Grass Cop Love

Grass Cop Love! You’re a first-year student at Smith College, a historically women’s college, in 1949. As Y/N, a first year, you attempt to navigate campus physically and culturally, but are waylaid by an extremely silly Grass Cop. Flirt! Freud! Friendship! A small sliver of Smith College Special Collections and queer culture is available for you to explore in Grass Cop Love.

The Grass Cops were founded in 1921 at Smith College as a means to cut lawn maintenance costs and to protect campus from students. The group was an explicit method of campus surveillance; armed with whistles and official badges, the Grass Cops were charged with bringing order to student movement both physically and socially. As their purview expanded, the Grass Cops’ role as a social arbitrator and enforcer crystalized. By 1949 the Grass Cops were in charge of enforcing three full pages of rules, most of which explicitly relate to “appropriate” expressions of gender: sunbathing, dress code, smoking, and chapel attendance. Much of the Grass Cops’ time was spent policing gender, but by asking students to adopt the male gaze in an attempt to police their peers, Smith College created new opportunities for queer behaviors: the original punishment for being caught thrice by the same Grass Cop was to take her out to dinner (this penalty was quickly done away with but remained campus legend). Over time, the Grass Cops appear to have attained the status of “campus celebrity,” or at least as an annoying but endearing quirk of life at Smith College. Enjoy the game, but remember: Please Do Not Walk On The Grass If You Are Going Anyplace.

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