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Rowbottom
Documented
Rowbottoms, 1910 - 1977
Crockery
smash and more
On warm nights students often gathered in the dormitory
triangle to vent their energy by wrestling, smashing crockery, or some other horseplay.
The wildest melee of the year began as pitchers, bowls, light bulbs and other
University property were thrown out dormitory windows. Student cat calls, blasts
from brass musical instruments, the shooting of revolvers, and fire crackers-all
added to the cacaphony. When there was nothing left to throw, the young men gathered
to watch fire works and then to dance and sing around a bonfire they built at
the lower end of the triangle. After two hours, dormitory officials broke up the
disturbance. According to a city newspaper, the call of "Yea,
Rowbottom" was the rallying cry.
View facsimile of news articles
from the Daily
Pennsylvanian, 1910 May 12, and from the Philadelphia
Ledger, 1910 May 30
May 1910 - Comet party
Students, finding the stellar performance to be disappointing, took out their
frustrations on trolley poles, pulling the poles from the overhead wires.
As remembered by members of the Class of 1913 in the Philadelphia Record,
1930 May 3
March 20 - after the Penn basketball team defeated Princeton to become
Intercollegiate League champions
There was no rioting at the end of
the game while police were present, but after police departed, the wild revelry
began. A crowd of about 1000 students set fire to trolley wires, pulled trolley
poles from overhead wires, and lit bonfires in front of Psi Upsilon Fraternity.
When firemen arrived, different groups of students carried off the fire hose,
made away with a large red Philadelphia Rapid Transit automobile trailer, and
changed the workings of the "automatic traffic semaphore." Seventeen
students were arrested on a charge of inciting a riot. Damage paid by the students
included $800 for damage to PRT equipment and $59 for torn uniforms. Included
among the arrested students were Jack McDowell, president of the senior class
who was arrested as he tried to quell the disturbance, and Thomas S. Gates, Jr.,
manager of the football team who was arrested when he went to the station house
to gain the release of McDowell. It is interesting to note that young Gates would
become a banker and Secretary of the Navy under the Eisenhower administration;
at the time of his arrest his father, Thomas Sovereign Gates, Sr., was a prominent
lawyer and also a University trustee, who would be named Penn's President in 1930.
May 21 - after a power failure in West Philadelphia
Members
of the Kappa Alpha Phi fraternity threw bricks at passing vehicles and then assaulted
police who tried to enter the house. Ten students were arrested, but charges were
dismissed after Judge Hamburg gave them a stern lecture. One student, senior Huber
M. Gemmill, was charged with assault and battery on a police officer, interference
with a police officer, malicious mischief and inciting of riot and held on $300
bail. The concerned police officer, however, dropped the charge and Gemmill was
released in time for graduation.
April 9 - when asked by the magistrate why they started the riot,
the students replied, "We didn't have any fun for a long time"
Students
took control of traffic lights at the intersection of 37th Street, Spruce Street
and Woodland Avenue and then, from the dormitories, pelted police with a barrage
of milk bottles. On Locust Street, between 37th and 38th Streets, students tore
up paving blocks and used a Pennsylvania Rapid Transit toolbox and night watchman's
shed to set up a barricade. Several hundred students were involved; twenty-three
were arrested, but later released.
May 12 - during final exams
About 500 students again took control of the traffic lights at the same intersection.
Trolley poles were dislodged and policemen bombarded with eggs, but only one student
was arrested (for throwing automobile wheels at the police).
October
19 - after a Penn vs. University of California football game
It was
reported that the trouble started once again at the intersection of Woodland,
Spruce and 37th streets. Apparently students on the trolleys refused to pay their
fares and then, when conductors attempted to prevent them from leaving, the students
smashed windows. Other students (many in their pajamas since it was 1 a.m.) poured
out of dormitories to build bonfires in streets around campus and to yell and
snake dance to college songs. Four junked automobiles were pushed to the middle
of Locust Street and burned. Police and firemen were called, but only one student
was arrested; when he proved to be just a passerby, he was released.
October 27 - after a Penn football victory over Lehigh
A rash of
suspicious fires in the neighborhood during recent weeks had included a fire at
the former Zeta Beta Tau fraternity house at 39th and Spruce streets. The fraternity
had already vacated the building because of fire damage eight years earlier. Sometime
after midnight on October 27, students approached the vacant Zeta Beta Tau fraternity
house, breaking branches from trees and pulling down trolley poles. As the young
men tore down the fence around the one-time fraternity house, a student shouted
"Let's set it on fire again." Alert fire marshals were inside waiting,
however. Though outnumbered, firemen managed to arrest three students, all of
whom were jailed for ten days each on charges of disorderly conduct.
View
facsimile of news article from the Philadelphia Record, 1929 October
29
April 29 - revival of the custom of burning unpopular professors in
effigy led to over reaction by police and then to "Rowbottom"
In
a revival of a practice formerly associated with the tradition of Sophomore
Cremation, students burned in effigy two dummies of professors David T. Rowlands
and Edwin K. Schempp on Woodland Avenue, between 36th and 37th streets. Eyewitnesses,
both students and professors, insist there was no violence until a policeman became
excited and phoned in a riot call.
It
was not until police arrived en masse to collar and drag students into the patrol
wagons that the cry of "Rowbottom" rang out, with some students throwing
bottles, cans, shoes and alarm clocks towards the police. Police with blackjacks
followed fleeing students into nearby shops, smashing display cases as they grabbed
students and anyone else inside. Police entered nearby fraternity houses by shooting
locks off fraternity house doors and dragged out students, many in their night
clothes.
