“we’d prefer to look on the panty raid as a rather harmless bit of frivolity that college kids should engage in once in a while. It’s a better escape from this meaningless world than marijuana and LSD. And we’d prefer to see young men express some masculine interest in the opposite sex rather than the lispy, limp-wristed swishes who write dirty words on signs and spit obscenities at cops and soldiers.”
-The Independent Record from Helena, Montana
November 17, 1967
Revenge of the Nerds – Panty raid
The Great Panty Caper
What started out as more as a riot fueled by groups of college males with a testosterone buildup of the conservative 50’s, birthed a fraternity tradition that would spread all over the county.
It was 1949, at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois…
The lights go out at dorm rooms all over campus.
In a heist straight out of a overdone Hollywood movie, 120 pent-up college guys plot to raid the locked girls dorm, Carlson Hall.
Cutting both the phone and electrical lines to the building, a small group made their way through heating duct tunnels beneath the building. As the power was cut, they sprang into the building unlocking the doors for the awaiting horned up mob.
Overturning beds, pushing the girls into (i’m sure cold) showers and making a general mess was the goal but reports from the girls said the only thing missing was ‘Panties’… This assault on the women’s dorm would go down in history as coining the term ‘panty raid’.
These 50’s raids would sometimes get a little out of hand like in University of Michigan 1952’s raid…
The Michigan Daily, March 21, 1952
But in the late 60’s, the good ol’ boys of the 50’s could only dream the boys would go back to aggressively chasing tail like they did.
1950’s Southern California Panty Raid
The Independent Record from Helena, Montana
November 17, 1967
“Panties and Other Unmentionables
Some of the young men attending Eastern Montana College in Billings staged a panty raid a few nights ago. This is probably looked upon in some quarters as a corny retrogression to the Fabulous Fifties, in contrast to the Swingin’ Sixties manifested by beards, bathlessness, pot parties and protest demonstrations. One fellow editorialist mildly chided the EMC panty raid as a meaningless act in an age when young people are struggling to find meaning in a meaningless world. If we may mildly disagree with our colleague, we’d prefer to look on the panty raid as a rather harmless bit of frivolity that college kids should engage in once in a while. It’s a better escape from this meaningless world than marijuana and LSD. And we’d prefer to see young men express some masculine interest in the opposite sex rather than the lispy, limp-wristed swishes who write dirty words on signs and spit obscenities at cops and soldiers.”
