The Minneapolis Tribune reported on a curious trend among co-eds at the University of Minnesota: Wearing large hats to class to conceal widespread … doily making?

Co-Eds Impose on
Guileless Professors

Directoire Hats Enable Col-
lege Girls to Sew in
Classes.

A “Hats Off” Rule May
Have to Be Pro-
mulgated.

Co-eds at the University of Minnesota have recently begun to show a remarkable ingenuity in the art of living up to the old proverb of “improving each flying moment,” and at the same time are acting in a mean manner toward their various instructors by taking an undue advantage of the fashion of wearing the wide “merry widow” hats.

	Multiply this by a dozen or so and you’ll have some idea what the professors were up against. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)

Girls at the university have in nearly all their classes been allowed to wear their hats to class. Many girls have been in the habit of smuggling a novel or the Minnesota Daily into a back row of seats, and, screened from the eagle eye of the professor, have read more “interesting” literature on the side.

With the advent this fall of the more copious “directoire lids,” the co-eds who drew the back seats in the recitation rooms have been encouraged to take up a more practical subject than the reading of literature. Under the regime of the newest millinery creations it is now impossible for instructors of very large classes to see what those in the back rows are doing.

Hence, in the last two weeks a fad has sprung up among a certain group of girls, who may be seen nearly every day sitting quietly in the rear of their classroom, industriously sewing away, and fashioning wonderful creations in doilies, sofa pillows, exquisite drawn work, and other creations known to feminine witchcraft. Many say that this is an argument for a sewing school to be established at the university, but there are others who say that the professors should pass a “hats off” rule to apply in the recitation rooms.

	At the end of a long day in about 1910, these U students retreated to Sanford Hall and donned less bulky nightcaps. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)

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