At least three hundred students were arrested. A few were quickly released when University officials vouched for their innocence, but upon hearing that these students were rejoining the ongoing rioting, the city's Director of Public Safety Lemuel B. Schofield refused to release more students. Schofield soon clashed with magistrate J.J. O'Malley, who was working at the request of University officials and students for the release of students. As a result, Schofield landed up in Moyamensing county prison on charges of obstructing justice and resisting arrest until another judge, Penn alumnus Howard A. Davis, freed Schofield and delivered a scathing indictment of Penn students.
Interestingly, Schofield was a 1913 Penn graduate and valedictorian of his class. According to an article in the May 3, 1930 Philadelphia Record, although Schofield, as an undergraduate, "was not in any sense a leader of [the 1910-1913] 'Rowbottoms,' he was always one of the crowd, doing his share to bait police and storekeepers and to drive trolley conductors frantic."
The public image of Philadelphia police was
damaged when the dramatic story lingered on the front page of local papers for
several weeks. The Penn student newspaper described the police as "cossacks."
Philadelphia newspapers published criticism of police actions by the owners of
Beaston's Pharmacy and reports that members of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity were
pressing charges against police. The University also announced its intention to
prosecute police. As the Trustees launched an investigation, Provost Josiah H.
Penniman gave a speech,
encouraging an end to "Rowbottoms" but also speaking out against the
beating of students and the damage to property resulting from "unprovoked
police brutality."
View facsimile of sample newspaper coverage
in Philadelphia
Record, 1930 May 2, and of the complete
text of Provost Penniman's speech to students
Provost Penniman solicited eyewitness accounts of the April 29 Rowbottom, and received dozens of replies. These documents present a wide range of perspectives on actions by students and police. Compare for example the letters of neighborhood resident Mrs. Willie Stein of 3816 Locust Street and of medical student Park Weed Willis, Jr., M.D. 1931.
May 1 - a peaceful Rowbottom
Only three policemen were present and did not interfere as students gathered at
38th and Locust. Speeches were given by a student and a chaplain, followed by
cheers for the success of the baseball team and crew team at upcoming sports events.
A request for "Hail Pennsylvania!" was followed by many more songs;
there was much noise, but no trouble.
View facsimile of news article
from the Philadelphia
Record, 1930 May 2
October 14- before a Penn vs. Dartmouth football game
After
a pep rally and parade led by the band, a few students pulled trolley poles from
their wires in an attempt to start a Rowbottom. Other students, however, quickly
replaced the poles and a riot was avoided.
November 4 - before
a Penn vs. Pitt football game
When students started a disturbance on
their way to a rally in Weightman Hall, police quickly restored order. Trouble
began again after the rally when about a dozen students climbed onto the automobile
of a passerby; when the driver lurched the car to clear a path, one student was
injured as he was hurled from the running board
Later in November, the University of Pennsylvania banned Rowbottoms in an edict issued by Charles H. Coogan, chairman of the University's parietal committee. All students were issued a copy of the new rules which stated:
"They [the students] must respect the rights and property of all persons and at all places. They must not interfere with or inconvenience traffic of any kind on or off the campus."
June 10 - a hot night at a fraternity house
At the request
of neighbors, police responded at 1 a.m. as students threw chairs, books and glassware
from the windows of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity at 3706 Locust Street. When pistol
shots did not end the melee, police broke into the house and arrested eleven students
and graduates for disturbing the peace. The young men spent the night in a cell
at the police station at 32nd Street and Woodland Avenue before being released.
November 16 - freshmen rebel against sophomores in a noisy but bloodless
Rowbottom
Freshmen announced that they would no longer submit to the
regulations set down by the sophomores, shouting challenges to the sophomores
and calling on them on fight. When the sophomores did not respond, freshman purloined
an auto parked at 37th Street and Woodland Avenue and pushed it down a flight
of stairs to the sophomore side of the quad. There was no fight and no arrests.
June
5 - end of the academic year
Approximately
1500 students participated as this Rowbottom spread through the dorms and across
the campus late Monday night and early Tuesday. On the streets, fire hydrants
were opened, trash cans were tipped into the road, newsstands were overturned
and bottles crashed through windows of cars and trolleys. At the Pennsylvania
Hotel at 40th and Walnut Streets, glasses were thrown, tables overturned and a
chandelier pulled from the ceiling as young men swung like monkeys.
Eighteen of the 64 students arrested were released after police were convinced of their innocence, but 46 students were held in jail. The scantily-clad gentlemen were tried the next day in the court of Magistrate Hamberg. After lawyers and W. Chattin Wetherill, director of student welfare, pleaded that the students had examinations the next day, the ten dollar fines for each convicted student were suspended and all were released. Students cheered the magistrate as they left the court room. Six false alarms were sent in from around the campus that night, the students' parting shots of the 1934 Rowbottom. The University, however, had the last word; when thirty-five of the students were ordered to appear individually before a University panel, ten students were singled out as the most flagrant offenders.
February
16 - at a student performance
When students disrupted the singing of
"Merrily We Roll Along" with catcalls and rhythmic stamping, police
quickly took control.
November - before a Penn vs. Cornell football game
A relatively
tame Rowbottom resulted in the arrest of three students. They were later released
with a warning that they would get a six-month sentence if they were caught again.
November
21 - before a Penn-Cornell football game
In the worst Rowbottom since
1930, two thousand students took part in three hours of destructive mayhem. It
began shortly after 7 p.m. as students leaving a pep rally at 37th Street and
Woodland Avenue began crying "Yea, Rowbottom." Soon campus streets were
littered with ashes and garbage, broken glass, smashed eggs and bonfires fueled
by newspapers. Trolley poles were pulled from their wires and parked cars lifted
unto the tracks. Police, motormen and pedestrians were pelted with rotten eggs,
bottles, bricks and other debris. Tires of parked cars were deflated or slashed.
The drivers of hundreds of stalled cars honked their horns and police sirens wailed.
