Hood College
Maryland
1893
To symbolize the neutral status of Maryland during the War Between the States, students at Hood College chose blue and gray as their school colors not long after the college was founded in 1893. The color of Federal army uniforms was dark blue. The color of Confederate army uniforms were most commonly a medium shade of gray, although dark and light variations of gray occurred (as well as brown shades like butternut).
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): blue/gray (1923-1935)
To avoid assigning duplicate hood linings to colleges and universities that used the same school colors, the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) used different types of heraldic patterns to divide the two or more colors in an academic hood. One of the heraldic divisions the Bureau employed was a “reversed chevron”. Here the standard chevron of between three and four inches in width was inverted so that the chevron pointed upwards.
To avoid duplicating the hood lining already assigned to Georgetown College – another college with colors inspired by the Union and Confederate uniforms from the War Between the States – the IBAC assigned Hood College a hood lining that was gray with a dark blue “reversed chevron” no later than 1927, according to an IBAC list from that period. In History of Academic Caps, Gowns and Hoods (National Academic Cap & Gown Co.: Philadelphia, 1940), Hood was also stated as having a hood lining with a reversed chevron, but the lining colors were not cited. Strangely, a list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) described the college’s hood lining with interchanged colors and a standard chevron (navy blue with a silver gray chevron), which was probably an inaccurate citation. That said, an IBAC list from 1972 also interchanged Hood’s original colors but retained the inverted chevron. Here the original pre-1927 Intercollegiate Bureau hood lining pattern has been restored.