For Community Archeology Day, we created an interactive bingo card activity and a poster that displayed our research questions and relevant findings. Our goal was to present the rules of the Women’s League and to encourage reflection and spark imagination about the experience of its member students. If someone could see that they would have broken all of the rules, they may naturally think more critically about these gendered power structures. We also handed out printed copies of a selection of Women’s League rules, along with information about campusing, and current college policies. In giving people access to these materials, we hoped to inspire continuous engagement with the research beyond Community Archaeology Day itself.

In the initial conception of the bingo card, we wanted to see how many people at Community Archaeology Day would have lost points or even been campused based on their college behavior. Given that female students were forced to follow a point-based system, it felt apt to incorporate some type of game into our presentation. In total, there was not a single person, whether a current student, alum, professor, or otherwise, who did not get at least one bingo. In fact, we had a higher rate of blackout bingos than any other outcome. When someone had a bingo, we gave them a sticker that read “I’ve Been Campused,” both allowing for further active participation with our findings, and gesturing toward the stigma that “campused” students may have carried or “worn” in the past.

Some of the most rewarding interactions of Community Archaeology Day were with Carleton alums who had memories of the Women’s League and the Women’s League Cabin. One man said that he knew Sherry Nelson, as they were in the same graduating class. Another woman said that she sat on the Women’s League Court, and spoke about her experience of the culture of the Women’s League. This made clear in real time the importance of oral history to archaeological work: these accounts gave depth to our findings, and challenged some of our underlying assumptions about the Women’s League. The public presentation of this project, therefore, was crucial to our own understanding of the site, and the preservation and documentation of its history.

These photographs that we displayed from the Carleton archives offer a glimpse into the long history of partying in the Women’s League. The photographs circa 1930s were taken from a collection entitled “Dorm Life – Women.” The photographs circa 1991-1992 were taken at the Women’s League Cabin during its final years, when men were allowed at the site.

Figures 3-7: Photographs displayed at Community Archaeology Day, courtesy of Carleton Archives and Lisa Matson.