By the time firemen's hoses and police squads brought things under control, seven
trolley riders and four transit employees had been injured, one motorman had been
hospitalized, and 35 students were arrested. President Gates expressed regret
over the incident, but put some of the blame on actions of outsiders who participated
in the disturbances.
View facsimiles of sample newspaper coverage in
Philadelphia
Record, 1938 November 22, and Evening
Public Ledger, 1938 November 22
November 21 - occurred about the time of the Penn vs. Cornell football
game, but was also rumored to be related to the recent suspension of ten "Punch
Bowl" editors for the printing of ribald humor in a recent issue
About a hundred students gathered in the neighborhood of the fraternities near
37th and Spruce Streets. A few trolley car poles were detached from their overhead
wires, some automobile tires were deflated, a stop sign was pulled out and a bonfire
lit; but this Rowbottom was easily broken up by police.
October
24 - after a raucous sendoff of the Penn football team as they boarded trains
at 30th Street Station for a game with Michigan
About 1, 500 students
held up traffic as they proceeded single file back to campus via Woodland Avenue.
As firecrackers were thrown in the path of trolley cars, shouts of "Rowbottom"
echoed down fraternity row. When police in motorcycles sped up and down the sidewalks,
most students dispersed but two policemen were pelted with tomatoes and eggs.
The fifteen students were taken to the police station at 32nd Street and Woodland
Avenue were released without being charged. Another Rowbottom was nipped in the
bud.
November 22 - before a Penn vs. Cornell football game
Early in the evening "good-natured" students pulled down trolley
poles, blocked traffic, threw eggs, and resisted police attempts to disperse them.
By midnight, however, the mood changed. Stones, rotten fruit, and water were thrown
at police, often from the windows of fraternity houses. Three students, charged
with attacking police, were taken to the hospital with head injuries before spending
the night in the police station; they were convicted by the magistrate the next
morning, but their sentences were quickly suspended. Newspapers generally criticized
student rioting, but some also spoke out against alleged police brutality used
to break up the Rowbottom.
The
University was prompted by this Rowbottom to adopt a firmer stance toward student
offenders. One student was immediately suspended until after the Christmas recess.
When students returned in January, Provost Thomas S. Gates announced that the
University would no longer dismiss Rowbottoms as an outlet for youthful enthusiasm;
such student disorders were now to be banned, with any student participants being
expected to take the consequences.
View facsimile of news article from
the Philadelphia
Bulletin, 1940 November 23
September 29 - freshmen rebel against hazing by sophomores
Never before had a Rowbottom occurred so early in the academic year. The trouble
started after a few of the sophomores in charge of freshmen supervision entered
the freshman quad and called out a hundred freshmen to sing. Freshmen chased off
the sophomores and then emptied trash and built a bonfire, burning their freshmen
caps and buttons. After the call of "Yea, Rowbottom!" went out, four
hundred furious freshmen backed six hundred upperclassmen into the upper dormitory
quadrangle. Upperclassmen avoided the ignominy of defeat only when fellow classmates
on the upper floors poured fruit and ashcans of water on the battling freshmen.
After police calmed things down, the Undergraduate Council charged the sophomore
supervisors to be guilty of negligence.
October 2 - before
a Penn vs. Harvard football game
A mini-Rowbottom was staged at Spruce
Street and Woodland Avenue at about 11 p.m. the night before the game. Cars were
dragged into the intersection to halt traffic, a bonfire burned, and eggs were
thrown. Police, however, had been forewarned and quickly ended the melee.
November
20 - before a Penn vs. Cornell football game as students gathered in front of
College Hall, around the statue of Ben Franklin, for a pep rally
At
the end of the pep rally school spirit took a violent turn. Once again parked
cars were moved to block the intersection of Spruce and Woodland, trolley poles
were pulled from their wires. Students poured out of the dormitories to riot over
a ten-block area, stoning police cars and throwing firecrackers, milk bottles
and bags of water at police. Also featured in this Rowbottom were a fire alarm,
a sit-down of 150 students in the middle of Woodland Avenue, the theft of the
keys to a police car, and the recruitment of about a hundred younger boys (many
still in knee-pants) from the neighborhood.
This
full-scale Rowbottom lasted four hours and led to the arrest of four students
on riot charges, injuries to a dozen students, and the hospitalization of a ringleader.
The University's handling of the event revealed the University's commitment to
its new and tougher policy. During the riot, University proctors took down the
names of students they could identify. The day after the event the University
publicly apologized for the Rowbottom. Within six days, one student had
been dismissed, four had been suspended and four others had been placed on conduct
probation. And for the first time, when arrested students faced the magistrate,
no representative of the University appeared at the hearing to offer bail or to
plead on their behalf. Four students remained in jail for eight days before the
University intervened, the students apologized and charges were dropped.
View facsimiles of news articles from the Philadelphia
Record, 1941 November 21 and the Philadelphia
Evening Bulletin, 1941 November 21
August 14 - V-J Day
A Rowbottom, staged to celebrate the
end of World War II, lasted for two hours.
October 11 - before a Penn vs. Dartmouth football game
After
a pep rally at the rear of Houston Hall, several thousand singing and cheering
students participated in a Rowbottom along Woodland Avenue, between 36th and 38th
Streets. Minutes after shouts of "Rowbottom" went out, trolley poles
were pulled down and cars pushed unto the trolley tracks. As the disturbance escalated,
eggs and overripe fruit were hurled, barrels rolled into the streets, gasoline
poured unto the trolley tracks and ignited, and ignition keys for police cars
were stolen. In this first major Rowbottom after World War II, even coeds enthusiastically
participated. One policeman suffered an eye injury and three students were taken
into custody. Police reinforcements arrived, firing blank cartridges, but it was
a sudden, driving rain storm that brought the disorder to a halt after a half-hour
of rioting. As a result of this Rowbottom, the University suspended two students
and banned student football rallies indefinitely.
