Denison University
Ohio
1831
Detailed historical information about the scarlet and crimson colors of Denison University is not available at this time, but in the 1920s these traditional colors were apparently revised to crimson and white.
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): light red/dark red (1895-1896); red (1897-1900); crimson (1902); cardinal (1904); Denison red (1906-1908); crimson (1909-1910); red (1911-1912); dark red (1913); Denison red (1915-1918); dark red/white (1923-1931); red/white (1934-1935)
Academic hood lists published by the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) in 1927 and 1948 described Denison College as having a hood lined scarlet with a cardinal chevron. Information in the World Almanac suggests that the IBAC assigned this color in 1895 or 1896.
The IBAC must have updated Denison’s hood lining colors in the late 1940s or 1950s because a list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) described the college’s hood lining as red with a white chevron – a description repeated in a 1972 IBAC list as scarlet with a white chevron. Because a large number of colleges and universities use hoods lined red and white, here Denison’s unusual and unique IBAC lining assignment from the mid 1890s has been restored.