From the Archives

The playfulness of Class Day 1959 is evident in this photograph of the almost-graduates tossing their clay pipes on the buried cannon on Cannon Green. The tradition of smashing the pipes to symbolize breaking ties with undergraduate life ended as pipe-smoking waned. Though archivists had no other information about Class Day that year, the July 3, 1959, PAW reported that Commencement “continued its over a quarter-century record of fair weather on Tuesday, June 16.” President Robert Goheen ’40 *48 ­conferred 993 degrees before an audience of 5,000, and 11 people received honorary degrees, including singer Marian Anderson.