Smith College
Massachusetts
1871
The first graduating class at Smith College selected white as the official color for the college in 1879; additionally, each class has its own color. White was selected because it symbolizes purity. Gold has traditionally been added to the white as an accent color, but it is not an “official” color of the college.
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): white (1895-1910); white/gold (1911); white (1912); white/gold (1913); white (1914-1916); white/gold (1917-1931); white (1934-1935)
The IBAC may have assigned Smith College a plain white hood lining as early as September 1909 when this pattern is mentioned in an American Educational Review article called “Academic Millinery”, but there are errors in this essay and so it is not known how trustworthy this hood description is. For example, a white, single color hood lining for Smith College would have duplicated the lining already assigned to Bowdoin College.
The first definitive description of Smith’s academic hood lining was 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 college had been assigned a hood lining that was white with a gold chevron. This description did not change in subsequent IBAC lists.