Over the course of the twentieth century, each generation of college students seems to have been identified in the public mind with mindless, often madcap fads, perhaps adopted as a silly counterpoint to the demands of intellectual life. Some of these phenomena have become iconic markers of their decades: the raccoon-coat craze of the 1920s, goldfish swallowing in the 1930s, panty raids and telephone-booth stuffing in the 1950s, piano smashing in the 1960s, and streaking in the 1970s.

The goldfish-swallowing era of campus lunacy peaked in the spring of 1939. Although there were political events unfolding in Europe that would lead to World War II, newspapers devoted much space to this college fad. It all began when Harvard freshman Lothrop Withington, Jr. told friends that he had observed goldfish being swallowed on a Honolulu beach, and that he had done it himself. Someone challenged Lothrop, and a...