Scroll and Key

The Scroll and Key Society is a secret society, founded in 1842 at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut. It is one of the oldest Yale secret societies and reputedly the wealthiest.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The society is one of the reputed "Big Three" societies at Yale, along with Skull and Bones and Wolf's Head.<ref>Template:Cite Power Broker</ref> Each spring the society admits 15 rising seniors to participate in its activities and carry on its traditions.

History

Scroll and Key was established by John Addison Porter, with aid from several members of the Class of 1842 (including Leonard Case Jr. and Theodore Runyon) and a member of the Class of 1843 (William L. Kingsley), after disputes over elections to Skull and Bones Society. Kingsley is the namesake of the alumni organization, the Kingsley Trust Association (KTA), incorporated years after its founding.

File:Scroll and Key 1866 delegation Yale College.jpg

Members of the 1866 delegation

Lyman Hotchkiss Bagg wrote that "up until as recent a date as 1860, Keys had great difficulty in making up its crowd, rarely being able to secure the full fifteen upon the night of giving out its elections." However, the society was on the upswing: "the old order of things, however, has recently come to an end, and Keys is now in possession of a hall far superior...not only to Bones hall but to any college-society hall in America."<ref>Four years at Yale. Lyman Hotchkiss Bagg, C.C. Chatfield & Co, 1871. p. 158.</ref>

In addition to financing its activities, Scroll and Key has made significant donations to Yale over the years. The John Addison Porter Prize, awarded annually since 1872, and in 1917 the endowment for the founding of the Yale University Press, which has funded the publication of The Yale Shakespeare and sponsored the Yale Series of Younger Poets, are gifts from "Keys".

Traditions

• At the close of Thursday and Sunday sessions, members are known to sing the "Troubadour" song on the front steps of the Society's hall, a remnant of the tradition of public singing at Yale.<ref>Collision at Home Plate: The Lives of Pete Rose and Bart Giamatti. James Reston, U of Nebraska Press, 1997. p. 41. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Four years at Yale. Lyman Hotchkiss Bagg, C.C. Chatfield & Co, 1871. p. 163.</ref> The song (written in the 1820s by Thomas Haynes Bayly) was recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford on his 1956 album, This Lusty Land, as "Gaily the Troubador".
• In keeping with the practice of adopting secret letters or symbols such as Skull and Bones' "322," Manuscript Society's "344," and The Pundits' "T.B.I.Y.T.B," Scroll and Key is known to use the letters "C.S.P. and C.C.J."<ref name="Yale. Lyman Hotchkiss Bagg 1871. p. 157">Four years at Yale. Lyman Hotchkiss Bagg, C.C. Chatfield & Co, 1871. p. 157.</ref>
• Members of the society sign letters to each other "YiT", as opposed to Skull and Bones' "yours in 322".<ref name="Yale. Lyman Hotchkiss Bagg 1871. p. 157" />
• Outside of its tap-related activities, the society has been known to hold two major annual events called "Z Session".<ref name="Yale. Lyman Hotchkiss Bagg 1871. p. 157" />

Tomb

File:Yale-scroll-and-key.jpg

Scroll and Key's tomb

File:Old Scroll and Key.jpg

Tomb during its expansion, 1901

The society's building, called a "tomb", was designed in the Moorish Revival style by Richard Morris Hunt and constructed in 1870.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A later expansion was completed in 1901. Architectural historian Patrick Pinnell includes an in-depth discussion of Keys' building in his 1999 history of Yale's campus, relating the then-notable cost overruns associated with the Keys structure and its aesthetic significance within the campus landscape. Pinnell's history shares the fact that the land was purchased from another Yale secret society, Berzelius (at that time, a Sheffield Scientific School society).

Regarding the tomb's distinctive appearance, Pinnell noted that "19th-century artists' studios commonly had exotic orientalia lying about to suggest that the painter was sophisticated, well traveled, and in touch with mysterious powers; Hunt's Scroll and Key is one instance in which the trope got turned into a building."<ref name="Pinnell1">Template:Cite book</ref> Later, undergraduates described the building as a "striped zebra Billiard Hall" in a supplement to a Yale yearbook.<ref>Andrews, John.History of the Founding of Wolf's Head, pg. 56, Lancaster Press, 1934</ref> More recently, it has been described by an undergraduate publication as being "the nicest building in all of New Haven".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Membership

