The First All-Female Collegiate Group
On selected Fridays, The A Cappella Blog publishes a fact, statistic or piece of history from collegiate a cappella. We welcome readers to share their own bits of uncommon knowledge, or to pose questions if there's a Friday Factoid they'd like to see.
On selected Fridays, The A Cappella Blog publishes a fact, statistic or piece of history from collegiate a cappella. We welcome readers to share their own bits of uncommon knowledge, or to pose questions if there's a Friday Factoid they'd like to see.
The Smith College Smiffenpoofs were the first all-female collegiate a cappella group. The group was founded in 1936, after soon-to-be members saw the Yale Whiffenpoofs (the first all-male a cappella group) perform at a Yale-Smith picnic. The new group’s name was a tribute to the Whiffenpoofs, and the women performed regularly with The Whiffenpoofs until World War II, when many of the men went to war, and many of the women became Red Cross nurses. The Smiffenpoofs stayed together, though, and regularly performed at hospitals to entertain wounded soldiers.
The Smiffenpoofs are still active to this day, based out of Northampton, MA.
Sources: smith.edu/smiffenpoofs, wikipedia.org