Wolf's Head (secret society)

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Wolf's Head Society (W.H.S.), incorporated in 1883 as The Third Society by the Phelps Trust Association, is the third oldest senior or secret society at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.[1]

Contents

The founding undergraduate members from the Yale Class of 1884 Class Day Committee and over 300 Yale alumni[2] sought to help reform a social system and University administration dominated by the societies Skull and Bones and Scroll and Key.

Wolf's Head 'New Hall', architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, designed circa 1924
Wolf's Head 'New Hall', architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, designed circa 1924

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 early alumni of Bones, founded in 1832, or Keys, founded in 1841.[3] Meanwhile 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.[4]In 1873, The Iconoclast, a once-published student paper, advocated for the abolishment of the society system. Many alumni and undergraduates called for the end of Bones. The Iconoclast opined: "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....It is Yale College against Skull and Bones. We ask all men, as a question of right, which should be allowed to live?"[5]

The Third Society was accepted immediately and could manage its affairs similarly to the extant groups. Members were known as Grey Friars and found themselves at the apex of a social pyramid with freshmen, sophomore and junior socieities as well as student-run organizations, clubs and fraternities as brick.[6] The ardor abated for reform, informed in part by an acknowledgement that the senior societies "chose, in their private, unostentatious elections, the very best men in the class".[7]

The distinction between senior and secret society is subtle and semantic yet important. As the freshmen, sophomore and junior societies shut down -- either by University edict or changing undergraduate fashion towards the close of the 19th century -- credible knowledge of the rites, rights and privileges of senior society membership was lost to current undergraduates, except tapped rising seniors, when the graduating senior society members departed Yale College. The residential college system, a gift from Edward Harkness, created social space that had once been filled amply by the social pyramid mentioned earlier. The resultant secret society mystique remains palatable.[8]

The society changed its name to Wolf's Head Society in 1888 after undergraduates noted approvingly the design, by Tiffany & Co., of the society's pin, a stylized wolf's head on an inverted ankh, an Egyptian hieroglyphic known as the Egyptian Cross or "the key of life". By contrast, members of Bones or Keys wore their pins face down on their lapel or cravat. Grey Friars mocked as "poppycock" the seemingly Masonic-inspired rituals of Bones and Keys.[9] However, the society maintained many traditions, the code of confidentiality among them. As Paul Moore recounted the night before he first saw battle in World War II: "I spent the evening on board ship being quizzed by George Cheston, a Harvard friend, about what went on in Wolf's Head. He could not believe I would hold back such irrelevant secrets the night before I faced possible death."[10]

The exchange of personal histories highlights the undergraduate body's regimen. Meetings are held Thursday and Sunday nights. The next delegation is tapped after a review of each rising senior. Women have been tapped since the spring of 1992. The Phelps Association, the society's alumni arm and named after Edward Phelps, reunions throughout the year.

Goodhue's evocative Wolf's Head Society building, shown behind its high stone enclosure.
Goodhue's evocative Wolf's Head Society building, shown behind its high stone enclosure.
  • Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. designed ca. 1924 and completed posthumously, York Street, gift from member and philanthropist Edward Harkness. The "New Hall", with its stone wall enclosing a gracious private garden, is the largest secret society compound on campus.[1] Coincidentally, Goodhue was a protege of James Renwick Jr., architect of the first St. Anthony Hall chapter house in New York City.
  • McKim, Mead and White, firm of. (1884, former or "Old Hall" at 77 Prospect Street, across the street from the Grove Street Cemetery, 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]

In that particular quadrant of campus, "the Hall" commands the most prominent location, fronted by York Street and surrounded by the Briton Hadden Memorial (home to the Yale Daily News), the Yale Drama School and its theatre -- gifts from Edward Harkness -- and the former domiciles of fraternities and clubs. Those structures are now administrative buildings for the university. The now former "New Hall" (given all living Phelps members have known only it), on the former "fraternity row", is still being occupied precisely as its donor and architect intended. The Phelps Association completed recently the "Campaign for The Third Century" to modernize and refurbish "the Hall".

  • Michelle Quibell (2006) Collegiate Squash Association national champion (2004-5), 2003-6 first team All-American
  • Joslyn Woodard (2006) five-time Outstanding Performer Indoor and Outdoor Heptagonals, 20 Heptagonal track and field championships

  • "the Hall" is never, ever "the tomb" among undergraduate, graduate or honorary members.
  • "the Hall" accommodates an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
  • "the Hall" has the largest water bill in the state of Connecticut.
  • "the well-rounded, prep school" type has defined W.H.S. membership.

  1. ^ Phelps Trust Association archives, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University
  2. ^ Phelps Association Membership Directory, 2006
  3. ^ Secrets of the tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the hidden paths to power, Alexandra Robbins, Little, Brown, 2002
  4. ^ The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J.P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy, Charles R. Morris, Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2005
  5. ^ Secret Societies: Inside the World's Most Notorious Organizations, John Reynolds, Arcade Publishing, 2006
  6. ^ The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the fall of New York City, Robert Caro, Alfred A. Knopf,1974.
  7. ^ YALE A HISTORY, Brooks Mather Kelley, Yale University Press, Ltd., 1974
  8. ^ see 7.
  9. ^ see 1.
  10. ^ Presences: a bishop's life in the city, Paul Moore, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997

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