| Scroll and Key | |
| Crest: | Yale-scroll-and-key.jpg |
| Caption: | Scroll and Key Tomb |
| Birthplace: | Yale University |
| Status: | Active |
| Type: | Senior Secret society |
| Affiliation: | Independent |
| Scope: | Local |
| Chapters: | 1 |
| Address: | 484 College Street |
| City: | New Haven |
| State: | Connecticut |
| Zip Code: | 06511 |
| Country: | United States |
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.[1] The society is one of the reputed "Big Three" societies at Yale, along with Skull and Bones and Wolf's Head. Each spring the society admits 15 rising seniors to participate in its activities and carry on its traditions.
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.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."[2]
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 Younger Poets Series, are gifts from "Keys".
The society's "building" was designed in the Moorish Revival style by Richard Morris Hunt and constructed in 1870.[6] 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). In 2002, the society underwent a major construction project rumored to involve an aquarium beneath the society.
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."[7] Later, undergraduates described the building as a "striped zebra Billiard Hall" in a supplement to a Yale yearbook.[8] More recently, it has been described by an undergraduate publication as being "the nicest building in all of New Haven".[9]
Scroll and Key taps annually a delegation of 15, 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".[10] 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.[11] [12]
Mark Twain is an honorary member, under the auspices of Joseph Twichell, Yale College Class of 1859.[13]
| Name | Yale class | Notability | References | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1842 | Founder of Case School of Applied Science, later Case Western Reserve University | [14] | ||
| 1842 | Envoy and Ambassador to Germany; Battle of Bull Run | |||
| 1845 | Mayor of Chicago and U.S. Representative | |||
| Homer Sprague | 1852 | President of the University of North Dakota | ||
| 1853 | U.S. Senator, Confederate Brigadier-General, and president of Tulane University | |||
| 1853 | U.S. Supreme Court Justice | |||
| 1865 | U.S. Congress | |||
| 1870 | Anthropologist, historian, naturalist, and writer | [15] | ||
| 1870 | American mineralogist | |||
| 1872 | U.S. Senator | |||
| 1876 | Southern Pacific Railroad | |||
| 1883 | President and Chairman of Colgate & Co. | |||
| 1885 | President of the University of Minnesota; President of the Rockefeller Foundation | [16] | ||
| 1889 | architect, designed many of Yale's buildings | |||
| 1890 | U.S. Congress | |||
| 1891 | Neurosurgeon, considered father of brain surgery | |||
| 1892 | Acting Governor of New Jersey | |||
| 1894 | Secretary of State, Davis Polk & Wardwell, managed the conclusion to World War I | |||
| 1895 | Davis Polk & Wardwell
| |||
| 1896 | Paris Peace Conference, Olympic medalist | |||
| 1895 | Brigadier General in the U.S. Army during the World War I | |||
| 1895 | architect; designed many of Yale's buildings | |||
| 1900 | U.S. Senate and publisher of the Chicago Tribune | |||
| 1901 | Founder of the New York Daily News; manager of the Chicago Tribune | |||
| 1903 | Chicago Tribune
| |||
| 1908 | U.S. Congress, Governor of the NYSE., US Military Intelligence World War I | |||
| 1912 | Ambassador to France, Ambassador to the Soviet Russia | |||
| 1912 | Governor of Vermont | |||
| 1913 | Entertainer, songwriter | [17] | ||
| 1915 | 51st Secretary of State | |||
| 1916 | President, Export-Import Bank; Undersecretary of Commerce; Assistant Secretary of the Treasury | [18] | ||
| 1917 | Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine | |||
| 1918 | Chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis | |||
| 1919 | Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine | |||
| 1920 | Founder and president of the Socony Mobil Oil Company Standard Oil of New York | |||
| 1920 | American retailer, F. W. Woolworth Company | |||
| 1921 | Mayor of Philadelphia | [19] | ||
| 1923 | Film producer | [20] | ||
| 1924 | President and chairman, The First National City Bank of New York; Olympic gold medal | |||
| 1925 | Central Intelligence Agency; President of the Petroleum Corporation of America | |||
| 1925 | New York lawyer and politician | |||
| 1925 | Pediatrician, author, and Olympic gold medalist | |||
| 1926 | U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, publisher of New York Herald Tribune | [21] | ||
| 1926 | Chairman, Philadelphia National Bank; New Jersey Senate | |||
| 1929 | Philanthropist | |||
| 1929 | Director, Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey (later Exxon) | |||
| 1931 | U.S. Ambassador to Ireland; Special Assistant to Secretary of Defense | |||
| 1931 | Founder and chairman, insurance brokerage firm Marsh McLennan | |||
| 1933 | Mayor of New York City | [22] | ||
| 1936 | W. R. Grace & Co. | |||
| 1937 | U.S. Senator, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland | [23] | ||
| 1938 | Peace Corps
| |||
| 1939 | Secretary of State; Secretary of the Army; Chairman, Federal Reserve Bank of New York | |||
| 1940 | Governor of Indiana
| |||
| 1943 | Central Intelligence Agency | |||
| 1943 | Academy Award for Directing The Sting | |||
| 1944 | U.S. Secretary of Commerce | |||
| 1944 | Mayor of New York City, Congressman from New York City | |||
| 1953 | Ambassador to Spain, Ambassador to European Union, Ambassador to Canada | |||
| 1954 | Watergate Special Prosecutor, Deputy U.S. Attorney General; professor at Harvard Law School | |||
| 1956 | U.S. Ambassador to Yugoslavia, author | |||
| 1956 | President of the Middle East Institute; U.S. Ambassador to Jordan | |||
| 1957 | writer | [24] | ||
| 1960 | Yale University president; National League president, MLB Commissioner | |||
| 1961 | Photographer | |||
| 1970 | Doonesbury cartoonist | |||
| 1977 | Dateline NBC | |||
| 1977 | Associate Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court | |||
| 1985 | Foreign Affairs | |||
| 1986 | editor of Newsweek and host of CNN show | |||
| 1989 | Director of Professional Scouting for the Seattle Kraken | |||
| 1990 | Editor at Newsweek and Slate | [25] | ||
| 1994 | Special Council member for the Obstruction of Justice Investigation | [26] | ||
| 1998 | Journalist | [27] | ||
| 2000 | Co-host of All Things Considered for National Public Radio |