University of New Hampshire
New Hampshire
1866
Includes “Franklin Pierce Law Center”
To avoid assigning duplicate hood linings to colleges and universities that used the same school colors, the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) used different types of heraldic patterns to divide the two or more colors in an academic hood. In IBAC lists from 1927 and 1948, a number of hood lining patterns were described as “[color] above [color]” or “[color] over [color]”, which referred either to a hood lining divided per chevron, per reversed chevron, or per bar. Unfortunately, today it is not usually known which of these three patterns the Bureau intended to describe.
IBAC lists from 1927, 1948, and 1972 all described the University of New Hampshire as having a hood lined Yale blue (dark blue) above white. A list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) more precisely described the university’s hood lining as royal blue over white, with the two colors divided per chevron, and a 1969 IBAC list said the lining was blue above white, divided per chevron. Here this pattern has been used with the correct shade of the university’s royal blue.
Students at the University of New Hampshire were using dark blue and white as their school colors before 1890, but how and when these colors were chosen is not currently known. The precise shade of dark blue was later defined as “royal blue”.
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): blue/white (1914); dark blue/white (1915); blue/white (1916-1935)
The University of New Hampshire authorized a “custom” doctoral gown at an unknown date. It is royal blue with black velvet facings and sleeve bars edged with silver piping. Embroidered patches of the university’s seal are sewn to the upper part of each facing. The doctoral hood is of the “standard” design with a black fabric exterior. A gown of this type from the University Cap & Gown Company (Balfour) is illustrated on the left, but it should be noted that the blue fabric of this gown is lighter than the university’s official “royal blue”.