8
Friday, October 14, 1977
University Daily Kansan
Staff Illustration by David Miller
Lindy, Phog and hootch favorites of '27 students
By JOHN P. THARP
Staff Writer
"Blue skies smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies do I see."
Ivring Berlin wrote that in 1927, and why
Irving the nation was gazing at blue skies and
the sun. The nation was gazing at blue skies and
the sun.
There was fog in Kansas then, the legendary Forrest C. "Phog" Allen who coached the Jayhawks basketball team to its championship. Missouri Valley championship.
Charles Lindbergh flew those blue skies nontop to Paris from New York and won $2,000 in prize money for being the first to fly across the globe and love of the world for his accomplishment.
AT KU, STUDENTS drank it too, but not too much, because penalties for drunkenness included losing credit hours. The policy was eased by a 1924 graduate who is now chancellor emeritus, Raymond Nichols. He argued against the policy when he was a student.
Scarfice Al Capone supplied Chicago's 32,000 speakeasies with booze, and patrons crowded into the hidden taverns praising their music. The cat and the cat's paimans all rolled into one."
There weren't that many cars on campus, even after Henry Ford introduced his Model A in 27. Ford used a $22-million campaign to herald the model A, but most students still walked on dates or spent a buffalo nickel for a streetcar.
They were rolling something else in Kansas- cigarettes--also illegal but available at most drug stores, groceries and filling stations.
NICHOLS SAID students enjoyed
Era liberating, scintillating for college youth
Bv RUTHANNE GREELEY
Staff Writer
F. Scott Fitzgerald, author and hero of *20s youth*, recorded his image of the period in the 1960s.
Youth was afame in the 1920s, full of a recklessness for life. Recruitment was their goal, and they had to keep up with it.
Their women were flappers, liberated young ladies with short skirts and bobbied hair, who learned to smoke cigarettes and drink out of their own hip flasks.
Young men slicked back their hair and learned to tango in imitation of their idol, Rudolph Valentino. They were sophisticated and romantic.
was faster, the shows were broader, the buildings were higher, the morals were better.
A young man had to have a jalapay to park in with his date and, of course, the tancer to play it.
before the stock market crash of 1929, the era of the '20s was financially prosperous. That wonderful invention, the automobile, was available to most Americans.
Women were lavish with furs. A long, bulky fur coat was a must, or at least a coat suitable for them.
Cloch hats, pulled low over the eyes, and silk slips and stockings showing under
shorter skirts, evoked a seductive, glamorous image. Women longed to be mysterious and exotic; like such movie stars as Greta Garbo and Gloria Swanson.
An advertisement in the Kansan in October 1927 for Innes, Hackman and Co., a clothing store, remodeled University women store, "the premier fabric for fall and winter."
Controversy,change marked'27 athletics
Athletics at the University of Kansas in
were characterized by controversy,
whereby
In that year, head football coach Franklin Cappon and three of his assistants resigned unexpectedly four days after the last game of the season. Cappon cited a lack of cooperation from athletic director, Forrest "Pho" Allen as his reason for leaving.
The basketball Jayhawks, coached by Allen, won their sixth consecutive Missouri Valley Conference championship after dropping the first two games of the season.
An addition to Memorial Stadium was completed when work crews put finishing touches on the horseshoe portion of the six-year-old structure.
1927 saw the final basketball game in old Robinson Gymnasium before the team moved to newly completed Hoch Auditorium in time for the 1928 season.
SUCCESS OF KU athletic teams reached a peak in spring, 1922 when the basketball team reached its highest points.
Women of the class of '27 were concerned about dressing well. A fashion show put on by the Women's Student Government Association (W.S.G.A). displayed current fashions and adorned the Sylvain Stouts to the Hopelessly Thins", according to a yearbook account of the event.
Lee by three-time Missouri Valley Conference champion and two-time basketball Jayhawkwa won the conference championship one year before Kansas entered the newly formed Big Six Cor
Averaging 31 points a game, the Jayhawks posted wins over St. Joseph
Hillaryards, 1928 national AU champions, the intra-state rival, the Kansas State
Low scores of the day were caused by a combination of the use of zone defense and a rule that forced a jump ball after each field goal.
Former KU football and basketball star Harold Hauser said that in 1927 basketball teams
"Today basketball is played with a lot more fitness than in those days," Hauser said.
The KU trac team, under first year co-
ordinator Huff, captured the Missouri
Valley outdoor
1927 WAS ALSO the sixth runoff of the Kansas Relays with the 115 teams entered in the field, making it the biggest ever. A world record in the quarter-mile relay was equaled when a quartet from Notre Dame ran it in 4:16.
Distance runner Bernard Frazier set a school record in the mile run that year with
Track team captain Charles Doornbs, placed first in the high hardies at the Kickoff.
See ATHLETICS page 11
Boulevard
The Kansas wrestling team completed its best season in the history of the school by sending four members to the national AA1 meet in Ames, Iowa.
Jayhawk Boulevard in 1926 was lined with buildings but little shrubbery in this photograph, taken before Hoch Auditorium construction was begun. In the background is old Fraser Hall. Old Snow Hall stands in front of Fraser and Watson Library, at the right rear.
The college man's fashions included business-like double-breasted suits, particularly in Oxford gray, or more sporty baggy knuckles with a sweater, matching argyle socks and a jaunty hat to add a finishing touch.
"Longer skirts and sweaters, fur capes and stoles, and the cloak hat, were very popular," Madge Wardell, 197 W.S.G.A. "I don't think we wear it not as a test such an emphasis on being thinner."
Movies ...
