Catholic University of America
Washington DC
1887
The papal colors of gold and white were adopted when the Catholic University of America was founded in 1887. The gold is sometimes described as “yellow”.
The university uses athletic colors of red and black. They were selected by the Athletic Association in 1907 as a way of creating athletic uniforms that did not show dirt as easily as the original gold (or yellow) and white colored uniforms.
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): white/gold (1900-1904); gold/white (1909-1911); yellow/white (1915); red/black (1916); black/red (1917-1918); red/black (1923-1931); maroon/black (1934-1935)
In late 1895 or early 1896 the Catholic University of America became one of the first institutions to adopt the new Intercollegiate Code of Academic Costume, according to The Cap and Gown in America: to which is added An Illustrated Sketch of the Intercollegiate System of Academic Costume, published in 1896 by Cotrell & Leonard. Also, a 26 April 1896 New York Times article entitled “Gowns for College Men: Academic Costumes in American Universities” says that the Catholic University of America had adopted the Intercollegiate Code of Academic Costume, along with Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Lafayette, New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Yale, and other schools that are not named.
No official Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) description of CUA’s hood is cited until the 27 July 1902 edition of The Argus, an Albany NY newspaper, which included a list of IBAC hood lining patterns that had been assigned to some of the more prestigious colleges and universities of the time. Here CUA’s hood lining is said to be yellow with a white “zone”. (The school colors of CUA were actually gold and white, but gold and yellow were often interchangeable IBAC color descriptions at this time.) “Zone” is how the IBAC described a heraldic bar. So by 1902 the IBAC had definitively assigned CUA a horizontal bar instead of a chevron, probably to avoid confusion with the hood lining already assigned to Bryn Mawr (maize with a white chevron) or Mills College (gold with a white chevron).
The Catholic University of America also uses a “custom” doctoral gown. It is the traditional black gown with black velvet facings and sleeve bars. But for the Catholic University of America, the velvet is edged with gold piping. An embroidered patch of the university’s seal is sewn to the upper part of each of the gown’s facings. This gown, as tailored by the Herff Jones company, is illustrated to the right.
It is not currently known when the university adopted this design.
The hood assignment for the Catholic University of America was thereafter unchanged, except that the IBAC described the shade of yellow more precisely as “papal yellow” and then “lemon yellow” in later lists. Here the traditional school color of gold has been retained.
