Opened in 1923, Memorial Field was dedicated in memory of the 112 Dartmouth men who died in World War I. In the booklet “The Hillwinds Know Their Name: A Guide to Dartmouth’s War Memorials,” the late historian Charles T. Wood wrote:
“To the people of the 21st century, a football stadium may seem a curious kind of war memorial, but to people living in the 1920s, and not just at Dartmouth, it was a choice that made sense. Athletics have a human dimension, after all, and in football Americans discovered a game in which … heroism still lived. It appeared, then, that Dartmouth had no better way to honor its dead than by building Memorial Field, a stadium looking proudly but sadly to the past even as the nature of its athletic function allowed the College to look expectantly forward, to better times to come.”
The names of Dartmouth’s 112 war dead are inscribed on a granite tablet inside the main entrance to the stadium. Other war memorials around the campus include monuments to Dartmouth’s World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War dead in the Zahm Courtyard outside the Hopkins Center, and a Civil War memorial inside the doors of Rauner Special Collections Library in Webster Hall. Limited numbers of copies of “The Hillwinds Know Their Name” booklet are available from Dartmouth’s Office of Public Affairs.
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