And in bad weather, both snart men and
LOCAL THEATERS had a wide range of entertainment that included more than films. There were, for instance, traveling shows like the Movies, movies, and dance recitals by local talent.
had to compete. One way of competing was
to produce more full-colour movies that
would be even more valuable for the
film industry.
One spectacular event, King recalled, was when a man was buried alive for one week in a cell. He was brought to life.
From page five
The man travelled across the country doing his "act" for about $200. He was buried on a Saturday night, opposite the box office, and a peep-hole was installed for spectators. The next Saturday, he was dug up and was alive and well.
Admission to Lawrence theaters ranged from 14 cents for children and 40 cents for adults at the Varsity to 60 cents for all seats at the Patee. Special attractions might cost as much as $25 for adults and 25 cents for children. Shares often were offered a lower admission price.
The first No. 1 song for the 1951-52 school year was "Because of You" by Tony Bennett, which hit the top on the charts at number 7. He won the 7. Place Aug 26 with "Cold, Cold Heart."
MOVIES HAD been in Hoch Auditorium since 1906, and in 1928 included: "Major Barbara," "The Blue Angel," Passport to Pimlico," Beauty and the Beast," The Blue, "City Lights," the Terrible," The Tithe, De Ceura Decurar," and the "Walls of Ana."
Music also was important to the KU student of 52.
women wore Sawyer's Frog Brand rain slickers.
Eddy Harvard's hit "it's No Sin." became popular in December. It was named the Johnslin Ray, which went on to become the most listened-to song of KU students that year.
Fads were prevalent in the '20s. Everything was done to excess, from fashion to ships. "Shipwreck" Kelly became sitting on top of flagpoles for days at a time.
"Wheel of Fortune" by *Kay Star* hit it in early spring, and "Blue Tango" by *Bloy* underson was No. 1 in early May. The last year was 2008; the year was "Here In My Heart" by Al Martino.
Dancing, once a method of relaxation,
became a struggle for survival with the advent of a the dance marathon. Couples showed off their talents as they did the dancer, tanged, shimmed and tried to stay away and on their feet for several weeks.
Many containtents collapsed, some dying in short failure, as the other couples dragged.
The dances themselves were typical of the new freedom of youth. The charleston, one of the most popular dances, was a high-energy dance that covered a flapper's knees off to her advantage.
The tango, made popular by screen star Rudolph Valentino, was sultry and romantic, danced best to the strains of "Jealousy."
Paul Whitman's band was very popular in Lawrence and the rest of the country. Bell's Music Store advertised Whitman's "The Calmda" in "Now, 'and' The Calmda" in the 1927 Kasson.
Two of Misa Wardle's favorite songs were "Blue Skies" and "In a Little Spanish Tongue."
KU students could dance to their favorite music, played by Tommy Johnston and his KU Serenders, or the Mitchell-Houghens original Jayhawk band.
walking, and often took long hikes to Blue Mound or Brown's Grove for a picnic. or they headed to the Kaw, where he said they drank a "beverage stronger than Coke."
They went to the varsity dance. The Hobnail Hop and the senior cakewalk. And an unfortunate social event was the Puff Pant Promt. Young women slicked their hair, penciled on mustaches, and danced as they became men for an evening.
The youth of the '20s were at once sophisticated and naïve, and they were young.
Besides walking, they danced. It was the "The Jazz Age," with the big bands playing "Girl of My Dreams," "The Varsity Drag," "Bye, Bye Blackbird" and "I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover." With flying feet, loose knees and swinging beads, everyone moved to the Charleston. Locally the Blackbirds were very popular, and there even was a black bottom sundaire that cost 15 cents instead of the usual dime at the soda fountain.
KU had program dances, where a guy could tap a fellow's shoulder and cut in, all year long—the freshman fiddle, the sop hop, the junior prom, the senior cakewalk and the grand final and the law scrim. Lawrence had one ballroom that even had a springed dance floor.
THERE WAS A "Puff Pant Prom" where half of the women dressed as men and no men were allowed. The "27 Jayhawker described it as "where men are women."
Young college men and women gained national attention in the press, which sensa-
tionalized their every exploit and prank.
They were the "flaming youth."
Hermingway was a decade gone from the Kansas City Star newsroom when he wrote "Men Without Women," starting a new era in English 101 as students copied his terse, staccato dialogue. Sinclair Lewis had Elmer Gantry drunk on the first book of his latest novel, and the presidents were trying to get the book banned. His sales, of course, tripped.
THE SWEETTEST patioe of them all was Greta Garbo, and Rudolf Valentino, though dead, was still the sheik. They were silent movie stars, but 1927 brought the first takie, "The Jazz Singer," starring Al Jolson. The film's soundtrack was a new Vipakah sound equipment until 1929.
Professor George Knight from Ohio State wrote a list of terms applied to unpopular girls in Buckeye land, and several were used in the Sunflower State: Lemon, Sparrow and mutraracker-face. A popular girl was a belle, a live one or a sweet patooe.
There was no television, even though RCA demonstrated the first TV that year. Radio
See LINDY page nine
Welcome Back Students! from the University State Bank
Serving students in all of their financial needs
Two Locations:
L
955 Iowa
&
2546 Iowa
Member FDIC
If it wasn't for Cathay, I wouldn't be eating Chinese food.
The Cathay Restaurant is new.
Cathay's traditional Chinese food is prepared with modern knowledge that will make you a Chinese food lover. It's been worth waiting for.
Lunch: 11:00-2:00
Dinner: 2:00-10:00
carry out service available
The Cathy Restaurant, in the New Holiday Plaza, 2500 Iowa, 842-4976
Special luncheon includes Chinese & American food.