University of Chicago
Illinois
1890
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): orange (1895); maroon (1896-1935)
On 8 June 1896 the University of Chicago Faculty Senate voted to adopt the 1895 Intercollegiate Code of Academic Costume and recommended this action to the Board of Trustees, according to Chicago’s University Record. In this statute the Faculty Senate stipulated that the hood lining for the University of Chicago would be the single color of maroon.
This hood lining color was registered with the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) in 1896 but did not appear in a published IBAC list until 27 July 1902, when Chicago’s hood is cited in The Argus, an Albany NY newspaper, which included a list of IBAC hood lining patterns that had been assigned to some of the more prestigious colleges and universities of the time.
Chicago’s maroon hood lining assignment was unchanged in all subsequent IBAC lists.
In 1892 the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago suggested that orange and gray should be the school colors, but goldenrod was ultimately selected as the only official color. This choice was unpopular with students because goldenrod is an orange-gold color, and orange was already the school color of Syracuse. Goldenrod also soiled easily when used as the color of Chicago’s athletic uniforms. So between 1892 and 1894 the university’s students used gold, goldenrod, Etruscan gold, orange, and yellow interchangeably and with mixed enthusiasm.
To rectify these problems, a meeting was held in the spring of 1894 and scarlet (a bright red) was overwhelmingly selected by students and faculty as the new color for the University of Chicago. Another meeting was held on 5 May 1894 by a smaller number of students and faculty; here maroon (a dark brownish-red) was selected as the new new school color. The decision of this smaller group was controversially forwarded to the Board of Trustees, who approved maroon as the official color of the university in 1894.
