Northeastern University
Massachusetts
1898
The Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) assigned Northeastern University a hood lining that was cardinal with two black chevrons, probably around 1916 but no later than the mid 1920s, as this description appears in an IBAC list from 1927. The Bureau used two chevrons in Northeastern’s hood to avoid duplicating the hood lining initially assigned to Wesleyan University (cardinal with a black chevron) and later to Washington & Jefferson College (also cardinal with a black chevron).
To avoid these duplications, by the late 1940s or 1950s the Intercollegiate Bureau had reassigned Wesleyan a bright red hood lining with a wide black chevron, Washington & Jefferson a hood lining with cardinal placed above black, divided per chevron, and Northeastern a cardinal hood lining with a single black chevron. This new arrangement of Northeastern’s colors appeared in a list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) and an IBAC list from 1969.
The Bureau must have thought better of this, so by 1972 Northeastern had been reassigned its original cardinal lining with two black chevrons.
The Evening Institute for Younger Men was founded by the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in 1898, and steadily added additional courses and subjects to its curriculum until it was incorporated as Northeastern College in 1916. One year later the university requested “a banner with a black background and crimson letters piped with white”, which means the college was using the red and black colors the YMCA adopted in the mid 1890s. In 1931 the official school colors of Northeastern University were defined as red and black, the red being a cardinal shade.
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): red/black (1934-1935)
