The phrase was used during the Vietnam War era to describe the sort of major that many young men who would otherwise not have entered college undertook to escape the draft.Rick Atkinson: The Long Gray Line: The American Journey of West Point's Class of 1966. Published by Henry Holt and Co., 1999. , . 608 pages US Senator Gordon L. Allott referred in 1968 to "the situation that we were in after World War II where we had universities setting up courses in underwater basket weaving, and all this sort of thing".Hearings, Reports and Prints of the Senate Committee on Appropriations. United States Congress, Senate Committee on Appropriations, Published by U.S. G.P.O., 1968 Senator Robert Byrd used the phrase in 1969 when questioning the use of funds to offer professional training to Cuban refugees.Second Supplemental Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1969 United States Congress, Senate Committee on Appropriations The University of Portsmouth had a joke syllabus for underwater basket weaving on the Technology faculty pages, and another joke syllabus proposal was posted by a University of Central Arkansas student magazine.Shinnie, Ferri: New degree to be offered The Vino 2003 Volume 21 - Issue 4
