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The Signet Society's Mission
In many ways, the Signet is distinct from other off-campus societies. In contrast to the Harvard Lampoon, it does not publish a regular journal, although its members are active in the various undergraduate publications, and a contemporary Signet class usually includes a large number of board members from the University's artistic and literary organizations, especially the Harvard Advocate. In contrast to the Final Clubs, its mission is artistic and not simply social, and, in addition, the Signet admits both men and women without prejudice. Membership dues are required, but are pro-rated relative to financial aid status to allow talented members of the University community to apply. In contrast to both abovementioned groups, the Signet enjoys a relatively happy relationship with the University administration. The contemporary tenor of the Signet might be described as a relaxed liberalism; open competition between members is discouraged. The mandate of the Signet has broadened from literary arts alone to include music, the visual arts and theater.
The opening remarks of the Signet's minutes state: "On Tuesday evening, November 1, 1870, a meeting was held at 10 Grays Hall preliminary to the organization of a senior society, which was to afford to a select number a pleasant means of intercourse with each other, not to be expected from the illiberal policy of the only society of reputation existing." This "illiberal policy" refers to the displeasure with which the founders of the Signet greeted the established Final Clubs. These first members formed the society's admissions criteria to transcend the social politics that they perceived as dominating in the Final Club system.
To distinguish the Signet from other exclusive organizations, the founding members stated in the original charter that members would be chosen according to "merit and accomplishment." Today, those membership criteria are still present in the club's constitution mandating that members "shall be chosen with regard to their intellectual, literary and artistic ability and achievements." While these categories weigh heavily in the put-up process (admissions process), social character is also a crucial variable.
Architecture
Signet Society, 46 Dunster Street
Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson (building) and Pierre LaRose (heraldic crest). (Early 20th c., Renovation of an 1820 Federal Style structure.) Architectural historian Douglass Shand-Tucci includes an in-depth discussion of Signet's building in his history of Harvard's campus, relating the oddity that a firm known for its preeminence in Gothic Revival was utilized to renovate an 1820s Federal Style house. Regarding its distinctive features, Shand-Tucci writes t is in feeling wildly Baroque (of all things) welcome touch of flamboyance for what would otherwise have been a rather staid clubhouse for the Signet the graphic quality of Cram & Goodhue and LaRose new frontspiece is actually rather reminiscent of book design (not to mention the Palladianism of several Tory Row mansions), and centers on a two story pedimented Ionic pavilion displaying the Signet arms. The design concept- cavalier enough, but very successfuliscloses another guise of history-making in Harvard architecture: to restore the house, not as it originally was, but in LaRose words, as it ught to have been. Thus the architectural solecism of the two orders of the porchhe Doric columns and Ionic pilastersas retained. (p.92, "The Campus Guide: Harvard University", Princeton Architectural Press ISBN 1568982801)
Traditions
The emblem of the Signet was, at one time, "a signet-ring inclosing a nettle," the signet-ring symbolizing unity and the nettle symbolizing impartiality. The current emblem, which appears over the door of the Signet, includes a beehive and bees, and a legend in Ancient Greek. Another motto, attributed to Virgil, read Sic vos non vobis Mellificatis apes -- So do you bees make honey, not for yourselves. From this comes the tradition of referring to Signet members as "drones."
Although the Signet eschews, to an extent, some initiation procedures or rituals more common to some of Harvard's Final Clubs or the Lampoon, one enduring tradition is that upon induction into the Signet Society, each new member receives a red rose. The rose is to be kept, dried, and returned to the Signet Society upon the publication of the member's first substantial literary work. Many dried roses hang on the walls of the Signet next to copies of the works that occasioned their return. Particularly noteworthy is T.S. Eliot's rose, which hangs along with his original letter of acceptance to the society.
Secrecy
The Signet is considered by its members to be a "semi-secret" society at Harvard, owing to the opaque nature of its selection process, avoidance of publicly fully listing who its members are, and discretion. Its existence is not mentioned in official University publicity, and applicants to the society usually first come by word of mouth. It has a longstanding and informal reciprocal relationship with the Elizabethan Club, or 'Lizzie' of Yale University, and the two organizations sporadically hold a lawn croquet tournament, for which a handled and engraved silver pudding cup in a mahogany case serves as the trophy. Another tradition has been that some business letters sent between the Signet and Lizzie over the decades and archived at Yale were written in Latin, not English. An alumni corporation administers the property, staff, and endowment.
Some notable members
Arts and letters
James Agee, novelist, screenwriter, poet, author
Conrad Aiken, author
John Ashbery, poet, writer
John Berendt, writer
Andy Borowitz, writer, comedian, actor
Leonard Bernstein, composer and conductor
Earl Derr Biggers, novelist and playwright
T. S. Eliot, poet, author
Robert Frost, poet
Matt Haimovitz, cellist
Donald Hall, poet
Mason Hammond, Classics scholar
Abbott Lawrence Lowell, Harvard President, historian
Yo-Yo Ma, cellist
Norman Mailer, writer
Sarah Manguso, poet
Samuel Eliot Morison, author, educator, maritime historian, retired Rear Admiral
Charles Eliot Norton, scholar
George Plimpton, writer, journalist
George Santayana, philosopher, poet, novelist
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., historian
Wallace Stevens, poet
John Updike, writer
John Hall Wheelock, poet
Journalism
Frank Rich, critic, writer
Walter Isaacson
Hendrick Hertzberg, senior editor, The New Yorker
Joseph Lelyveld, journalist, author
Reihan Salam
Alessandra Stanley, critic, writer
Richard Tofel, journalist, author
Media and entertainment
Tommy Lee Jones, actor
Rashida Jones, actress
John Lithgow, actor
Donal Logue, actor
Conan O'Brien, former talk show host
Natalie Portman, actress
James "Toofer" Spurlock, fictional character on television show 30 Rock
Whit Stillman, writer-director
Tom Werner, producer, Red Sox co-owner
Alan "Scooter" Zackheim, reality show winner Beauty and the Geek
Sciences
James B. Conant, scholar, chemist
Charles W. Eliot, Harvard President, chemist, mathematician
William James, psychologist and philosopher
Thomas Kuhn, philosopher
Andrew Weil, author, physician, established field of integrative medicine
Diplomacy, national security
Charles Joseph Bonaparte, grandson of Jrme Bonaparte (youngest brother of Emperor Napoleon I), United States Cabinet Member, and Signet Society's first president.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
President Theodore Roosevelt
Caspar Weinberger, former Secretary of Defense
Benazir Bhutto, late Prime Minister of Pakistan
Politics
Chuck Schumer, U.S. Senator from New York
Jay Rockefeller, U.S. Senator from West Virginia
William Weld, former Massachusetts Governor
Mark Penn, pollster, author
References
Signet Society Website
Documents relating to the Yale Elizabethan Club's organization and activities include correspondence, some written in Latin, with the Signet Society and are viewable through the online Yale Manuscripts and Archives Collection:
Birnbach, Lisa The Official Preppy Handbook, mentions Signet
Categories: Harvard University | 1870 establishmentsHidden categories: NPOV disputes from April 2009