View facsimile of
news article from the Philadelphia
Record, October 12, 1946
November 14 - before
a Penn vs. Army game
At about 8 p.m. on a Thursday night a
student in a crowd at 37th Street and Woodland Avenue gave the rallying cry of
"Rowbottom!" At once students poured out of the dormitories, fraternities
and sororities to begin four hours of rioting. Three hundred policemen struggled
to restore order as students cut trolley wires, set kerosene fires on the tracks,
pushed some cars
to
the middle of the street and overturned others, swarmed through the Hotel Philadelphian,
and pelted police, firemen, and transit repairmen with whatever was available.
By the end of the fracas, one student had been arrested and forty trolley cars
stalled. The crews of fire engines 5 and 67 reported the theft of helmets, rubber
boots and coats, axes and crowbars, a hose nozzle and the top of its bell.
The
very next day University suspended three students as President George W. McClelland
issued a strong condemnation of the disorders. In response to the pleas of responsible
student leaders, however, the University agreed to temporarily lift the ban against
pep rallies to allow a noon rally to be held under University supervision. Dean
Arnold K. Henry and Coach George Munger and members of his football team were
speakers at this peaceful rally attended by about 3, 500 students. Eventually
most of the fire equipment was returned by students, but the University still
paid $879 in damages for repairs to automobiles, broken windows, street signs
and fire equipment.
View facsimile of news article from the Philadelphia
Bulletin, November 15, 1946
October - student groups ban Rowbottoms
Rowbottoms were
banned by all thirty-five fraternities at the University plus many other student
organizations such as the Sphinx Senior Honor Society, the Dormitory Council,
and the Friars Senior Honor Society.
View facsimile of news article
from the Philadelphia
Daily News, October 10, 1947
January
14 - after a 1 a.m. raid by the police vice squad on Smokey Joe's Tavern on 36th
Street below Walnut Street
When police arrested sixteen men and two
women and attempted to load them into patrol wagons, the trouble began. Since
most of the hundred or so boisterous patrons of Smokey Joe's were Penn students,
word of the police raid spread quickly. Amid calls of "Rowbottom," hundreds
of students emerged from fraternities and dorms to sing college songs and jeer
police. Police reinforcements averted a major riot, and those arrested in the
tavern were transported to City Hall where they were charged with intoxication,
selling liquor to minors and other violations of liquor laws.
View facsimile
of news article from the Daily
News, January 14, 1950
May 20 - as Penn students expressed their enthusiasm for "panty
raids" that swept colleges across the nation this spring
After
someone tipped off the police, officers formed a tight cordon around Sergeant
Hall, the women's dormitory at 34th and Chestnut Streets. Two fire companies were
also on the scene, with hoses attached to fire plugs and ready to be used on rioters
if needed. Inside, the young women inside locked their doors, turned out their
lights, and hid their underwear. When thousands of Penn students marched on Sergeant
Hall and then the nurses' dormitory (Kings Court at 36th and Chestnut Streets),
their calls for "Rowbottom!" were effectively countered by police and
firemen before a major riot occurred.
In the end, Penn men were unsuccessful
in their quest for women's underwear. One nursing student was hospitalized when
a cherry bomb thrown into the nurses' dorm resulted in her temporary loss of hearing.
Although rioting students also pulled down trolley poles and broke windows, the
damage was minor compared to earlier Rowbottoms. Punishment, however, for those
students who were apprehended was swift and firm. A hundred students were carted
off to the police station; no charges were filed, but twenty young men were turned
over to the University for discipline. The University's seven-member committee
on discipline, which included three students, voted to suspend ten students.
View facsimile of news articles from the Daily
News, May 21, 1952 and the Philadelphia
Inquirer, May 21, 1952
March 26 - before Easter vacation
For a few nights, groups
of from three to fifteen students staged sporadic, hit-and-run Rowbottoms, upsetting
garbage containers and mail boxes, snapping car aerials and breaking into cars,
disabling traffic lights and smashing a store window. On Sunday night alone, police
received more than fifty telephone calls reporting damage. At least nine students,
including a member of the track team, were arrested by police.
May
20 - spring fever
From about 9:30 p.m. until 3 a.m. police and firemen
were kept busy breaking up groups of students shouting, singing, and jeering law
enforcement officers. Firemen were called to extinguish three fires: a fire from
an overturned pot of pitch at 39th and Locust Streets at 10 p.m., a bonfire on
the sidewalk in the 200 block of South 37th Street at 1 a.m., and a blaze in the
middle of Locust Street between 36th and 37th Streets an hour later.
April 23 - celebration of the Child's Cup victory of the Penn crew
team during Skimmer Day
An estimated seven hundred students, from Penn and other institutions, participated
in this three-hour melee. Celebrants stalled six trolley lines by removing their
poles from the overhead wires. They also let air out of automobile tires and threw
beer bottles at police, injuring several. Police arrested students in the streets,
including a young woman (not a Penn student) who ran through the crowds yelling
for rioters to get police badge numbers; one student was arrested for unlocking
the back door of a paddy wagon as it headed to the police station with arrested
youths. Officers also pursued students into several fraternity houses. A Drexel
student, a visiting salesman and his girl friend, and forty-two Penn men were
arrested, lectured and released; another three were each fined $10 and costs.
The University suspended two students and placed eight others on "conduct"
probation barring them from extracurricular activities, including sports. Three
fraternities (Phi Sigma Delta, Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Delta Kappa Epsilon) were
also placed on "social" probation until December, barring women guests
from the fraternity houses and prohibiting the fraternities from sponsoring any
social events where women would be present.
