Swarthmore College
Pennsylvania
1864
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): garnet (1895-1935)
Because garnet was the only official color of Swarthmore College, the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) assigned Swarthmore a garnet-colored hood lining at some point in the early years of the 20th century. This description first appeared in a 1927 IBAC list and in every list from the Intercollegiate Bureau thereafter. Swarthmore’s hood lining duplicated the garnet hood lining the Bureau had already assigned to Union College in New York.
To resolve this problem Swarthmore has been reassigned a hood lined garnet with a chevron in the college’s current secondary color of gray.
Detailed historical information about Swarthmore College’s garnet color is not available at this time. For many years garnet was Swarthmore’s only color, but today gray is listed as a secondary color. When it was added is not known.
