{"id":26447,"date":"2024-11-18T22:30:43","date_gmt":"2024-11-18T22:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=26447"},"modified":"2026-03-13T16:37:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T16:37:19","slug":"last-look-homecoming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2024\/11\/last-look-homecoming\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Look: Homecoming"},"content":{"rendered":"

By John Esh, Collections Archivist<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the leaves turning brown and a chill in the air, the Archives opens its collections to take a look back at Homecoming, a tradition stretching back over one-hundred years here at Macalester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Macalester\u2019s first large-scale Homecoming celebration was in 1916, featuring a football game against Hamline in June of that year. The May 30th edition of the Mac Weekly<\/em> wrote that it was \u201csure to be a victory\u2026because the Methodists\u2026have already brought firewood for a celebratory bonfire.\u201d And, sure enough, it was. Macalester defeated Hamline 20 to 13 and St. Thomas students were on hand to help celebrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the US entering World War I, Homecoming was put on pause. The celebration resumed in 1921 almost three years after Armistice Day, and evolved into a full day of celebration with activities, food, and a \u201cminiature blizzard\u201d during the big game when Mac beat St. Johns. As years passed, Homecoming would feature dances, plays, parades, trike races, pickle-eating contests, and other festive events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1937, Macalester crowned its first Homecoming Queen (or Queen of Scots), Margaret Greig \u201937. This tradition continued until 1969 with its final recipient (among much controversy), Sandy Zimmerman \u201970, an \u201cavant-garde\u201d-loving art major, and the first married Queen, who submitted a caricature of herself for the program. That next year signaled the end of the thirty-three-year tradition with a Court of Princesses selected rather than a singular Queen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an October 24th, 1969 Mac Weekly<\/em> letter to the editor, Chuck Horton \u201972 lamented the waning popularity of the event by saying, \u201cIt isn\u2019t hip or sophisticated enough for everyone to\u2026have community fun without\u2026drugs or psychedelic lights or sounds,\u201d and he may have been right. The rapidly changing landscape of the American college campus had rendered the annual f\u00eate a relic of a bygone era. In the decades following, Homecoming scaled back and returned to a focus on athletics and tailgate parties throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, a spirit of homecoming infuses September\u2019s Mac Fest<\/a>\u2014an annual weekend of programming and events for all members of the Mac community that showcases campus life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Look strives for accuracy, but there are often gaps in the archival record. If you have a correction, context to add, or a suggestion about what to cover next, please email us at archives@macalester.edu<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A look back at over one-hundred years of Homecoming celebrations.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":875,"featured_media":26463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[641],"class_list":["post-26447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","tag-mac-fest","mediatype-articles","mediatype-photogalleries"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8,5],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/875"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26447"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29463,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26447\/revisions\/29463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}