Tulane University
Louisiana
1834
According to the University of Virginia Bulletins (October 1904), academic costume was adopted at Tulane during the 1900-1904 presidency of Edwin Anderson Alderman. This is consistent with an article entitled “Albany Bureau of Academic Costume” in the 27 July 1902 edition of The Argus, an Albany NY newspaper, which contained a list of Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) hood lining patterns that had been assigned to some of the more prestigious colleges and universities of the time. In that list, Tulane University had been registered with an olive green hood lining and a blue chevron. Tulane must have been assigned this hood lining between 1900 and 1902, after the start of President Alderman’s tenure but prior to the publication of this newspaper article.
By 1918 the Intercollegiate Bureau was clarifying Tulane’s chevron color as “light blue”, a description that did not change in subsequent IBAC lists. The Bureau tended to define “olive green” as a dark shade of green, but in the case of Tulane, a medium shade of olive would be more historically accurate.
Olive green and blue were selected by a committee of students in 1893 to symbolize the green of the trees on campus and the blue of the sky. Therefore, the shade of Tulane’s blue is often described as “sky blue” or “light blue”. Traditionally, “olive green” was a dark shade of green with a yellow tint, but Tulane used the term to describe a medium shade of yellow-green.
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): blue/olive (1895-1896); olive/blue (1897-1900); light blue/olive green (1902); olive/blue (1913-1914); olive green/blue (1915-1918); olive/blue (1923-1935)
