The 1935 Academic Costume Code
In 1932 the American Council on Education formed a committee that produced a revision of the 1895 Intercollegiate Code of Academic Costume with the help of the President of the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume, O.J. Hoppner. Illustrated at the bottom of this page is an original promotional brochure for this new “Academic Costume Code”, which was ratified on 30 April 1935.
The 1935 Academic Costume Code was conservative and left most of the 1895 Intercollegiate Code intact, merely recording some of the specific details and practices that had been added to that Code by the 1910s, as well as the complete list of official Faculty colors the Intercollegiate Bureau had approved by 1935. Unfortunately, two inaccuracies crept into the final draft of this revision.
First, the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume stipulated that the edging of the hood and trimming of the doctoral gown (if not black) should be in a color distinctive of the “Faculty” of the degree as indicated by the wording of the diploma, not the “Faculty or subject” of the degree (see page 5 below under “Trimmings”) or the “subject” of the degree (page 6 under “Trimmings”). This imprecision in the 1935 text led to ambiguity regarding the proper Faculty color for so-called “tagged degrees”.
Second, on page 6 under “Linings”, single and multiple chevrons were not the only hood lining patterns used by the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume. In fact, the Bureau used many different kinds of heraldic patterns to divide the school colors in American hood linings.
Two quirks of the 1895 Intercollegiate Code were criticized in this 1935 Academic Costume Code, which mocked the practice of dividing the colored trim of the hood and gown to represent more than one doctoral degree (bottom of page 5) and proscribed the wearing of the academic hood of the college or university where the faculty member is employed (page 6 under “Linings”). The 1935 Code also questioned the undergraduate ceremony of moving the mortarboard tassel from the right to the left after the degree is conferred (page 7 under “Tassel”), and regretfully admitted that the bachelor’s hood was an endangered species (page 8, number 6).
The content of the 1935 Academic Costume Code below may be compared to the content of the original 1895 Intercollegiate Code of Academic Costume here.
