February 23, 1934

Effective Friday, February 23, new campus smoking regulations approved by the trustees went into effect. Students were permitted to smoke in their rooms in the residence halls, and in preparation for the new privilege, The Miscellany News published comments provided at President MacCracken’s request by college officials on “four main points with regard to smoking and the college student.”

Dr. Jane North Baldwin, the college physician, provided health advice, including a note on “tobacco heart.” “When one becomes uncomfortable if she cannot smoke,” she added, “it is time to face the fact squarely that she is approaching a ‘habit.’ No one would choose such humiliation and therefore should at once stop smoking.” The college’s general manager, Keene Richards, addressed issues of fire protection, concluding that as far as he knew, “insurance rates will not rise unless the extension of the smoking privilege is followed by a series of fires on campus.” Notes by Warden Eleanor Dodge ’25 on the privilege’s “Social Significance in the Community” and an analysis of the expense of smoking were also provided. A pack a day of “quality” cigarettes throughout the academic year would cost $46.20 (20 cents per package), and “mass” cigarettes (15 cents) would cost the smoker $34.65.

Under the new rules, smoking was prohibitied in the area bounded by Main Building, Rockefeller Hall, the Library, Taylor Hall and the Chapel, “because of the mess around campus, …the cost of picking it up, and …the crowding of smokers around the library, chapel, and doors of Rocky. A goundsman has been detailed to watch this proscribed area. It is his duty to warn a girl upon her first offense, and to arrest her upon the second.”

The Miscellany News