Scroll and Key taps annually a delegation of fifteen, composed of men and women of the junior class, to serve the following year. Membership is offered to a diverse group of highly accomplished juniors, specifically those who have "achieved in any field, academic, extra-curricular, or personal".<ref>Yale University Library Digital Collections: Compound Object Viewer Template:Webarchive</ref> Delegations frequently include editors of the Yale Daily News and other publications, artists and musicians, social and political activists, athletes of distinction, entrepreneurs, and high-achieving scholars.<ref>http://www.ivygateblog.com/?s=scroll+and+key, see membership lists</ref><ref>A cross-reference with recent members (available on IvyGateBlog.com and in print issues of the Yale Rumpus) and scholarship winners will indicate the high number of Scroll and Key members</ref>

Mark Twain was an honorary member, under the auspices of Joseph Twichell, Yale College Class of 1859.<ref>Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 2, 1867–1868, University of California Press, editors Harriet E. Smith, Richard Bucci and Lin Salamo, pg. 281</ref>

Notable members

File:Dean Acheson.jpg

Dean Acheson

File:Fareed Zakaria on January 28, 2011.jpg

Fareed Zakaria

File:Sargent Shriver 1961.jpg

Sargent Shriver

File:Coleporter.jpg

Cole Porter

File:CalvinTrillin.jpg

Calvin Trillin

File:HarveyCushing.JPG

Harvey Cushing

File:GarryTrudeau.jpg

Garry Trudeau

Name	Yale class	Notability	References
Leonard Case Jr.	1842	Founder of Case School of Applied Science, later Case Western Reserve University	<ref name="history1942">Template:Cite book</ref>
Theodore Runyon	1842	Envoy and Ambassador to Germany; Battle of Bull Run	<ref name="history1942" />
Carter Harrison III	1845	mayor of Chicago and U.S. Representative	<ref name="history1942" />
Homer Sprague	1852	President of the University of North Dakota
Randall L. Gibson	1853	U.S. Senator, Confederate Brigadier-General, and president of Tulane University	<ref name="history1942" />
George Shiras Jr.	1853	U.S. Supreme Court Justice	<ref name="history1942" />
Brinley D. Sleight	1858	Newspaper editor, member of the New York State Assembly	<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
John Dalzell	1865	U.S. Congress	<ref name="history1942" />
George Bird Grinnell	1870	Anthropologist, historian, naturalist, and writer	<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Edward Salisbury Dana	1870	American mineralogist	<ref name="history1942" />
Fred Dubois	1872	U.S. Senator	<ref name="history1942" />
Henry deForest	1876	Southern Pacific Railroad	<ref name="history1942" />
Gilbert Colgate	1883	President and Chairman of Colgate & Co.	<ref name="history1942" />
George Edgar Vincent	1885	President of the University of Minnesota; President of the Rockefeller Foundation	<ref name="time1">Template:Cite news</ref>
James Gamble Rogers	1889	architect, designed many of Yale's buildings	<ref name="time1" />
Herbert Parsons	1890	U.S. Congress	<ref name="history1942" />
Harvey Cushing	1891	Neurosurgeon, considered father of brain surgery	<ref name="time1" />
William Nelson Runyon	1892	Acting Governor of New Jersey	<ref name="history1942" />
Frank Polk	1894	Secretary of State, Davis Polk & Wardwell, managed the conclusion to World War I	<ref name="history1942" />
Allen Wardwell	1895	Davis Polk & Wardwell; Bank of New York; Vice-President of the American-Russian Chamber of Commerce	<ref name="history1942" />
Lewis Sheldon	1896	Paris Peace Conference, Olympic medalist	<ref name="history1942" />
Cornelius Vanderbilt III	1895	Brigadier General in the U.S. Army during the World War I	<ref name="time1" />
William Adams Delano	1895	architect; designed many of Yale's buildings	<ref name="history1942" />
Joseph Medill McCormick	1900	U.S. Senate and publisher of the Chicago Tribune	<ref name="history1942" />
Joseph M. Patterson	1901	Founder of the New York Daily News; manager of the Chicago Tribune	<ref name="time1" />
Robert R. McCormick	1903	Chicago Tribune; Kirkland & Ellis<ref name="history1942" />	<ref name="history1942" />
James C. Auchincloss	1908	U.S. Congress, Governor of the NYSE., US Military Intelligence World War I	<ref name="history1942" />
William C. Bullitt	1912	Ambassador to France, Ambassador to the Soviet Russia	<ref name="history1942" />
Mortimer R. Proctor	1912	Governor of Vermont	<ref name="history1942" />
Cole Porter	1913	Entertainer, songwriter	<ref name="robbins1">Template:Cite book</ref>
Dean Acheson	1915	51st Secretary of State	<ref name="history1942" />
Wayne Chatfield-Taylor	1916	President, Export-Import Bank; Undersecretary of Commerce; Assistant Secretary of the Treasury	<ref name="nytimes1">Template:Cite news</ref>
