The Standardization of Academic Dress in the United States

Transactions of the Burgon Society Volume 9 Article 6 1-1-2009 University Uniforms: The Standardization of Academic Dress in the United States Robert Armagost Adams 12 School District, Colorado Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/burgonsociety Recommended Citation Armagost, Robert (2009) "University Uniforms: The Standardization of Academic Dress in the United States," Transactions of the Burgon Society: Vol. 9. https://doi.org/10.4148/2475-7799.1074 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Transactions of the Burgon Society by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Transactions of the Burgon Society, 9 (2009), pages 138–155 University Uniforms: The Standardization of Academic Dress in the United States by Robert Armagost Academic costume—the regalia of the educational army. (Gardner C. Leonard) Introduction There are a number of scholars tracing the labyrinthian turns that the history of academic dress has taken at specific schools. In a way, this paper is about one event—the meeting of the leaders of some colleges in New York on 16 May 1895. This paper analyses the influences on that meeting, the results of that meeting, the revisions of that meeting’s outcomes and how all of this has been interpreted from then to now. Most reference material giving the history of academic dress in the United States provides a short synopsis that can basically be summed up as follows. Dissatisfied with the state of academic dress in America, a student named Gardner Cotrell Leonard designed the graduation gowns for his class at Williams College and his ideas on academic dress were published in University Magazine in Decem- ber of 1893. A committee met, the story goes, in 1895 at Columbia College and with Leonard as a consultant adopted a non-binding Intercollegiate Costume Code. The Code was later readopted with revisions by American Council on Education. Major changes were made by committee in 1959 and only one minor change regarding PhD colour was made by committee in 1986. However, the development of academic dress in the United States is a lot more complicated. Until the late 1800s (and technically even up to today), a university’s academic dress was designed and enforced by the school and school dress ranged from heavily regulated to almost (or totally) permissive. By the 1880s, there was a growing movement with university students to incorporate or improve the look of their college’s graduation gowns1 and it was in this environment that Gardner Cotrell Leonard, the son of a dry-goods store owner, matriculated at Williams Col- lege in 1883. 1 G. C. Leonard, ‘Costume, Academic’, in The Encyclopedia Americana (New York: The Encyclopedia Americana Corp., 1918), Vol. VIII, pp. 48–52. 138 Published by New Prairie Press, 2016 The standardization And so it began During the 1880s Williams College freshmen had their examinations at the same time as graduation.2 So as Leonard was on campus, he saw Williams graduates wearing gowns as they had occasionally during previous graduations. Because he was disappointed with the style of the gowns, Leonard designed new ones for his graduating class in 1887 and had his father make them. Unfortunately, definitive pictures of the gowns do not exist and the best we have is a description in The Williams Weekly of 18 June 1887 that ‘The Senior [sic] gowns are the correct style. Those worn in previous years are said to be the garb of lower classes [i.e. younger students].’ We are tantalized by an advertisement in the 1887 Williams College yearbook by Cotrell & Leonard (the shop) showing a graduate from the shoulders up in a mortar-board and the hint of gathering; Williams College Archives the model may be in a closed gown (Fig. Fig. 1. 1). Since there is no reason that Cotrell & Leonard would show the older gowns in an advertisement directed to the class of 1887, one can (hopefully) conclude that he is showing us his son’s design. First official adoption To address the growth of student interest in academic dress during the 1880s and possibly as a reaction to the photographs of academic dress Leonard contributed to the Regents of the University of the State of New York’s exhibit at the 1893 Chicago World Fair,3 a commission was set up at the request of Princeton trustee John Mc- 2 Personal communication from Linda Hall, archivist at Williams College, 8 September 2009. 3 ‘Albany Bureau of Academic Costume’, The [Albany, N.Y.] Argus, 27 July 1902; repr. as a leaflet (Albany N.Y.: Cotrell & Leonard,1902), p. 5. 