2016 marked the centennial anniversary of one of Northwestern's biggest and lost traditions: the annual alumni candle lighting ceremony. Given the near-total obscurity in which this NU tradition now resides, it's hard to believe that three generations ago this ceremony was considered Northwestern's defining tradition, a curious hallmark of the university that demanded national news coverage.

The annual ceremony had its origin in the late 1800s, during alumni events celebrating the May 31, 1850 conceptual founding of the university. NU's founders first met to discuss the university in 1850, but the school would not be chartered until January 28,1851, the date now considered NU's founding. Alumni initially hosted an annual Northwestern Night party every May. This spawned the candle lighting ceremony that alumni would hold across the country.

Here is a timeline of the rise, peak, and fall of NU's most widespread tradition.


Pre-1916


Northwestern had begun to use candles during commencement before 1907. The University and the Alumni Association formally began the Northwestern Night annual celebration in May 1913. By 1915 a few alumni club chapters began lighting candles as part of their Northwestern Night festivities.


1916

Upon the recommendation of NU president Abram W. Harris, who requested that alumni light a candle "in memory and in honor of Alma Mater," Northwestern Night became the setting for a new candle lighting ceremony. Dr. O.H. Maclay, class of 1897, had the initial idea that "on a given night the alumni throughout the world should pay homage to their alma mater. Glenn Frank and John Burg developed the idea, and President Harris contributed the first suggestion of the picturesque candle lighting ceremony."¹ The ceremony used three purple candles (representing the school's past, present, and future) and a detailed ritual, including singing Northwestern songs. Fifty-nine clubs across the country took part in this first ceremony throughout the final week of May 1916.

In Saratoga Springs, New York, over 100 alumni attended the first candle ceremony for the local club and heard alumnus and former presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan offer his thoughts on the state of education. After the candle lighting, Bryan said, "The question is not how far will this candle throw its light, but will it shine every hour of the year. The lighting of this candle is a beautiful custom and Northwestern and Garrett graduates must let their light shine."²

William Dyche spoke at the Rockford, Illinois, chapter's candle lighting, held at the Imperial Hotel, telling the crowd of the new buildings recently erected on campus and planned (it's not known if he discussed any ideas for a new stadium).

The new ritual was not only observed coast to coast, but at sea as well. On the steamship Empress of Japan several alumni lit the ritual candle 1,000 miles west of San Francisco. NU president Harris made contact with them via wireless and communicated his greetings.

Several of the participating clubs suggested improvements to the ritual, including adding the University Hymn (Quæcumque Sunt Vera) to the ceremony's songs and passing to each group a small twig from the same branch of a tree on NU's campus, from which the clubs could all light their candles.


1917-1918

After its successful debut year, the candle lighting ceremony was not repeated in 1917, due to America's entry into World War I. The ceremony returned in 1919.


Early 1920s

By the early '20s Northwestern Night had transformed into University Day, and the candle lighting ritual had become even more popular, celebrated "from Nanking, China, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; from points in India to New York, Chicago and St. Louis."³ The Los Angeles club hosted over one hundred alumni for its annual ceremonies in this period. In 1922 NU president Walter Dill Scott addressed the scattered clubs by telegram. Northwestern professors traveled across the country to provide lectures to some of the events.

In 1924 the candle ceremony, including its songs and accompanying presentations, was broadcast on WMAQ in Chicago for a one-hour special event. The relatively new radio station could be heard through much of the midwest, and its longwave signal could be picked up across the country. Songs were performed by a live band in the studio, and several Chicago dignitaries provided speeches. WMAQ and WLS would continue to provide coverage for NU's candle ceremony for most of the next two decades.


1925

For the first time, students joined alumni in the candle ceremony. Most of the on-campus fraternity and sorority houses took part in the formal ritual, which now had a scripted version. The scripted ritual, written by Bishop George Craig Stewart, Dean Ralph B. Dennis, and Dr. Horace Smith, would be used for 13 years before being revised.


Reaction to the growing use of the ritual was not universally positive. The Daily Northwestern was particularly critical, calling the ceremony "slop": "Certainly one must stifle his sense of the ridiculous in order to join in such bombastic expressions of devotion." By the summer of 1925, the Daily was calling for the ritual to be abandoned, calling it "Philistinism that ought not to be associated with an educational institution."⁵ Despite the Daily's protests, the ritual continued to increase its popularity in the next few years.

1928

NU president Scott lit for the first time the massive new purple candle that would become the centerpiece of the candle ritual for years. It was "a huge purple candle, four feet tall and six inches in diameter, large enough to last more than 100 years."⁶ The new candle was lit in a special ceremony in the cupola of the Old College building. Horace Goodrich, son of NU co-founder Grant Goodrich and one of the first students to graduate from Northwestern in 1859, was the guest of honor and the donor of the new candle.

1930s

By the early 1930s, the candle ceremony was receiving national press attention as a ritual "unique to the university and the country." The Daily had moved from derision to active participation, splashing the candle ceremony across its front page:


Despite the steadily increasing popularity of the event with alumni, the student participation in the ritual ebbed by 1930, and undergraduate student groups eventually abandoned the event.