View facsimiles of news
articles from the Philadelphia
Inquirer, April 24, 1955 and the Pennsylvania
Gazette, June 1955
May
3 - during fraternity pledge week
At about 8 p.m. fraternity men began
this Rowbottom by blocking traffic on Locust Street at McAlpin (between 36th and
37th Streets). As boisterous students built this blockade with beams, window sashes
and other wreckage from an adjacent house demolition, at least a half dozen police
cars arrived on the scene to be greeted with jeers and pelted eggs from the students.
When students made moves to add cans of yellow paint to the mix, police entered
the fraternity houses and made mass arrests. Of the 116 students arrested, twenty-eight
were held for grand jury action. The University's committee on discipline at first
suspended fourteen other students for the entire first semester of the coming
academic year as well as for the rest of the current semester (to June 30), but
this sentence was later reduced to only the remainder of the current semester
and the first week of the fall semester. A dozen other students were subjected
to lesser disciplinary measures such as suspension for the remainder of the semester
or conduct probation.
View facsimile of news article from the Philadelphia
Inquirer, May 5, 1955
May 20 - no associated
event
From about 2 a.m. until 3 a.m. about a hundred students staged
a Rowbottom between 36th and 39th Streets, on Locust and Walnut Streets and on
Woodland Avenue. Rioting students not only upset garbage cans, broke windows and
taunted police, they also dropped an iron subway grating down the eighty-foot
shaft and rolled a large spool of cable down a hill so that it smashed a parked
car. As a result, twelve students were arrested and fined $5 each plus $2.50 in
costs. The University's committee on discipline suspended two students and placed
two others on conduct probation, banning them from all nonacademic University
activities.
May 28 - no associated event
This Rowbottom
involved about twenty-five students gathered on the sidewalk and on the roof of
Beta Sigma Rho fraternity house near 39th and Spruce Streets. The young men hurled
eggs and tomatoes and squirted water at passing cars and trolleys. When police
were first called, they issued only a warning to the students. When another complaint
was phoned in, police returned and arrested twelve students. In police court,
the magistrate fined each of them $5 plus $2.50 in costs. The University's committee
on discipline put two students on conduct probation, banning them from all nonacademic
University activities.
March 19 - snowball fight
After about 25 complaints from
people pelted by snowballs at 36th and Locust Streets, twelve policemen raided
the intersection. When some of the students ran into the Delta Tau Delta fraternity,
police followed and rounded up 24 students, including the photographic editor
of the Daily Pennsylvanian student newspaper. They were released
with a warning from the judge.
May 3 - during spring pledge
week
This major Rowbottom began at about 9 p.m. on a Thursday night
and lasted until 2 a.m., with a brief lull after police hauled away the first
batch of troublemakers at about 10 p.m. As on last May 3, the trouble began at
a demolition site at the corner of Locust and McAlpin, and soon encompassed the
entire stretch of fraternity houses and boarding houses on Locust between 36th
and 38th Streets. Students began by ripping debris from the demolition site and
throwing this debris into Locust Street. Soon they were also throwing bottles
and eggs and jeering police. As more and more police cars arrived, students retreated
from the street to throw eggs, firecrackers, ashtrays and other found objects
from porches, roofs and windows. Later, after the first roundup of students, students
again gathered on Locust Street, this time adding rocks to the mix being hurled
at police. In the midst of this chaos, firemen arrived to answer a false alarm
from a nearby location.
After Dean George B. Peters joined law enforcement officers at the scene, the dean and the police together decided that the only way to restore order was to round up as many rioters as possible. Every time a window opened, police dashed in to grab as many students as they could, thereby cleaning out three fraternities (Kappa Sigma, Kappa Nu and Theta Xi). The process entailed a good deal of tussling and many a kick in the shin and even a few minor injuries to police; it took 48 policemen and 22 police cars to quell the disturbance.
A total of 138 students were carted off to neighborhood police stations and then, when these cells overflowed, to City Hall where they were fingerprinted. After being held overnight with ten or twelve students to a cell, most students were released, but 28 students were held on $500 bail. One student, Everett Gage, would be indicted on July 13 by a grand jury on charges of assaulting a police officer during the disorders; he was acquitted in November 1957.
Gaylord P. Harnwell, then president of the University, apologized
for the trouble students had caused; police, however, demanded not just an apology,
but a pledge by the University to end student riots. After Dean Peters and the
committee on discipline conducted an exhaustive investigation of the accused rioters,
25 students were disciplined. Twenty students were suspended, one for one week,
five until June 30 of that year and fourteen until February 1957. Five other Penn
men received conduct probations, one student for only a week but four students
until June of 1957. Six fraternities were placed on social probation, meaning
that women guests were not allowed in the fraternity houses and that the fraternities
could not sponsor any social events where women would be present; two of Penn's
oldest fraternities, Phi
Sigma Kappa and Delta
Psi, received the longest probations, until February of 1957. The day after
the riot, Penn president Gaylord P. Harnwell apologized for the trouble students
had caused; police, however, demanded not just an apology, but a pledge by the
University to end student riots.
View facsimiles of news articles from
several Philadelphia papers:
Evening Bulletin, May 4, 1956, Daily
News, May 4, 1956 and the Philadelphia
Inquirer, July 14, 1956
September 27 - in a letter to returning students, President Harnwell stated that there would be no more "riots of spring" on Penn's campus
October 6 - after
a Penn vs. Dartmouth football game, Penn's first varsity victory in three years
Students returning from the stadium were joined in their victory celebration by
students streaming out of dormitories. For about ten or twenty minutes the cheering
students blocked traffic at 37th Street and Woodland Avenue. After one student
threw a milk bottle from a dorm window, other students began to toss out rolls
of torn tissue paper and one young man hoisted a wooden barrel on top a pole at
the subway station. At that point the lone policeman on duty called for help,
and when five police cars and two emergency wagons arrived, students dispersed.
