Thursday, March 8, 2012

Mystery History -- Solved!

I'm giving my heart to Wanda for her 1:55 p.m. Tuesday guess "Maybe it is an initiation of some sort."

In the 1940 photo above, members of the Sorelle Club, a Pasadena City College sorority, look on as one of 14 prospective new members goes through the rite of initiation in a Pasadena barn.

The women's hair was smeared with molasses and raw eggs, they were dressed in nightgowns and masks, and made to smoke foul cigars and grovel on the barn floor.

After the humiliating hazing was complete, they were offically welcomed into the sorority during a formal ceremony:

When I was a senior in high school, I was initiated into the Belle Filles, a community service organization/junior sorority. The other candidates and I were blindfolded, taken to a very dark spot on Proctor Valley Road in rural San Diego County and made to kiss a severed cow's head on the lips without realizing what it was until the blindfolds came off (I knew it was something horrifying; turns out the father of one of the members owned a meat packing plant).

Thankfully, hopefully, this kind of hazing doesn't happen very often any more, if at all!

Many thanks to Pasadena City College.

4 comments:

Petrea Burchard said...

Yuck!
But the pictures are cool as are the stories, as always.

Bellis said...

Never thought this would be at PCC. I'm glad we never had sororities and hazing in English schools. I'd have been one of the girls left out of this "fun", I'm sure.

Jean Spitzer said...

I experienced a very mild version of this in high school. I too hope this is "history."

Congratulations, Wanda!

Pasadena Adjacent said...

You must of REALLY wanted to be in that club