A panty raid was an American college prank of the 1940s, the 1950s, and the 1960s in which groups of male students would attempt to invade the living quarters of female students and steal their panties as trophies. The term dates back to February 1949.
Panty raids were the first college craze after World War II, following 1930s crazes of goldfish swallowing, and of stuffing numbers of people into a phone booth.[1] The mock battles that ensued between male and female students echoed the riotous battles between freshmen and upperclassmen, which were an annual ritual at many colleges in the 20th century.[citation needed]
The first documented incident occurred on February 25, 1949, at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois. Around 125 men entered the Woman's Building; the first party entered through heating tunnels beneath the building. Once inside, they unlocked the door for the remaining raiders to enter, locked the house mother in her apartment, and cut the light and phone lines. Although a few women reported missing undergarments, the goal was to cause commotion. The police arrived, and although no pranksters were charged, the news traveled, making headlines in the Chicago Tribune, Stars and Stripes, Time magazine, and The New York Times.[2][3][4]
The next incident was on March 21, 1952, when University of Michigan students raided a dormitory, creating publicity that would spark panty raids across the nation.[5] Penn State's first raid involved 2,000 males marching on the women's dorms on April 8, 1952, cheered on by the women, who opened doors and windows and tossed out lingerie.[6] A May 1952 article in the Technique, Georgia Tech's student newspaper, reported that about 20 colleges had experienced panty raids, including several in the southeastern United States, such as Emory University, the University of Georgia, the University of Miami, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[7] By the end of the 1952 spring term the "epidemic" had spread to 52 campuses.[1][8]
Students at Columbia College and Stephens College fought off groups totaling two thousand men from the University of Missouri.[9]
Raiding continued, such as the raid by Princeton University men on Westminster Choir College in spring 1953.[10] The University of Nebraska was credited with the first panty raid of 1955, when hundreds raided the women's dorms, resulting in injuries and seven suspensions.[11] The University of California, Berkeley, had a 3,000-man panty raid in May 1956, which resulted in $10,000 in damage[12] (equivalent to $107,638 in 2022). At the University of Michigan, panty raids were associated with fall football pep rallies in addition to being a spring ritual in the 1950s and early 1960s.[13][14]
The spring ritual continued into the 1960s. In 1961, three students were expelled from the University of Mississippi at Oxford, Mississippi for panty raids.[15]
