Primal Scream is a tradition at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

that forms part of the streaking at educational institutions. At midnight on the last night of reading period and before

final exams A final examination, annual, exam, final interview, or simply final, is a test given to students at the end of a course of study or training. Although the term can be used in the context of physical training, it most often occurs in the ac ...

begin, students streak through the Old Yard. The streakers begin in the north end of The Yard and generally make one lap around, but the more adventurous sometimes aim for more. This is done both semesters, even during

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winters. Some of the streakers will "dress up" in capes and masks, or

top hat A top hat (also called a high hat, a cylinder hat, or, informally, a topper) is a tall, flat-crowned hat for men traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditionally m ...

and tails, or other costumes, but their genitalia are still exposed. The walkways through which students run are lined with spectators and the

Harvard University Band The Harvard University Band (HUB) is the official student band of Harvard University. The Harvard Wind Ensemble, the Harvard Summer Pops Band, and the Harvard Jazz Bands also fall under the umbrella organization of HUB. Currently, the band plays f ...

plays beforehand to excite the crowd. Before it became a "night when the whole student body comes together to gawk at just that" it was a night with a closer association to its name. Beginning in the 1960s students would congregate in the Yard or open their windows and just yell for 10 minutes. It was designed as a way to release stress. By the 1990s, the streaking aspect of the evening had become prominent. It is still designed to give stressed out students a chance to "step outside the box". The transition from yelling to streaking is unclear. Old administrators that have been at Harvard since the 1970s speak of an earlier day of adventurous streakers. Before there was streaking in the yard began the Quad Howl—streaking in what used to be old

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. These administrators of the Quad houses speculate that the change from the Quad to the Yard, which happened during their time, was because the narrow pathways of the Quad could not accommodate the increasing multitudes of people with an urge to get

naked Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing. The loss of body hair was one of the physical characteristics that marked the biological evolution of modern humans from their hominin ancestors. Adaptations related to h ...

in public. The natural choice was to go join those in the Yard, giving them something to get excited about. A small tradition of Quad Howl continues today: after each Primal Scream, a few Quad residents return to the Quad for a naked lap there. Another related tradition is the Lingere Study Break where undergraduates in Lamont Library strip off their clothes, piece by piece, in front of hundreds of other students studying. While the records are not entirely clear, it appears that when Charles Adams, son of

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...

and brother of

John Quincy Adams John Quincy Adams (; July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, and diarist who served as the sixth president of the United States, from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States S ...

, was a student at Harvard, he and a few friends were disciplined for getting drunk and running naked across the Campus with friends. He was later readmitted. Thursday, December 11, 2014, at 12:00 midnight marked the first time that students ran the naked lap in a clockwise direction. The tradition of the naked lap has been to start outside of Hollis Hall and then take off initially running west around the Old Yard, counterclockwise. However,

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protesters gathered and linked arms just west of Hollis blocking the traditional path. A bit past midnight students decided to break tradition and run the naked lap clockwise in order to avoid the protesters and complete the lap.

References

{{reflist, refs= American Experience , John & Abigail Adams , People & Events , PBS
/ref> {{cite book, author=Simon J. Bronner, title=Campus Traditions: Folklore from the Old-Time College to the Modern Mega-University, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HJkkykeN-nkC&pg=PA48, date=15 September 2012, publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi, isbn=978-1-61703-616-3, pages=48– {{cite book, author=Dov Fox, title=The Truth about Harvard: A Behind the Scenes Look at Admissions and Life on Campus, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SVrimODXb-8C&pg=PA157, year=2004, publisher=The Princeton Review, isbn=978-0-375-76435-6, pages=157 {{cite book, author=Eric Kester, title=That Book about Harvard: Surviving the World's Most Famous University, One Embarrassment at a Time, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mt3SCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA322, date=1 July 2012, publisher=Sourcebooks, isbn=978-1-4022-6752-9, pages=322– Thompson, A. Haven (2006)
Primal Scream: An Abbreviated History
Retrieved 2006-05-19. Culture of Harvard University Clothing-free events Unofficial observances Streaking

See also

References