Goldfish swallowing

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Goldfish swallowing was a college fad of the late 1930s, consisting of exactly what its name implies.

A 1963 letter to the New York Times claimed that the fad began in late 1938 when Lothrop Withington Jr., a Harvard freshman with "[class] presidential aspirations," was encouraged by his "campaign managers" to do so as a publicity stunt: "Reporters and photographers were inadvertently present in the Harvard Freshman Union when Withington swallowed his live goldfish (with a mashed potato chaser) and started a nationwide fad in the spring of 1939." The editor replied that "unless the Editor's memory is deceiving him, the goldfish-swallowing craze among school and college boys had begun at least as early as 1930."[1] Apparently his memory was deceiving him, as Time magazine noted in a 1939 article, "Harvard Freshman Lothrop Withington Jr., son of a onetime (1910) Harvard football captain, started the fad sweeping U. S. campuses...".[2]

The act of goldfish swallowing was also used for a time as part of the teen ministry of the First Assembly of God Church in Florence, Alabama, circa 2005, although this practice has since been discontinued.[3]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Newman, Harry, Jr. "The Goldfish Swallowers." Letter to New York Times, February 27, 1963, p. 6
  2. ^ Goldfish Derby. Time. Retrieved on 2007-10-04.
  3. ^ Church to end practice of goldfish swallowing. USA Today. Retrieved on 2007-10-04.

[edit] External links

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