139 https://newprairiepress.org/burgonsociety/vol9/iss1/6 DOI: 10.4148/2475-7799.1074 Cook in 18934 to standardize the academic dress of American colleges and universities. The outcome of this committee was primarily the work of Columbia, Princeton, Yale, and the University of the City of New York (now New York University)5 and while it is mentioned that there were other schools present, there appears to be no record of which ones these were. The committee created a convention (heavily influenced by Columbia’s existing statute) whereby American academic dress would indicate the degree earned the department of learning the degree was in the institution that conferred the degree.6 Leonard was invited as a consultant and through an addendum to his earlier article, he is our source for understanding of the resulting Academic Costume Code.7 We know that the work of this committee was completed before 15 March 18958 and on the next day, a general conference was held at Columbia College to which were invited all interested schools.9 We can consider this day in May the birth date of standardized American academic dress because it was this conference that changed the work of a few colleges into a nationwide phenomenon. Gowns It was noted by Leonard10 that most American academic gowns in use at that time 4 There is considerable confusion about the dates of the commission. The year of 1893 is given by Leonard in his encyclopaedia article as the year the commission was formed and a tentative draft written up. We know from the Special Committee Report that the work was completed early in 1895 and the American Council on Education gives a very definite date of 16 May 1895 as the general meeting that gave us the first official Code, so we can conclude that work on the Code was 1893–1895. 5 Leonard, ‘Costume, Academic’. 6 Columbia University in the City of New York, University Archives, Special Committee on Academic Costume, Letter to the Trustees of Columbia College, 15 March 1895; G. C. Leonard, The Cap and Gown in America: To Which is Added an Illustrated Sketch of the Intercollegiate System of Academic Costume (Albany, N.Y.: Cotrell & Leonard, 1896), p. 11. 7 It is often mentioned that Leonard was included because he had recently written an influ- ential article on academic dress. Confusion about whether the Commission started in 1893 or 1894 could be because Leonard’s article in University Magazine was in the December 1893 issue. The problem is there is no clear timeline of when the commission was formed and when Leonard was hired as a consultant. It is entirely possible he was hired as consultant based on his contribution to the World’s Fair exhibit and the article was published after his hire or that he was hired after the Commission had already started, possibly in 1894. 8 Special Committee, Letter, 1895. 9 American Council of Education, American Universities and Colleges, 3rd edn, ed. by Clarence Steven Marsh (Washington: American Council of Education, 1936). 10 The Cap and Gown, p. 5. 140 Published by New Prairie Press, 2016 were based on the design of the Oxford Bachelor of Arts; however, in the approved Code there were two main variations: that traditional style worn open and a simpler style worn closed. Leonard specifically stated that this second style was used at Wil- liams College. Knowing that Leonard designed at least one style of the gowns used at Williams, there is a hint that this adopted design was based on Leonard’s original 1887 gown. While similar to the Oxford design, the simpler design was intended to be closed and did not have shirring as part of the yoke. The official style was a compromise in that it could be worn open or closed as long as it had the pointed sleeves common to both designs but Leonard, perhaps from a biased perspective, noted that the closed gown was distinguished for its utility and also for its being a distinctive American feature.11 One feature apparent from the photographs in Leonard’s book and the sketches Leonard did (page 15) is that the style he favoured (Type 10 in his nomenclature) has pointed sleeves; however, the points are considerably less pronounced than the traditional Oxford style (Type 6). Modern-day American bachelor gowns, with their subtle sleeve points and closed fronts, are a duplicate of Leonard’s favoured design. Masters and doctors Whereas the bachelor’s gown was of worsted material, the gowns for both the master’s and doctor’s degree were silk. The description of the master’s sleeve was given as Type 2. The sleeve was closed and ended with a square front and an arc cut out of the back.12 Since 1959, the arc has been on the opposite side of the sleeve; originally a slit just above the elbow allowed free movement of the arm.

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