University of Maine
Maine
1865
Students at the University of Maine adopted light blue as their school color in 1877.
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): light blue (1900-1913); white-blue (1914); light blue (1915); blue-white (1916); light blue (1917-1935)
The University of Maine was stated to be a client of the academic costume firm Cotrell & Leonard in the university’s 1908 Prism yearbook. Since Cotrell & Leonard was the depository for the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC), it is probable that the Bureau had assigned a hood lining to Maine by this point.
The hood lining design for the University of Maine was first cited in a 1918 Encyclopedia Americana article on academic costume written by Gardner Cotrell Leonard, the Director of the IBAC. Leonard stated that the university had been assigned a hood lining that was light blue, a description that was identically cited in all subsequent IBAC lists.
However, this was a duplication of the hood lining the Intercollegiate Bureau had already assigned Mount Holyoke College, perhaps as early as 1895. Why the IBAC permitted this duplication is unknown. But since the Bureau’s “light blue” was an inaccurate description of Mt. Holyoke’s color, that college has been reassigned an azure blue hood lining and Maine has retained its light blue IBAC assignment.