Dickinson W. Richards	1917	Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine	<ref name="history1942" />
Ethan A. H. Shepley	1918	Chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis	<ref name="history1942" />
John Enders	1919	Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine	<ref name="history1942" />
Brewster Jennings	1920	Founder and president of the Socony Mobil Oil Company Standard Oil of New York	<ref name="history1942" />
Seymour H. Knox	1920	American retailer, F. W. Woolworth Company	<ref name="history1942" />
Richardson Dilworth	1921	Mayor of Philadelphia	<ref name="times2">Template:Cite news</ref>
William Hawks	1923	Film producer	<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
James Stillman Rockefeller	1924	President and chairman, The First National City Bank of New York; Olympic gold medal	<ref name="history1942" />
Huntington D. Sheldon	1925	Central Intelligence Agency; President of the Petroleum Corporation of America	<ref name="history1942" />
Newbold Morris	1925	New York lawyer and politician	<ref name="history1942" />
Benjamin Spock	1925	Pediatrician, author, and Olympic gold medalist	<ref name="nytimes1" />
John Hay Whitney	1926	U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, publisher of New York Herald Tribune	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Frederic A. Potts	1926	Chairman, Philadelphia National Bank; New Jersey Senate	<ref name="history1942" />
Paul Mellon	1929	Philanthropist	<ref name="nytimes1" />
Benjamin Brewster	1929	Director, Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey (later Exxon)	<ref name="history1942" />
Raymond R. Guest	1931	U.S. Ambassador to Ireland; Special Assistant to Secretary of Defense	<ref name="history1942" />
Donald R. McLennan	1931	Founder and chairman, insurance brokerage firm Marsh McLennan	<ref name="history1942" />
Robert F. Wagner, Jr.	1933	Mayor of New York City	<ref name="New York Times">Template:Cite news</ref>
J. Peter Grace	1936	W. R. Grace & Co.
Peter H. Dominick	1937	U.S. Senator, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Sargent Shriver	1938	Peace Corps; Vice-Presidential Candidate, Presidential Medal of Freedom	<ref name="history1942" />
Cyrus Vance	1939	Secretary of State; Secretary of the Army; Chairman, Federal Reserve Bank of New York	<ref name="history1942" />
Robert D. Orr	1940	Governor of Indiana; U.S. Ambassador to Singapore	<ref name="history1942" />
Cord Meyer, Jr.	1943	Central Intelligence Agency; United World Federalists	<ref name="history1942" />
George Roy Hill	1943	Academy Award for Directing The Sting	<ref name="history1942" />
Frederick B. Dent	1944	U.S. Secretary of Commerce	<ref name="history1942" />
John Vliet Lindsay	1944	Mayor of New York City, Congressman from New York City	<ref name="New York Times" />
Thomas Enders	1953	Ambassador to Spain, Ambassador to European Union, Ambassador to Canada	<ref name="history1942" />
Philip B. Heymann	1954	Watergate Special Prosecutor, Deputy U.S. Attorney General; professor at Harvard Law School	<ref name="history1942" />
Warren Zimmermann	1956	U.S. Ambassador to Yugoslavia, author	<ref name="history1942" />
Roscoe S. Suddarth	1956	President of the Middle East Institute; U.S. Ambassador to Jordan	<ref name="history1942" />
Calvin Trillin	1957	writer	<ref>Remembering Denny – Google Books</ref>
A. Bartlett Giamatti	1960	Yale University president; National League president, MLB Commissioner	<ref name="nytimes1" />
Peter Beard	1961	Photographer
Garry Trudeau	1970	Doonesbury cartoonist	<ref name="nytimes1" />
Stone Phillips	1977	Dateline NBC	<ref name="history1942" />
Rick E. Lawrence	1977	Associate Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court	<ref name="history1942" />
Gideon Rose	1985	Foreign Affairs	<ref name="history1942" />
Fareed Zakaria	1986	editor of Newsweek and host of CNN show
Dave Baseggio	1989	Director of Professional Scouting for the Seattle Kraken
Dahlia Lithwick	1990	Editor at Newsweek and Slate	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Jeannie Rhee	1994	Special Council member for the Obstruction of Justice Investigation	<ref>"Jeannie Rhee". Diversity Journal. Retrieved 2018-01-19, January 30, 2019</ref>
Jacob W. Dell	1995	Pastor, spiritual advisor, and faith-based influencer, First Congregational Church, Woodbury, Connecticut
Alexandra Robbins	1998	Journalist	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Ari Shapiro	2000	Co-host of All Things Considered for National Public Radio	<ref name="Indeterminate" />

See also

• Collegiate secret societies in North America