The only person arrested was not a Penn student. The Philadelphia Inquirer
newspaper called the entire incident a "rhubarb" rather than a Rowbottom.
January - arson near the Penn campus
During the night of
January 15, a fire started in trash outside of Sol's luncheonette at 3701 Spruce
Street, across the street from the Quad dormitories. When firemen arrived at the
scene, a jeering crowd of students impeded the laying of hose to put out the fire.
The fire was extinguished successfully, but a Penn dental instructor, a middle-aged
steelworker and a Penn student were arrested.
During the night of January 21, five separate blazes were started in neighborhood trash cans. Firemen put out fires in alleys and behind buildings near 37th and Spruce, in the 3700 block of Locust Street, at 37th and Walnut Streets. Six students were taken into custody and later released.
November - Penn announced the end of Rowbottoms
After the acquittal of the Penn student indicted in the May 3, 1956 Rowbottom,
the Penn administration declared an end to these riots. University officials and
the undergraduate council joined together to warn students of their obligations
and of the necessity to behave responsibly.
April 17 - as students raced sports cars on Locust Street
The
cry of "Rowbottom" first went out at about 7:30 p.m. from a crowd of
students at 36th and Locust Streets. After fire crackers went off, five police
cars arrived to arrest six students and temporarily restore order. By midnight
more crowds gathered, this time about a thousand students on 37th Street at Spruce
and at Locust Streets. After firemen responded to a false alarm at 3714 Spruce
Street and barricades were set afire at 36th Street and Woodland Avenue, police
arrived again. Students cried "Rowbottom" and pelted police with empty
beer cans, eggs and firecrackers; one student even used a toy machine gun which
made quite a noise. The disturbance ended with the arrest of another six students.
The
next day the judge dismissed all charges, but not before giving the students a
stern lecture. On April 23, the University suspended four undergraduates and placed
eleven others on conduct probation for the remainder of the semester. Later in
the fall, Dean George B. Peters formed a University committee to discuss relations
between the University and city police, with particular attention to a police
proposal that the University rather than police handle future student disturbances.
The city was concerned about the drain on its finances and manpower, especially
when firemen and police were diverted from responding to real fires and major
crimes.
View facsimiles of news articles from the Daily
News, April 18, 1958 and the Daily
Pennsylvanian, November 3, 1958 as well as the obituary
of Dean George B. Peters
April 8 - spring revelries
This Rowbottom, involving about
500 students, included exploding firecrackers and a bonfire, fueled by bushes
(ripped from a nearby lawn) and gas (siphoned from a parked car), in the middle
of Locust Street. When police arrived on the scene, the call of "Rowbottom"
brought more students from dormitories and fraternity houses to move about singing,
yelling and hurling eggs at policemen. In accordance with the recent change in
policy shifting responsibility more toward the University, policemen were aided
in their efforts by fourteen student guards who took student identification cards.
By 9 p.m. order had been restored. Twelve students were hauled to the police station
at 55th and Pine Streets, where they were released with instructions from the
magistrate to report to the office of Dean George B. Peters the following morning
for possible disciplinary action.
View facsimile of news article from
the Philadelphia
Inquirer, April 9, 1959 and the reminiscences
of alumnus Paul Kelly
March 28 - balmy spring weather
Chanting crowds, breaking
bottles, exploding firecrackers were all part of this spring "Rowbottom."
Students also picked up and moved small foreign cars. When police arrived, students
hurled eggs, tomatoes and milk containers, and smashed a rock into the car occupied
by the battalion chief. One young man stole the keys and logbook from another
police car. Finally police threats to turn fire hoses on rioters cooled youthful
enthusiasms enough to disperse the crowd. Although an estimated 200 students participated,
the only arrest was of a student accused of throwing a large plank into the middle
of Walnut Street near 37th Street. He was discharged the following day after he
agreed to pay for any damages.
April 23 - during a fraternity
party
A
party at Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house
began at 3 p.m.; trouble started just an hour later after about four hundred people
spilled into Locust Street and some began to throw beer bottles and firecrackers.
When a firecracker exploded in front of a passerby carrying his 18-month old son,
the child was cut in the hand. Police put down the disorder after a half-hour
struggle in which three students and three police were injured. Twelve students
were arrested, including the president of the fraternity. Dean Peters promised
that those found guilty of participation in the riot would be dealt with appropriately.
View facsimile of news article from the Daily
Pennsylvanian , April 25, 1960
April 24 - during 80 degree weather
Crowds of milling students
called out for "Rowbottom" twice on this Monday night, but both efforts
faded away in the face of stern warnings issued from the police loudspeakers by
both city policemen and members of the campus guard. About four hundred students
participated in the first disturbance, which involved eggs thrown at passing cars
and a short-lived bonfire. The second disturbance was characterized by a smaller
group of students on Locust Street between 36th and 38th Streets who turned on
fire hydrants and tossed beer cans. Order was restored through the combined efforts
of campus guards and city police and firemen.
View facsimile of news
article from the Philadelphia
Inquirer, April 25, 1961
March 29 - during the first warm weather
Five
or six hundred students celebrated spring fever with a bonfire at 37th and Locust
Streets. According to the agreement between the University and city police, the
police would only step in when campus guards and student leaders could not control
student disturbances. When police were called on March 29, they quickly dispersed
the crowds. One Penn guard was injured by an exploding firecracker and treated
for a lacerated finger. One student was arrested for starting the bonfire, but
charges were dismissed by the magistrate the next day. The new dean, Robert F.
Longley, promised that the University would take disciplinary action. To the relief
of the police and the University, this Rowbottom never grew out of its infancy.
