College smokers

Beginning somewhere around 1908 and ending about 1923, College Smokers became a favorite tradition on campus.  These nights of good food, good entertainment, and good smoking provided the opportunity for fun, relaxation, humor, and merriment.  Each year, a smoker prepared and performed by members of each class, took place.  In addition, smaller Smokers would be held each year by such groups as the junior and senior classes, and possibly other college organizations.  Students greatly anticipated the yearly programs, and after the performances, they would receive much praise, review, and sometimes criticism for weeks afterwards. 

Held in Jesup Hall, the Smoker program usually offered an assortment of performed entertainments, a menu of food and dessert, and trays of good cigarettes.  If a student was lucky, he could sometimes get his hands on one of the cigars, usually reserved for the faculty.  The various entertainments normally included a humorous play, fun and boisterous songs, and maybe some short comedy sketches. 

The entertainment normally made use of vulgar and offensive humor.  One song began: "I'd like to take a poke at Pocahontas".  Given the times and the fact that the Williams student body was comprised solely of men, this is not surprising.  There were less people to offend, gender-wise, and racial humor was more generally accepted at the time.  Some Smoker Committees took pride in this fact and produced clever program pamphlets for the shows.  The 1916 program portrays a woman in a bathtub and states "Come on in, the Smoker's clean.  Thoroughly scoured, however 'cleanliness is next to—' an impossibility".  Another program wittily alludes to removing a lady's skirt. 

Other Smoker Committees consciously tried to clean up their scripts in an attempt to provide some less vulgar, but still entertaining, humor.  In 1922, the Smoker Committee succeeded in producing a wildly entertaining yet surprisingly clean program, entitled "Vanity Fair".  One writer for the Williams Record stated that "'Vanity Fair' proved rather conclusively that a Smoker does not have to be vulgar to be successful…The whole-hearted praise which has been accorded 'Vanity Fair' shows that original and unique features, good music, well sung, and a chorus which is really clever, are better liked than mere suggestiveness."  The program was such a tremendous hit that many thought it was too good to be performed only once.  Some suggested it be taken to the road for more performances.  Additional cleaned-up smokers included those of 1917 and 1919. 

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