressively became less enthusiastic. A member of the class of 1959 wrote a letter to the editor in a 1957 issue of the Tripod objecting to the lack of commitment of the underclassmen to the traditions of yore: “Has the Sophomore Class forgotten that it is the guardian of College traditions for the ensuing year? The Class of 1960 that entered Trinity last Fall with so much pep and enthusiasm has just ‘pooped.’ Noticeable around campus is the absence of the Freshman beanie and the usual inquisition for college songs,” the writer protests.
Changing social norms and a growing aversion to hazing also played a role. The beanies accompanied a complex, sometimes overzealous set of social codes and customs enforced-and at times abused by-upperclassmen.
By the arrival of the new millennium, the freshman beanie had become a tradition of the past. In an interview with the Tripod in 2004, interim President Borden Painter, a member of the Class of 1958, recalled the changes Trinity had gone through since his own time as an undergraduate, citing the beanie as a marker of how College traditions had shifted over time. “Can you imagine doing that today?” Painter reflected.
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