View facsimile of news article from the Daily
Pennsylvanian, April 6, 1962
April 19 - during Skimmer
Day
Rowdiness spun out of control on the banks of the Schuylkill
River during the day, and then that night at the concerts on Franklin Field and
at parties in the fraternity houses. By the early morning there was a riot underway
with drag racing, fist fights, broken windows, overturned cars and gasoline-fires
on the trolley tracks. Fairmount Park police, University campus guards and hired
Pinkerton security were no match for the thousands of wild students. Philadelphia
police arrested twenty students and issued more than fifty traffic tickets. The
University canceled Skimmer Day for
the following year.
View facsimile of news article from the Philadelphia
Inquirer, April 20, 1963
March 24 - a planned Rowbottom
Students
poured into the Quads at 10:15 p.m. when a master switch was thrown, creating
a blackout and triggering fire alarms. This Rowbottom had been planned by students
for weeks; meetings had been held, captains appointed for each dorm, and arrangements
made to render the locks on key exits from the Quad inoperable. But when a few
hundred Penn men burst out of the Quads to attempt a "panty raid," only
a few under garments were forthcoming from the windows of the women's dorms. In
the women's dorms, the deans and janitors responded immediately to man all entrances
and exits and to order all "co-eds" to draw their blinds and remain
in their rooms. On the streets, police responded immediately with thirty police
cars. A few trash cans were overturned and a few eggs thrown, but all in all,
it was a relatively tame Rowbottom.
View facsimile of news article from
the Daily Pennsylvanian,
March 25, 1964
April 19 - a Saturday night in spring
The second Rowbottom of the season was more violent than the first. Late on a
Saturday night police and firemen arrived to quell a riot of five hundred students
who set a huge bonfire at 37th and Locust Streets and pelted forty policemen with
bottles. One student was arrested and a policeman's hand slashed by flying glass
when the student tried to confiscate an empty police car. A total of nine Penn
students were arrested and fined by the magistrate's court.
May 6 - two weeks after a Skimmer Day with no Rowbottom
This spring, students and administration engaged in active discussion of the pros
and cons of Rowbottoms. Some student leaders actually worked to prevent these
student riots. Others believed that Skimmer Day offered a better alternative than
Rowbottom for students to let off steam. Dean James J.P. Craft
hoped
that this year's Skimmer Day would
prove student responsibility by avoiding a Rowbottom. A few days before Skimmer,
on April 22, Penn men removed the top from one fire hydrant at 37th and Locust
Streets and were working on four other hydrants when police arrived. Despite this
prank, there was no rioting that day nor on Skimmer weekend this year.
About
two weeks later, however, student disorders swept the campuses of both Temple
University and the University of Pennsylvania. On the night of May 6, about three
hundred students gathered at 37th and Locust Streets and marched to the women's
dormitory at 34th and Walnut Streets. When confronted there by police, they changed
direction and headed to the nurses' dormitory at 36th and Chestnut Streets. On
their way they turned in a fire alarm from 36th and Locust Streets, halted traffic
by lying in the middle of Walnut Street, and attempted to overturn several small
cars and an ice-cream vendor's truck. Police restored order within an hour. Nine
students were arrested, but instead of being charged, they were later released
to face disciplinary action from the University.
View facsimiles of Dean
Craft's open letter on Rowbottoms from the Daily
Pennsylvanian, March 3, 1965 and of a news article from the Philadelphia
Inquirer, May 7, 1965
March
1 - after Penn won its first Ivy League basketball championship in thirteen years
After Penn's defeat of Princeton, the trouble started when somebody yelled "Yea,
Rowbottom" as the band led the singing of victory songs at Houston Hall.
Several thousand students rioted for about an hour and a half before police charged
the demonstrators and successfully dispersed the crowds. Soon students were setting
off firecrackers, throwing eggs, and ripping down the wooden fence around the
construction site for the new fine arts building at 34th and Walnut Streets. There
were no arrests and no injuries except for the cracks and bruises administered
by police night sticks.
View facsimile of a news article from the Philadelphia
Evening Bulletin, March 2, 1966
April 21 - spring
When several students pushed two cars into the intersection of 34th and Walnut
Streets to stop traffic, they were quickly joined by several hundred other Penn
men. After a failed attempt to start a bonfire with plywood fencing ripped from
the construction site, the crowd marched up Walnut Street, pushing more parked
cars into the street as they proceeded. Police restored order in less than half
an hour, with no arrests and no injuries.
December 8 - to
protest the Dean's refusal to extend the hours during which women were allowed
in men's dorm rooms
The highlight of this protest was the hanging of
Dean James P. Craft in effigy. A dummy, stuffed with newspapers to represent the
dean, swung from a balcony over the entrance to McClelland Hall in the Quadrangle
dormitories. When students moved toward the main gate with the intent of expanding
the protest, campus police shut the gate, containing students within the Quadrangle.
When about a hundred students used a wrought iron fence as an alternate escape
route, the fence collapsed, injuring a freshman. The sight of his profusely bleeding
eye brought the protest to an end before city police were called in. No one was
arrested.
View facsimile of a news article from the Philadelphia
Inquirer, December 9, 1966
1966 was the last year for full-fledged Rowbottoms. Rowbottoms declined in frequency and in destructive energy over the next ten years. Part of the explanation may be the firm stance taken by the University and police. For example, as Skimmer approached in April of 1968, the University and city police both announced that they would not be as lenient with student rioters as they had been in the past. But the waning of Rowbottom may also be related to the changing times. The years from 1967 to 1977 were part of an era in which many students found other outlets for their energies, including protests of a different sort against the Viet Nam War and for Civil Rights.
