The 20th National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) meeting took place at the Parker House in Boston from February 27 to March 1, 1928. By that time, more than 210,000 women had joined the 21 NPC organizations. At the meeting, it was affirmed that “the policy of NPC is against smoking by active chapter members in chapter houses or on campuses, and that alumnae and guests be asked to respect this policy as they do house rules.”
In an editorial in the May 1928 Arrow of Pi Beta Phi, Agnes Wright Spring noted, “Pi Beta Phi as a national fraternity has maintained a policy against smoking and has not permitted its members to smoke in chapter houses and has dismissed active members who persisted in smoking in public.” The editor outlined what had taken place in 1926 at Mount Holyoke College. The college “took a stand against smoking and since then always sends a form letter to all prospective students.”
The form read, “Mount Holyoke College disapproves of smoking by college students and has made the regulation that no student may smoke while under its jurisdiction… Any prospective student who is unwilling to conform to this regulation is advised to withdraw her application, as all students entering the college will be considered to have given their word of honor to observe it. A student failing to do so will be asked to withdraw.”
The editorial closed with a shout out to the other NPC organizations, “As an organization endeavoring to uphold the highest ideals of womanhood, Pi Beta Phi is gratified to find the other national women’s fraternities maintaining a policy against smoking.”
It is interesting to note that while there was a policy in the 1920s, by the post-war years of the late 1940s and through the Mad Men era of the 1960s and 1970s, smoking became an accepted part of American life. More than half the American adult population smoked. Watch an episode of I Love Lucy and you’ll see cigarette placement throughout the show. After all, Philip Morris was the show’s sponsor. Flip through Life, Look, Saturday Evening Post and other magazines to see the ads portraying smoking as the cool thing to do. Talk to alumnae of that era and many will tell you that smoking was ever present on the college campus and in the chapter house.
The tide started to shift in the late 1970s and the landmark report of the Surgeon General helped bring an awareness about the health risks associated with smoking and second-hand smoke. Cigarette companies were forced to change their advertising methods. That in turn helped create a cultural change.
NPC policy about smoking in chapter houses went by the way-side, most likely put aside for more pressing matters.
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