In a recent blog we shared our old­est film depict­ing Pres­i­dent Hibben’s inau­gu­ra­tion in 1912 and some unex­pected footage of Woodrow Wil­son. In today’s post we show you more sur­prise footage from that reel: com­mence­ment activ­i­ties and P-rade scenes, most of which we had already found in a puz­zling “film mosaic” on another reel. We now have iden­ti­fied the mys­tery footage as scenes from the class films of the Class of 1928. The footage from both reels is fea­tured here, along with two reunion films that helped date the mate­ri­als. Together the four films cap­ture the com­mence­ment and reunion week­end of 1928, which included a par­tic­u­larly spec­tac­u­lar P-rade, when many classes were, accord­ing to the Prince, “decked in gaudy and grotesque costumes.”

As a bonus there is footage of the Class of 1928’s fresh­men ‘flour pic­ture’ from 1924–the first in many years in which only water and flour were used, which appar­ently made this haz­ing tra­di­tion too tame to survive–it was abol­ished in 1926.

Accord­ing to the list of class films in the records of the Grad­u­ate Coun­cil, the Class of 1928 had three  film reels cap­tur­ing their com­mence­ment, with some of the footage sim­i­lar to the grad­u­a­tion film of the Class of 1921. The footage fea­tured here con­tains only a few scenes, with­out the titles that orig­i­nally accom­pa­nied them. The film, which is not in chrono­log­i­cal order, opens at the end of the class exer­cises on Mon­day, June 18 with the break­ing of the pipes on Can­non Green, which sym­bol­ized the break­ing of ties with under­grad­u­ate life. The footage is fol­lowed at 0:22 by the com­mence­ment exer­cises on Tues­day, June 19, end­ing with the singing of “Old Nas­sau” (0:44).

The film con­tin­ues on Sat­ur­day, June 16 in front of Nas­sau Hall (0:54), where all alumni were wait­ing for the Class of 1928 to lead the P-rade. After the arrival of the 466 grad­u­at­ing seniors, car­ry­ing white umbrel­las (1:04, left), the other classes would join in, begin­ning with the youngest. The footage at 1:16 shows var­i­ous classes com­ing through the Arch at Prospect Avenue, from where the pro­ces­sion pro­ceeded to Uni­ver­sity field.

From 1:30 the pro­ces­sion is seen march­ing around the base­ball field, prior to the tra­di­tional game against Yale. The cam­era­man zoomed in on classes with par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing cos­tumes. These include what is thought to be the Class of 1918 with feather hats (1:39), and an unknown class (pos­si­bly the Class of 1912) act­ing out a fox hunt (1:59, right). The film ends with footage of pre­sum­ably the Class of 1928’s last Senior Singing on the steps of Nas­sau Hall (2:19), with the seniors tra­di­tion­ally dressed in white.

The footage on the sec­ond film includes frag­ments from the first film (some­times dupli­cated) for a “mosaic” that was prob­a­bly used for a reunion. The mosaic includes some addi­tional P-rade scenes, includ­ing a class dressed up as fakirs, charm­ing a huge snake (3:43).

The P-rade scenes are mixed with footage of what is believed to be the Class of 1928 ‘flour pic­ture,’ copied from the class film of the Class of 1925, which did not sur­vive. This first group pho­to­graph of a newly arrived class was taken on the steps of Whig Hall after the fresh­men had been pelted with flour by sopho­mores (1:08). As explained in a pre­vi­ous blog, the haz­ing rit­ual had become vul­gar­ized in the early 1920s, when stu­dents used nox­ious ingre­di­ents in addi­tion to flour. In 1923 the mix even included acid, which caused the Senior Coun­cil to abol­ish the tra­di­tion. This cre­ated such an uproar among stu­dents that the Senior Coun­cil resigned and a new one was cho­sen, which imme­di­ately rein­stated the flour pic­ture. Only water and flour were allowed, how­ever, and sopho­mores, who were barred from the inside or roof of Whig Hall, were held fully responsible.

With the new restric­tions in place, the tra­di­tion appar­ently lost its appeal; accord­ing to the Prince, not many sopho­mores showed up. When a year later, dur­ing the Class of 1929’s flour pic­ture, the new sopho­mores did not show much inter­est either, the rit­ual was abol­ished after all.

This film, shot by  George O. Lin­klet­ter ’02 and donated to the Archives by his grand­son, cap­tures the P-rade from the Class of 1928 to the Class of 1912. The footage allows us to view the younger classes in their cos­tumes up close, includ­ing jail uni­forms (0:35), Ger­man leder­ho­sen (0:43), and the Class of 1920’s chefs cos­tumes (0:49).

The footage that fol­lows (1:32) shows the pro­ces­sion going around the base­ball field, and the tra­di­tional run for the seats by the grad­u­at­ing seniors. The film ends with footage of the Class of 1902’s 25th reunion in 1927 (3:38).

The last film fea­tured here, which is anno­tated, cap­tures the Class of 1888’s 40th’s reunion. The footage of the P-rade is sim­i­lar to the pre­vi­ous reunion film, but shows a few dif­fer­ent classes in cos­tume. The film con­cludes with a class gath­er­ing on Sun­day after­noon at the res­i­dence of Charles F. McClure, a Prince­ton biol­ogy pro­fes­sor, who was a mem­ber of the class.