April 20 - a planned Rowbottom during Skimmer is forgotten
Two attempts to start a Rowbottom in the spring of 1967 had been thwarted when
campus guards locked the gates to the dormitory Quadrangle. Thus, when a group
of Penn men carefully organized a Rowbottom for Skimmer weekend, they arranged
for the participants to begin by meeting outside of the Quad. Thus, students gathered
as planned in front of the Library, and when the signal was given, they raced
across the campus with the intention of raiding the women's dormitory. Much to
their surprise, when the young men arrived, they were greeted with open doors
and welcoming "co-eds." Soon students of both genders were inside dancing
together to a rock and roll band, and the planned Rowbottom was forgotten.
View facsimile of news article from the Latrobe(Pennsylvania)
Bulletin, April 21, 1967
November 8 - revival of Rowbottom
The old cry of "Rowbottom"
was not heard on campus again until November 8, 1970. Shortly after midnight,
students took up the cry in the Quad's upper triangle. As more students gathered
and firecrackers started to explode, these male students left their dorms through
the open gates at 37th and Spruce Streets and headed for Hill Hall, then a woman's
dorm. Mrs. Natalie Coleman, the director of Hill, made the decision to open the
doors, allowing the screaming young men to flood through the corridors and suites
before gathering in the central court. The evening ended peacefully a half hour
later, after both men and women students had doused each other with water.
View facsimile of news article from the Daily
Pennsylvanian, November 9, 1970
April
21 - after an article in the Daily Pennsylvanian attacked the manhood and virility
of freshmen men
At 12:30 a.m. the battle cry of "Rowbottom"
rallied about 300 freshmen living in the Quad for a raid on the women's dorm.
When they met locked gates and an unyielding campus guard at the 37th Street gates,
the young men surged to the oaken gates at 36th Street. After forcing open these
locked, twelve-foot high gates, the students crossed College Hall Green only to
find a brigade of campus guards and resident advisors blocking the entrance to
Hill Hall. The young men, however, refused to give up. Eventually, when a visitor
open a chained door to leave, the students grabbed the door and broke the chain.
As students swarmed into Hill Hall (which ironically was already scheduled to
become co-ed the next year), campus officials confiscated matriculation cards.
Students did have some fun however, dancing and throwing water balloons before
the evening ended.
View facsimile of news article from the Daily
Pennsylvanian, April 22, 1971
April 26 - the first
female Rowbottom
Two women students living in Hill Hall claimed credit
for the event, saying they had called every suite in their dorm to rally Penn's
female students. The turnout of only forty women, although disappointingly small
from the male point of view, was enough to cause quite a stir when the group surged
into the Quadrangle at 12:30 in the morning. Plenty of men appeared in McClelland
Hall to greet these guests, but the campus guards remained calm and the foray
ended quickly and peacefully.
View facsimile of news article from the
Daily Pennsylvanian,
April 27, 1971
March
- night of the Academy Awards
On this warm spring night, residents
of the Quad leaned from their windows shouting "I'm mad as hell and I'm not
going to take it any more," a familiar line from the movie Network.
Soon about 1,500 students gathered in the Quad's lower courtyard. The noisy, rowdy
march through campus which followed included an attack on Hill House and a sit-in
on Spruce Street.
View facsimile of news article from the Daily
Pennsylvanian, April 24, 1980
April 25 - the Rowbottom tradition refuses to die
Inspired
by the April
24, 1980 Daily Pennsylvanian article on Rowbottoms, freshmen in the
Lower Quad initiated their own Rowbottom, as described in an April 2007 e-mail
from Ken Halbrecht, Class of 1983:
"At about 8 pm that Friday the 25th, 1980, several class of '83 Freshman gathered in the lower quad chanting 'Rowbottom.' By the time I joined, about 50 freshmen were already gathered. We continued to chant the historic 'Rowbottom, Rowbottom, come down and let us in!' (The tale went something like: Rowbottom's roommate was out late frequently and would forget his keys. He would yell up to Rowbottom to open the door to let him in.) We continued to do so for about 15 minutes, as dozens, [those] who had read the DP article or just the plain curious, came out of their dorms.
"When the crowd reached about 500, the call was made...'Let's go to Hill House,' and we exited lower quad gate and proceeded to Hill. Several RAs [Resident Advisors] joined the group, and neither encouraged or discouraged our event, but clearly we were being watched. As we approached Hill, the Hill RAs had been warned and secured the entrance. As we crossed the bridge we could see the crowd was easily 10 wide and ran the length from the Hill House door to Zeta Psi [fraternity house next door]. The RA at the door initially refused the crowd entry, but when one student pressed a Penn Student ID to the window of the door, the RA opened it up, and we spilled across the bridge and through the 'gates.'
"Waiting for us was the majority of Hill house, standing the balconies of each floor chatting 'the quad sucks'or something along those lines. Of course we returned the volley with 'Eat Me Hill House...' We all had many friends at Hill and we rushed to the balconies where we were greeted with the spray of water charged fire extinguishers. Within a few minutes the RAs directed the group out of Hill, under the threat of calling campus police.
"Wet and wound up, the group then headed to Superblock, but had grown measurably, with those from Hill Housing joining the Rowbottom. Once across from Harnwell (East) the group began to shout 'High Rise Sucks!' 'Eat me East' and other creative chants. Out of the night sky small objects began falling from above, and then disappearing as they atomized on impact on Locust Walk. The High Rise East residents were throwing melon and oranges at us! It didn't take long for the group to disband and head back to Hill and the Quad.
"Another Penn Tradition upheld by the Class of '83 and supported by the RAs (Seniors)."
Since the next issue of the student newspaper would not appear until the beginning of the next school year, this incident left no journalistic record. According to Ken Halbrecht, this 1980 Rowbottom was not the last; some members of the Class of 1983 staged another, smaller Rowbottom in 1981. Perhaps more alumni will send their remembrances of late twentieth-century Rowbottoms in e-mails to the University Archives.
This
exhibit was created in June 2005 by Ashish Shrestha, C '08 and Mary D. McConaghy
Revised April 2007
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