University of Oklahoma
Oklahoma
1890
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): crimson/cream (1908-1935)
Although it may have been assigned earlier, the academic hood lining design for the University of Oklahoma was first cited in a 1918 Encyclopedia Americana article on academic costume written by Gardner Cotrell Leonard, the Director of the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC). Leonard stated that the university had been assigned a hood lining that was cream with a crimson chevron. A 1927 IBAC list modified the description of the hood lining to “cream white”.
By the 1960s, however, the IBAC had interchanged Oklahoma’s hood lining colors to crimson with a cream chevron. Unfortunately, this was a duplication of the hood pattern the Intercollegiate Bureau had also assigned to Indiana University by that point. To resolve this problem, Oklahoma’s original IBAC hood lining assignment has been restored here.
A University of Oklahoma faculty committee chose the university colors of crimson and corn in 1895. The chair of that committee, Mary J. Overstreet, was the only female faculty member at that time; apparently this is why she was asked to chair the committee. Because local merchants were confused about which shade of corn was intended, “crimson and corn” was almost immediately changed to “crimson and cream”. Today the shade of Oklahoma’s crimson is dark and cream is often simplified to white, but the original colors of the university (seen in vintage collegiate memorabilia) were a medium-red shade of crimson and a light cream.
