WOLF'S HEAD (SECRET SOCIETY)

'Wolf's Head' (W.H.S.), founded in 1883, is the third oldest secret society at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. The founding undergraduate members from the Yale Class of 1884 and over 300 Yale alumni sought to help reform a social system and University administration dominated by the societies Skull and Bones and Scroll and Key.

Contents

History

Notable architects of the Wolf's Head Halls

Notable alumni

Academics, activists and intellectuals

Businessmen, industrialists and philanthropists

University presidents

Rhodes Scholarship winners

Politicians

Athletes

Pulitzer Prize winners

Other 19th century

Other 20th century

"It is said...."

See also

External links

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. In 1873, a periodical called ''The Iconoclast'' appeared in New Haven that called for the end of Skull and Bones, according to ''Secret Societies'', by John Lawrence Reynolds. ''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....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 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 secret society system.
Known originally as ''"The Third Society"'' and members as ''"Grey Friars"'', the society's incorporation abated the ardor of those who sought to abolish the secret society system. ''"The Third Society"'' was accepted immediately and could manage its affairs similarly to the extant groups. The society changed its name to 'Wolf's Head' in 1888 after undergraduates noted approvingly of the society's pin design, a stylized wolf's head on an inverted ankh (the pin is provided by Tiffany & Co.). By contrast, members of Bones or Keys wore their pins face down on their lapel or cravat.
''"Grey Friars"'' described as "poppycock" the seemingly masonic-inspired rituals of Bones and Keys.
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.

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 "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 Yale's 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. 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.

Notable alumni

Academics, activists and intellectuals

★ Rashid Khalidi (1970) - Columbia University; CFR

★ Lewis Lehrman (1960) - National Humanities Medal; Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the Lehrman Institute

★ William Matthews (1965) - 1996 National Book Critic Award

★ Paul Moore (1941) - Episcopal Diocese of New York; CFR

★ Edward Phelps (Hon) - Ambassador to the Court of St. James; among founders, and first president, American Bar Association; Yale Law School faculty

Businessmen, industrialists and philanthropists

★ William Ford (1948) - Director Emeritus, Ford Motor Co.; National Football League Detroit Lions

★ Edward Harkness (1897) - Commonwealth Fund; Harkness table

★ Roger Milliken (1937) - Milliken and Co.; Bohemian Grove

★ Paul Moore (1908) - industrialist, corporate director

★ Philip Pillsbury (1924) - President, Chairman and Chairman Emeritus

★ Charles Taft (1864) - Taft Broadcasting; Chicago Cubs, sold to William Wrigley, Jr.; half-brother 27th President of the United States

★ Douglas Wick (1976) - 2000 Academy Award, Best Picture, ''Gladiator'', 1988 Golden Globe, Best Picture, Memoirs of a Geisha; Red Wagon Entertainment

★ William Wrigley (1954) - Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company; Chicago Cubs

University presidents

★ A. Whitney Griswold (1929) - 13th President, Yale University

★ Robert Hutchins (1921) - 5th President, Chancellor, University of Chicago; Encyclopaedia Britannica

★ Benno Schmidt (1963) - 17th President, Yale University ; The Edison Schools; City University of New York; CFR

Rhodes Scholarship winners

★ Kurt Schmoke (1971) - Dean, Howard University School of Law; Honorary Fellow, Balliol College, Oxford University; Rhodes Scholar; Mayor, Baltimore, MD; Sigma Pi Phi; CFR

★ Roosevelt Thompson (1984) - Class Day prize given in his memory

Politicians

★ Malcolm Baldrige (1944) - 26th Secretary of Commerce

★ Erastus Corning (1932) - Mayor, Albany, NY

★ Mark Dayton (1969) - Senator, Minnesota

★ Robert Fiske (1952) - Independent Counsel, Whitewater controversey and the death of Vincent Foster

★ Douglas MacArthur (1932) - Ambassdor to: Japan, Belgium, Austria, and Iran

★ Edwin Merritt (1884) - Representative, New York's 26th and 31st Districts ; Speaker, New York State Assembly

★ Rogers Morton (1937) - 39th Secretary of the Interior, 22nd Secretary of Commerce; Representative, Maryland's First District

★ Thurston Morton (1929) - Senator, Kentucky; Representative, Kentucky's 3rd District

★ Richard Roberts (1986) - Rudolph Guiliani mayoral administration

★ Geoffrey Robinson (Hon) - Member of Parliament, British House of Commons

Athletes

★ Dick Jauron (1973) - Head Coach, NFL Buffalo Bills; AP 2001 NFL Coach of the Year, Chicago Bears ; 1974 NFL All-Pro return specialist, Detroit Lions; 1972 first team All-American at running back

★ Chuck Mercein (1965) - 1968 Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers

★ Michelle Quibell (2006) - squash national champion (2004-5); first team All-American (2003-6)

★ Rusty Wailes (1958) - U.S. eight-man gold medal winning crew, 1956 Summer Olympics; four-man coxless winner, 1959 Pan American Games; and four-man coxless gold medal winning crew, 1960 Summer Olympics

★ Joslyn Woodard (2006) - five-time Outstanding Performer Indoor and Outdoor track and field Heptagonals, 20 Heptagonal championships

Pulitzer Prize winners

★ Charles Bartlett (1943) - 1956 National Reporting

★ Stephen Benet (1919) - 1929 and 1944 Poetry

★ Paul Goldberger (1972) - 1984 Distinguished Criticism

★ Charles Ives (1898) - 1947 Music

★ Doug Wright (1985) - 2004 Drama

Other 19th century

★ James Bush (1844) - great-great grandfather and great-grandfather, respectively, 43rd and 41st Presidents of the United States

Other 20th century

★ Glenn deChabert (1970) - among founders, Black Student Alliance at Yale (BSAY), and co-founder, Afro-American Cultural Center

"It is said...."

★ "the Hall" accommodates an olympic-sized swimming pool.

★ the well-rounded "prep school" type defines W.H.S. membership, and that same congregate respectively under the banner of Sphinx senior society at Dartmouth College, Tiger Inn at Princeton University and Fly Club at Harvard University.

See also

★ List of collegiate secret societies

External links

★ Secret societies add to Yale mystique

★ Say It Ain't So, Bones!