Wolf's Head (secret society)

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Wolf's Head (WHS) is the third oldest secret society at Yale University. It was founded in 1883, according to Phelps Trust Association archives in Yale Sterling Memorial Library, to help reform a social system and University administration dominated by the societies Skull and Bones and Scroll and Key.

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[edit] History

Reform was desired by undergraduates and alumni who thought Bones and Keys figured too prominently at late-nineteenth century Yale. The administration was peopled almost exclusively by alumni of Bones or Keys. The student body had increased in number, widened its geographic scope (by 1900 all but three territories had been granted statehood in the continental United States), and broadened its social class origins after the American Civil War. The extant societies were dominated by socially prominent Southerners, New Englanders, New Yorkers, and Ohioans.

Undergraduates on campus and alumni in the current media debated specifically the merits of the society system. A periodical called The Iconoclast appeared in 1873 in New Haven that called for the end of Skull and Bones and the system, according to SECRET SOCIETIES, by John Lawrence Reynolds, Arcade Publishing, NY (2006). The Iconoclast stated: "Out of every class Skull and Bones takes its men. They have gone out into the world and have become, in many instances, leaders of society. They have obtained control of Yale. Its business is performed by them. Money paid to the college must pass into their hands, and be subject to their will....Year by year the deadly evil is growing. The society was never as obnoxious to the college as it is today....Never before has it shown its arrogance and self-fancied superiority. It grasps the College Press and endeavors to rule it all. It does not deign to show credentials, but clutches at power with the silence of conscious guilt....It is Yale College against Skull and Bones. We ask all men, as a question of right, which should be allowed to live?"

Many called for an end to the system. Class Day leaders of the Yale Class of 1884 incorporated a new society, thwarting the last serious attempt to abolish the system. Known originally as "The Third Society" and members as "Grey Friars", the society shunned secrecy and anonymity for privacy, condemning as "poppycock" many of the practices associated with Bones.

The system WHS helped maintain has achieved a renown that rivals Phi Beta Kappa, originally a secret society. The slaying of William Morgan and periodic powerful waves of Anti-Masonic sentiment prompted PBK to become an academic honor society.The Third Society, aided by over three hundred alumni, was accepted immediately, and could manage its affairs similarly to the extant groups.

The society changed its name to Wolf's Head in 1888 when undergraduates noted approvingly the design of the society's pin (the pin has been supplied by Tiffany & Co.), according to Phelps Trust Association archives in Yale Sterling Memorial Library. By contrast, members of Bones or Keys wore their pins face down on their lapel or cravat, insulting fellow undergraduates.

Though fashions have changed, the energy associated with campus life is still informed by the possibility of an offer to a junior from a senior to join a society. The society system distinguishes Yale among the few American universities with a global following. The system rewards service to the college rather than familial prominence beyond campus.

WHS members meet twice a week, debate, exchange personal histories, and tap the next delegation "from the best of Yale".

[edit] Notable Architects of the Wolf's Head Halls

  • Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. designed ca. 1924 and completed posthumously, York Street, gift from member and philanthropist Edward S. Harkness. The building, or "New Hall" with its stone wall enclosing a gracious private garden is the largest secret society compound on campus.[1]
  • McKim, Mead and White, firm of. (1884, former or "Old" Hall at 77 Prospect Street, commissioned for the Phelps Association (Wolf's Head alumni trust organization)[2], Richardsonian Romanesque. Purchased by the University in 1924, rented to Chi Psi Fraternity (1924-29), Book and Bond (defunct society), (1934-35), and Vernon Hall (defunct club) (1944-54). Currently houses the Yale Institution for Social and Policy Studies.[3] [4]

Unlike similarly employed buildings at Yale, "the Hall" is not referred to by members of WHS or the Phelps Association as a "tomb" or "temple". The Phelps Association recently completed a capital "Campaign for the Third Century" among its alumni, led by member and former Yale President Benno Schmidt, Stephen Sherrill and Edward Bennett, to refurbish and modernize "the Hall". In that particular quadrant of campus, WHS commands the most prominent location, surrounded by what were formerly the fraternities and clubs of Yale underclassmen who would have aspired to be one of the select "Taps" in the spring of their junior year to Wolf's Head or another senior secret society. All of the other fraternal organizations in the immediate vicinity -- The Fence Club, Chi Psi, DKE etc. -- have been long defunct, their buildings still standing but occupied by academic offices, leaving WHS as the only society reigning over the former "fraternity row" -- and still being occupied precisely as its builders intended.

[edit] Alumni

Notable members include:

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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