Purdue University
Indiana
1869
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): old gold/black (1895-1935)
Although it may have been assigned earlier, the academic hood lining design for Purdue University was first cited in a 1918 Encyclopedia Americana article on academic costume written by Gardner Cotrell Leonard, the Director of the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC). Leonard stated that the university had been assigned a hood lining that was black with two old gold chevrons. The IBAC used two old gold chevrons to avoid duplicating the hood it had already assigned to Colorado College no later than 1897, which was black with a single old gold chevron. According to a 1927 IBAC list, each of Purdue’s old gold chevrons were 1½ inches wide. Purdue’s hood lining assignment did not change in subsequent Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume lists.
In the fall of 1887, John Breckinridge Burris, the captain of the first Purdue University football team, realized that Purdue didn’t have colors for the team and their fans to wear for Purdue’s first football game, which was going to be on Thanksgiving. So he called a meeting of faculty and students together and suggested orange and black because they were the colors of Princeton, the most successful football team at that time. Others on the committee wanted unique colors for Purdue, so old gold and black were suggested as a compromise. (In the 19th century, old gold and orange were often considered to be interchangeable descriptions of the same fabric color.) This suggestion had overwhelming support, so the faculty and students immediately voted to wear old gold and black to the football game. Not long thereafter, the Purdue athletic association adopted old gold and black as the official university colors.
