Scroll and Key
The Scroll and Key Society is a secret society established by John Addison Porter and others at Yale University in 1842.
History
"Keys," as the society is known informally, is incorporated as the Kingsley Trust Association. Each year, the Society's members, all seniors, tap fifteen members of the junior class to succeed them. Members meet Thursday and Sunday nights during their senior year in the Societ8i7tubi6yujtb7u678ky's ornate, windowless "tomb" [1]distinguished by alternating dark and light bands of stone, pattern-pierced stone windows screens and ornate column capitals at the entrance. Late at night after their weekly meetings, "Keysmen" (the society is now co-ed) gather on their front steps to serenade the quiet streets with their traditional "Troubador" song.
Founding Keysmen included Brigadier-General Theodore Runyon (1842), who served at the Battle of Bull Run and was later Mayor of Newark, New Jerstjgukyuikbhinyunjt78i678ib6v7ey and U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Isaac Hiester (1842), a distinguished US congressman, Leonard Case (1842), founder of Case Western Reserve University, and William L. Kingsley (1843), editor of The New Englander and the Yale Review.
The Society selected its first female members in the spring of 1989.
Tax records show an endowment worth several million dollars more than that of its rival, Skull and Bones.[2] In addition to financing its own activities, Scroll and Key has made numerous donations to Yale over the years: the prestigious John Addison Porter Prize, awarded annually by Yale since 1872, and in 1917 an endowment for the Yale University Press which has funded the publication of The Yale Shakespeare and many other scholarly works. George Parmly Day founded the Yale University Press on behalf of Keys.
Architecture
Richard Morris Hunt. (1869-70, Moorish- or Islamic-inspired Beaux-Arts.) 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. Also in Pinnell's history is the arcane fact that the land was purchased from another secret society, Berzelius.
Regarding its 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." (p.125, "Yale University" 1999 Princeton Architectural Press ISBN 1568981678 [[3]].) Additional data at [4]
Notable members
- William L. Kingsley - (1843), Editor of New Englander and Yale Review
- George Shiras, Jr. - (1853), U.S. Supreme Court Justice 1892-1903
- James Gamble Rogers - (1889), favored architect of Edward S. Harkness, champion of collegiate Gothic architecture
- Harvey Cushing - (1891), Considered the greatest neurosurgeon of the 20th century; father of brain surgery
- Frank Polk - (1894), Founded law firm, Davis Polk & Wardwell; acting U.S. Secretary of State during World War I; negotiated the peace and headed American delegation to Peace Conference at Paris
- George Parmly Day - (1897), Founder of Yale University Press
- Cole Porter - (1913), Composer and songwriter
- Dean Acheson - (1915), U.S. Secretary of State 1949-1952; architect of the Cold War foreign policy; roomed with Cole Porter at Harvard Law School, and Porter famously withdrew from that school to allow Dean to graduate
- Dickinson W. Richards - (1917), 1956 Nobel Prize winner for discoveries concerning heart catheterization and pathological changes in the circulatory system
- Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis - (1918), CIA official: founder of the Research & Analytics branch of the CIA, who operated in an undercover capacity at Yale as a professor; Scholar of 18th century European life, art, and politics.
- John Enders - (1919), 1954 Nobel Prize winner for discovery of the ability of poliomyelitis viruses to grow in cultures of various types of tissue, allowing for easy production of the polio virus which led to the polio vaccine
- Benjamin Spock - (1925), Pediatrician who revolutionized parenting; best-selling author of Baby & Child Care; US Olympic gold medalist in 1924 crew; 1972 presidential candidate on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket
- John Hay Whitney - (1926), Publisher of the New York Herald Tribune; venture capitalist; founder of J.H. Whitney & Co.; U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James
- Paul Mellon - (1929), Son of Andrew Mellon; philanthropist and major benefactor to Yale; donated Morse and Ezra Stiles residential colleges and the Yale Center for British Art
- C.Tracy Barnes - (1932), CIA official, involved in Bay of Pigs invasion
- Maynard Mack - (1932), professor of English at Yale and author of A History of Scroll and Key, 1842-1942 (Published 1978 by "The Society, New Haven, CT", printed by the Yale University Press, limited ed. with companion "History 1942-1972" by member Bart Giamatti)
- Robert F. Wagner, Jr. - (1933), Three-term mayor of New York City; U.S. Ambassador to Spain; personal envoy of the President to the Vatican
- R. Sargent Shriver - (1938), Founder of the Peace Corps; founder of the Special Olympics; US Vice Presidential Candidate
- Cyrus Vance - (1939), U.S. Secretary of State under Jimmy Carter (1977-1980); Secretary of the Army 1962-1964
- George Houk Mead, Jr. - (1941), Son of founder of Mead paper company; died during WWII; Navy Cross recipient
- George Roy Hill - (1943), Film director of The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
- Cord Meyer - (1943), CIA; president of United World Federalists
- John Lindsay - (1944), Mayor of New York City; U.S. Congressman; U.S. Presidential Candidate in 1972
- Ray Lorenzo Heffner - (1945), President of Brown University
- Edward Payson Whittemore - (1955), Officer in USMC 1955-1958; CIA Officer 1958-1967 (Far East, Europe, Middle East); writer
- Roger D. Hansen - (1957), Subject of Calvin Trillin's, Scroll and Key 1957, "Remembering Denny," a book about his friend from Keys.
- Calvin Trillin - (1957), Journalist, humorist, and novelist
- Stephen Michael Umin - (1959), Rhodes Scholar 1959-61; attorney (clerked for Potter Stewart)
- Bart Giamatti - (1960), President of Yale; Commissioner of Major League Baseball, author of "A History of Scroll and Key 1942-1972" published 1978 by "The Society, New Haven, CT", printed by the Yale University Press, limited ed. companion to "1842-1942" Keys history by member Maynard Mack.)
- Austin Pendleton - (1961), Actor and playwright
- Philip Proctor - (1962), Actor, writer, and humorist; member of The Firesign Theatre
- Garry Trudeau - (1970), Doonesbury cartoonist
- Stone Phillips - (1977), Dateline NBC
- Fareed Zakaria - (1986), Editor of Newsweek International; board member of Council on Foreign Relations, Yale Corporation
- Gideon Rose - (1987), Managing editor of Foreign Affairs
- Anderson Cooper, Journalist and television personality
- Alexandra Robbins - (1998), Author of Secrets of the Tomb