Although I have my own memories of attending Stanford as a freshman in the Fall of 1961, my memories are selective (and fading!) and do not fully reflect the historic times nor the nuances of life on the Stanford campus and in the world during that early Sixties era. Which brings us to the Stanford Daily Archives, which touts its online, searchable collection of 18,931 issues dating back to 1892–well over a million articles written and edited by Stanford student journalists.
One of the most pertinent articles in terms of the storyline of my novel was an Campus Opinion piece written by Bill Griffin on October 25, 1961. I have a clear memory of the buzz in Roble Hall (one of the women’s freshman dorms) the day of the annual Full Moon event, a campus tradition that had been long touted as a means for a Stanford “girl” to become a “woman”–by being kissed by a Senior in the Inner Quad on the night of the Harvest Moon. For the first time in my young life, I had an honest-to-goodness boyfriend, and by some miracle, he was a Senior. Not that he hadn’t been working on my “womanhood” on his own for the past few weeks, but even he declared that the event was too raunchy and felt it inappropriate for me to attend. He explained how frosh men had traditionally disrupted the event. I never knew the full extent of the sexual violence that took place that night until I read Bill Griffin’s account in researching my novel (I wasn’t much of a reader of the Daily at the time–too busy majoring in “boyfriend”). The up side? Given my history of childhood maltreatment, it would have certainly been a traumatic experience had I attended.
Here is a portion of Griffin’s first hand account:
The girl, surrounded by a pack of animals screaming “Rape her! Rape her!” and other unprintable slogans, panicked and ran. SHE WAS CHASED into one of the garden circles on Quad, and again surrounded. She there became trapped in the thick bushes, while the freshmen shined flashlights on her and continued their screaming. Several of these brave defenders of their class’ honor fought their way through the bushes, grabbed the girl from behind, and dragged her out into the open, where she was thrown down, then picked up and held so more freshmen could throw their water on her. By the time her date and myself had gotten to the center of he mob and the girl was freed she had lost both her shoes, had skinned both knees, torn her clothing, and was extremely frightened. AND ALL THE while the mob of “mature, intelligent, well rounded individuals” stood around screaming for “Rape!” and “Hold her up! Do it again!”
There were subsequent follow-up articles in the Daily, including a front-page headline story on October 27, 1961, written by then Editor Jerry Rankin, minimizing the incident and providing rationalizations that are employed to this day when defending incidents of sexual violence on college campuses. As if dousing women with buckets of ice water was inconsequential, much less screaming “rape them” and physically attacking them.
Here is a portion of Rankin’s article:
THE MATTER CAME to light when The Daily published a column Tuesday by Bill Griffin. Griffin was with the German girl and her German date (both Stanford students) when they were set upon by a group of freshman men. [Head Wilbur dorm sponsor Jerry] Puttler said The Daily column was factually correct, but overstated the case. He noted that “very few” of the freshman men on Quad were involved in other than the usual water-bombing. Puttler listed three causes of the incident: • An article in The Daily Monday morning telling of the full moon tradition and which, he said, gave many frosh the impression that their role in it was to turn out and water-bomb the seniors. • The desire to let off steam after the morning Western Civ test. • Failure of the sponsors to see the situation developing and to take action to head it off. “We should have seen it” coming, he explained. “We didn’t.”
The final outcome was that 150 freshman men “confessed” to being present and paid an average of 70 cents each for damage to the shrubbery and a broken window. No mention was made about the victims involved who were neither compensated, nor counseled, nor made amends to, although a few subsequent letters to the editor alluded to the inappropriateness of the event.
Looking back, the courage it took for a male student journalist to write that initial article is quite astounding. An act that we seldom see over sixty years later.
There were many other relevant articles about campus incidents and world events that wound their way into my novel. One of the most astounding being Bobby Kennedy’s statement that his brother, JFK, was considering using nuclear force against East Germany over the Berlin wall. My thought, wouldn’t than rain terror down on both sides of the Berlin Wall? Although my account involves Daily staffers solving two fictional unexplained deaths on campus, the true story of campus life, world events, even the sexist cigarette ads, the aptly named films, and the distinctive fashions of the day enlivened my novel in a way fiction never could. The Stanford Daily archives were a treasure trove indeed!
The Archives are indexed by date and are searchable. Pick a date that has significance time-wise for you, and read all about it. Even if you never set foot on the Stanford campus, I’m sure you’ll find relevant articles that will stir your own best and worst memories.
Enjoy watching my heart-pounding book trailer for SINISTER SUGGESTIONS.
SINISTER SUGGESTIONS is available in Kindle or paperback versions at Amazon
Marietta and I were on the cusp, so to speak, graduating from high school in 1961. We entered puberty in 1955 along with a generation of kids who spent their formative years crouching in dirty hallways, sweaty fingers laced behind their well-scrubbed necks, waiting for the A-bomb. We graduated at the peak of the SAT scores. Our parents were afraid of Sputniks, and we were afraid of our parents. There were rumors about poodle skirts, but I never laid eyes on one. I felt out of kilter with my own generation. My mother insisted I wear sturdy brown oxfords instead of the saddle shoes and Capezios that graced the dainty feet of my peers. Of course, irradiating my toes under the shoe store fluoroscope negated the health benefit of good arch support. Actually, looking at the bare bones in my feet was the closest I ever got to obscenity. My political consciousness peaked at having two parakeets named “Ike” and a German shepherd with the same patriotic appellation. My family was not big on original thought.
There was a saying that went: “Nine out of ten California girls are beautiful and the tenth one goes to Stanford.” I went to Stanford. Now, don’t get me wrong. I didn’t break mirrors, but there were thousands of drop-dead gorgeous women in California, even in high school. I was tall and naturally blonde…well, almost. That brief stint in modeling school had served me well. I had outgrown my awkward pubescent years and could manage a graceful stride when I put my mind to it. Any shortfall I had in the looks department had been well compensated in the brain department. Those top grades paid off. Twenty-two of my classmates also applied to Stanford, but none of the others was admitted. The day my letter of acceptance came in the mail, I had more than a few envious friends. My ego was quickly deflated, however, when I arrived on campus, just another clueless freshman set loose in a seething mass of upperclassmen. I struggled through the maze of registration, jostled by the milling masses at Memorial Auditorium. I fretted as I watched the IBM cards, each printed with one class opening, disappear into the greedy hands of the students ahead of me in line. I breathed a sigh of relief when the precious card for Chemistry for Chem Majors fell into my possession. My relief was short-lived, however. After I collected the rest of my class cards, I realized that two required courses had been assigned to me on the same days at the same hour. I stared in dismay at the placards overhead that forbade any changes to the pre-assigned sections of either Freshman English or Western Civ. 
Dr. Karen Stephen aka Doc Flamingo 