OLD GOLD Longing for Iowa: Alumni heed the homecoming call

Corn monuments, bed races down Clinton Street, commemorative badges, kings and queens, dances, and—oh, yes—football games: the stuff of Homecoming at The University of Iowa for nearly a century. Old Gold loves parades, so he can’t leave those off the Homecoming checklist, either.

Iowa’s Homecoming tradition started on Nov. 23, 1912, when the Hawkeyes hosted Big 9 conference foe Wisconsin on old Iowa Field, site of a present-day parking lot that occupies the east bank of the Iowa River south of the English-Philosophy Building

Wisconsin won, 28-10, but the loss apparently didn’t dampen the crowd’s spirits. More than 500 alumni returned to campus for Iowa’s first such football weekend reunion, joining about 5,000 other fans, according to Iowa City historian Irving Weber (Iowa City Press-Citizen, Sept. 29, 1982).

Through the years, different Homecoming-related rituals have evolved, some only fleeting, others enduring for decades.

The corn monument display, for example, was begun by a group of engineering students in 1919. That year passersby were awed by the spectacle of hundreds of multicolored cobs of corn, attached to a 25-foot tall obelisk and flanked by four corner light posts, utilizing the modern miracle of electricity. It occupied a prominent spot at the corner of Iowa Avenue and Clinton Street, in front of Old Capitol. The tradition waned in the 1960s but enjoyed an off-and-on revival starting in 1981.

No celebration is complete without a fashion statement, and Homecoming badges debuted in 1924. Made of metal, plastic, and—in lean years—paper, they’ve become an annual staple. If you’re paying a visit to campus, Old Gold recommends stopping by the Iowa House lobby in the Iowa Memorial Union, where a complete set of badges is on display near the south entrance.

Why celebrate Homecoming? Old Gold found this gem of a passage in the Sept. 9, 1924, issue of the Iowa Alumnus, written by an anonymous reader from Waterloo and just as timely today:

LONGING FOR IOWA

Fall has come again and with it the usual empty feeling.

I long to be back in the college town, watching, and thrilling, as the trains bring their carloads of precious expectant youth; as they greet old friends, and grab the new.

I want to be back as they hunt for rooms; to watch the excited rushing; to see the groups go back and forth, perhaps to look for a face here or there that I knew.

—David McCartney, University Archivist

Homecoming Dance 1947 dance cardHomecoming Dance 1947 dance card [Subject Vertical Files Collection (RG 01.15.03), Traditions category, Homecoming folder; University Archives, Department of Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries].


Couple posing for photos at the 1949 Homecoming Dance, Iowa Memorial UnionCouple posing for photos at the 1949 Homecoming Dance, Iowa Memorial Union [F.W. Kent Collection of Photographs (RG 30.01.01), Events and Activities series, Homecoming folder; University Archives, Department of Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries].

Homecoming corn monument, erected by College of Engineering students, 1919 [F.W. Kent Collection of Photographs (RG 30.01.01), Events and Activities series, Homecoming Corn Monuments folder; University Archives, Department of Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries].

 

Homecoming parade, 1917, looking west on Market Street from Gilbert Street

Homecoming parade, 1917, looking west on Market Street from Gilbert Street. First Presbyterian Church (“Old Brick”) is in far background [F.W. Kent Collection of Photographs (RG 30.01.01), Events and Activities series, Homecoming folder; University Archives, Department of Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries].


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NEXT MONTH:
The Iowa Child Welfare Research Station

photo: The Iowa Child Welfare Research Station

Source—F.W. Kent Collection of Photographs (RG 30.01.01), Colleges and Departments series, Child Welfare folder; University Archives, Department of Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries; in Iowa Digital Library’s Iowa City Town and Campus Scenes collection, Iowa Child Welfare Research Station, 1917-1974

If you’ve got memories to share, please send them to Spectator@IOWA and we’ll run some next month.

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