Impact of Playful Activities

The annual report for the 1959-1960 academic year lists and describes many of the programs that State's Mates used to play with the fringes of acceptable society.

Most of the rituals of play and inversion here described were conducted during the 1959-1960 academic year.  There is no clear reason for this: presumably, the leadership of State’s Mates at the time was more interested in this sort of social activity than in other years.  The impact of these playful explorations is great, though: State’s Mates members left behind a much larger documentary trail of these kinds of activities than their normal ones.  Members probably found these kinds of explorations exciting, because they gave them a chance to try something unusual—to try on an identity that otherwise, they would never have known.

At the same time, State's Mates members were more than happy to accept the status quo in racial and gendered relationships.  Their activities of exploration were acceptable precisely because they were used to reassert the norms of conservative Southern society.

Around 1963, variety shows at State’s Mates ended, because their self-expressive nature was already being fulfilled by the Mrs. NC State pageant.  With its focus on individual talent and competition, the pageant had no place for group rituals.  The next section of this exhibit examines what kind of an identity the Mrs. NC State beauty pageant gave State’s Mates, and how it affected the organization through the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. 

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