NBC Radio carried the candle lighting ceremony, "one of Northwestern's most cherished traditions," live on a nation-wide network hookup. Presidents of NYU and USC joined President Scott in addressing the nation, and the lighting ceremony had become far more elaborate, with Scott pushing a button from the radio studio that gave the signal to staff in the Old College cupola (now called "Candle Tower") to light the huge candle electrically. By the mid '30s, between 40,000 and 50,000 Northwestern alumni and students around the world took part in the ceremonies each May.

NU revised the formal ritual, making it more concise.


The 1939 ceremony was Scott's last, and the day was dedicated to honoring the retiring NU head. Former President Herbert Hoover spoke at the ceremony.



1940s

National radio and press coverage of the candle ceremony continued into the '40s. 50,000 alumni continued to meet annually to light their own, smaller, versions of NU's Grand Candle, and university presidents (such as Cal Tech's Robert Millikan) made their own addresses to the national NBC audience during NU's event.

For the 1941 ceremony, Northwestern went all-out, erecting a 15-foot mock candle in Deering Meadow, which it lit daily for a week before the actual ceremony. The ceremony itself had been moved by 1941 from Old College to Cahn Auditorium, at which 1,200 students and alumni participated. Again, more than 50,000 alumni took part worldwide. The ceremony had taken on a wartime tone by the early '40s, and was used to honor NU's alumni and students engaged in the military efforts at home and abroad. A fourth candle, the "Candle of Northwestern Patriotism" was added to the ritual from 1943 to 1945. The number of clubs participating in the ceremony during World War II swelled to over 100, nearly doubling the original number.

NU Photo

In late 1944 Northwestern moved the candle ritual from May to the Sunday closest to January 28, to coincide with NU's Founders' Day celebration.

By the late 1940s the ceremony was no longer carried nationally on radio, but WGN continued to broadcast the event to the Chicago area. The ceremony also continued to attract prominent speakers, including UN assistant secretary-general William Agar in 1948.

1950s

Originally nearly five feet tall, NU's Grand Candle by 1950 was reduced to four feet through 21 years of use. However, the University revised the candle's expected lifetime, increasing it from 100 years to well over 150 years, given the one hour per year that the candle was then lit. "No longer reserved for Old College, the candle is now kept in a metal cylinder in the Administration building when not in use. Its thick wick is so hard that it must be saturated with lighter fluid before each service."⁷

The 1951 ceremony took on greater significance due to the University's Centennial celebration. The '51 and '52 candle ceremonies were considered the bookend festivities for NU's Centennial observance. Chicago Tribune publisher Robert McCormick was the 1952 featured speaker. The school again revised the expected lifespan of the Great Candle, claiming that it could last another 200 years.


Alumni clubs across the country continued to hold their own candle ceremonies on Founders' Day, but the event was no longer covered by the radio.

Despite the roaring popularity of the candle ritual for nearly four decades, by the mid-'50s interest in the event declined rapidly. NU's Founders' Day included the Grand Candle in its celebration in 1956, but it was dropped in '57.


1960s to the Present: Where Is the Candle?

According to a 1984 article in the Daily⁸, the NU Alumni Association tried to revive the candle lighting event in 1963, but the revival was brief, and the candle remained unlit for nearly two decades.

In 1981, the Alumni Association celebrated its 100th anniversary and added the Great Candle to its anniversary celebration. The Association discussed the possibility of again reviving the ceremony, but chose not to do so. The school placed the candle in the John Evans Alumni Center, where it stayed until the late 1980s. At some point in the '90s, however, the candle went missing. Its fate remains a mystery.

In 2011 Northwestern tried to update the candle lighting tradition by adding to the school's website a "virtual candle," which alumni could "light" by clicking a link on January 28.


2016: The 100th Anniversary Revival

For the 100th anniversary of Northwestern's unique tradition, HailToPurple helped to commission the casting of a replica of the Grand Candle. The Shadows Studio in Denver, Colorado made a purple candle the same diameter as the original Northwestern candle, with the same height that the candle would have been after continuous use since its debut (still nearly three feet in length!).

The candle was present at the April 9, 2016 celebration of A Day With Northwestern in Evanston, at Norris Center, for a one-time only exhibition, completing the first century of this Wildcat rite.

 
 

Since the 2016 centennial ceremony at Norris, the Grand Candle has remained with HailToPurple.com and features in a more recent, private tradition: it is lit on the autumn weekend before the kickoff of NU's football season.         [Photo at left: the Grand Candle, lit before the beginning of the 2018 Big Ten West title season]

1. Ward, Estelle F., The Story of Northwestern University, 1924, Dodd, Mead & Co., p. 370.
2. Northwestern University Bulletin. Alumni Journal, Vol. 16, No. 41, June 30, 1916.
3. Daily Northwestern, May 18, 1922, p. 1.
4. Daily Northwestern, May 28, 1925, p. 2.
5. Daily Northwestern, July 21, 1925, p. 2.; ibid, Aug. 11, 1925, p. 2.
6. Daily Northwestern, May 2, 1928, p. 1.
7. Daily Northwestern, Jan. 26, 1950, p. 8.
8. Daily Northwestern, Jan. 27, 1984, tgif, p. 7.

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