The History of Sadie Hawkins Day

On November 1, 1938, The Charleston Gazette sponsored Morris Harvey's first Sadie Hawkins Day celebration. The race and mock wedding that served as its finale were held between halves of the Morris Harvey - New River State football game. It was believed to be the first such celebration in the nation, the genesis of a national craze. The City News Reel Company filmed that first celebration, and it played as a newsreel around the country. Unfortunately, that film has been lost.

Sadie Hawkins Day was named for a cartoon character developed by Al Capp for his Li'l Abner comic strip. Sadie Hawkins was so ugly that her father, Mayor of Dog Patch, U.S.A., feared he would never marry her off. In desperation, he decreed a Sadie Hawkins Day. All unmarried men in Dogpatch would get a ten minute head start before Sadie and the other unmarried women began running after them. The man each woman caught would end up in front of Marryin' Sam for a shotgun wedding.

At Morris Harvey, the rules allowed all the female "residents" to chase their men, who were given a ten second head start. The men were not allowed to run out of bounds or past the fifty yard line. When the race was over, couples would line up to be married by Marryin' Sam. Participants dressed in the "hillbilly" costumes shown in the comic strip. The costumes for women, off-the-shoulder blouses and mid-thigh or shorter ragged edge skirts, were quite brief in relation to the usual attire of the 1930's-1950's. Parents sometimes objected to the amount of bare leg being shown by their daughters. Whoa!

  2-13-04