Linonian Society

Last updated

Linonia is a literary and debating society founded in 1753 at Yale University. It is the university's second-oldest secret society. [1]

Contents

Linonian Society
Linonia Bookplate.png
Founded Yale University
TypeSenior Literary society
AffiliationIndependent
StatusActive
Emphasis Debate
ScopeLocal
CharteredSeptember 12, 1753;270 years ago (1753-09-12)
Chapters1
Headquarters New Haven , Connecticut
United States
The Linonia and Brothers Room in the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale Linonia Room SML.jpg
The Linonia and Brothers Room in the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale
The Linonia Court in Branford College, Yale Linonia Court2.jpg
The Linonia Court in Branford College, Yale
The Linonia Pin LS Pin.jpg
The Linonia Pin

History

Linonia was founded on September 12, 1753, as Yale College's second literary and debating society, after Crotonia, founded in 1738. [2]

By the late eighteenth century, all incoming freshmen became members either of Linonia or its rival society, Brothers in Unity, which was founded in 1768. Other debating societies arose throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, notably Calliope in 1819, but were relatively short-lived. [3]

By the end of the Civil War, the social dominance of Linonia and Brothers began to decline. Both folded in the 1870s. The debating society system ultimately evolved into the Yale Union and later in 1934, the Yale Political Union.

Linonia was reconstituted multiple times throughout the 20th century, [4] [5] with its current form taking the shape of Yale's other undergraduate secret societies.[ citation needed ]

Each year's delegation of twenty is drawn from students in the senior undergraduate class, Yale Law School, Yale Graduate School, and Yale School of Management. Linonia is the only Yale secret society known to tap students beyond the undergraduates. Each delegate is selected by unanimous vote among Linonia alumni and delegates.[ citation needed ]

Linonia participates in Yale's tap night during the second week of April. Unlike many secret societies whose focus is the members' biographies, Linonia meetings often involve debate on intellectual and political topics.[ citation needed ]

Linonia and Sterling Memorial Library

In 1871, Linonia and Brothers donated their literary collections to the university's new central library, then shut down. Both societies had kept substantial collections of works not deemed suitable by the Yale faculty, which did not teach English literature until the late nineteenth century. The donation is commemorated in the Linonia and Brothers Reading Room at Yale's Sterling Memorial Library. The reading room contains the Linonia and Brothers (L&B) collection, a travel collection, a collection devoted to medieval history, and a selection of new books recently added to Sterling's collections. [6] The library is undergoing renovation to be completed in 2023.

The Linonian Society, Brothers in Unity, and Calliope are commemorated with courtyards in Branford College.

Notable members

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yale University</span> Private university in New Haven, Connecticut, US

Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederick A. P. Barnard</span> American educator and academic

Frederick Augustus Porter Barnard was an American academic and educator who served as the 10th President of Columbia University. Born in Sheffield, Massachusetts, he graduated from Yale University in 1828 and served in a succession of academic appointments, including as Chancellor of the University of Mississippi from 1856 to 1861. He assumed office as President of Columbia University in 1864, where he presided over a series of improvements to the university until his death in 1889. He was also known as an author of academic texts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yale College</span> Undergraduate college of Yale University

Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, when its schools were confederated and the institution was renamed Yale University. It is ranked as one of the top colleges in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Sherman Baldwin</span> American politician (1793–1863)

Roger Sherman Baldwin was an American politician who served as the 32nd Governor of Connecticut from 1844 to 1846 and a United States senator from 1847 to 1851. As a lawyer, his career was most notable for his participation in the 1841 Amistad case.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simeon Baldwin</span> American judge (1761 – 1851)

Simeon Baldwin was son-in-law of Roger Sherman, father of Connecticut Governor and US Senator Roger Sherman Baldwin, grandfather of Connecticut Governor & Chief Justice Simeon E. Baldwin and great-grandfather of New York Supreme Court Justice Edward Baldwin Whitney. He was born in Norwich in the Connecticut Colony. He completed preparatory studies (studying with Rev. Joseph Huntington and later at the Master Tisdale's School in Lebanon, Connecticut, and graduated from Yale College in 1781. He delivered the Latin oration in June 1782; it is still preserved in the Yale University Library. He was preceptor of the academy at Albany, and a Tutor at his alma mater.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timothy Dwight V</span> American academic, President of Yale University (1886–1898)

Timothy Dwight V was an American academic, educator, Congregational minister, and President of Yale University (1886–1898). During his years as the school's president, Yale's schools first organized as a university. His grandfather was Timothy Dwight IV, who served as President of Yale College ninety years before his grandson's tenure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abraham Baldwin</span> American Founding Father and politician (1754–1807)

Abraham Baldwin was an American minister, patriot, politician, and Founding Father who signed the United States Constitution. Born and raised in Connecticut, he was a 1772 graduate of Yale College. After the Revolutionary War, Baldwin became a lawyer. He moved to the U.S. state of Georgia in the mid-1780s and founded the University of Georgia. Baldwin was a member of Society of the Cincinnati.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Dwight Whitney</span> American linguist

William Dwight Whitney was an American linguist, philologist, and lexicographer known for his work on Sanskrit grammar and Vedic philology as well as his influential view of language as a social institution. He was the first president of the American Philological Association and editor-in-chief of The Century Dictionary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wolf's Head (secret society)</span> Secret society based at Yale University, New Haven

Wolf's Head Society is a senior secret society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The society is one of the reputed "Big Three" societies at Yale, along with Skull and Bones and Scroll and Key. Active undergraduate membership is elected annually with sixteen Yale University students, typically rising seniors. Honorary members are elected.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Memorial Quadrangle</span> Building at Yale University

The Memorial Quadrangle is a residential quadrangle at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Commissioned in 1917 to supply much-needed student housing for Yale College, it was Yale's first Collegiate Gothic building and its first project by James Gamble Rogers, who later designed ten other major buildings for the university. The Quadrangle has been occupied by Saybrook College and Branford College, two of the original ten residential colleges at Yale. The collegiate system of Yale University was largely inspired by the Oxbridge model of residential and teaching colleges at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sheffield Scientific School</span> Former school of Yale University

Sheffield Scientific School was founded in 1847 as a school of Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut, for instruction in science and engineering. Originally named the Yale Scientific School, it was renamed in 1861 in honor of Joseph E. Sheffield, a railroad executive. The school was incorporated in 1871. The Sheffield Scientific School helped establish the model for the transition of U.S. higher education from a classical model to one which incorporated both the sciences and the liberal arts. Following World War I, however, its curriculum gradually became completely integrated with Yale College. "The Sheff" ceased to function as a separate entity in 1956.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sterling Memorial Library</span> Main library building of the Yale University Library

Sterling Memorial Library (SML) is the main library building of the Yale University Library system in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Opened in 1931, the library was designed by James Gamble Rogers as the centerpiece of Yale's Gothic Revival campus. The library's tower has sixteen levels of bookstacks containing over 4 million volumes. Several special collections—including the university's Manuscripts & Archives—are also housed in the building. It connects via tunnel to the underground Bass Library, which holds an additional 150,000 volumes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hopkins School</span> Private day school in New Haven, Connecticut, United States

Hopkins School is a private, college-preparatory, coeducational, day school for grades 7–12 located in New Haven, Connecticut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Old Campus</span>

The Old Campus is the oldest area of the Yale University campus in New Haven, Connecticut. It is the principal residence of Yale College freshmen and also contains offices for the academic departments of Classics, English, History, Comparative Literature, and Philosophy. Fourteen buildings—including eight dormitories and two chapels—surround a 4-acre (1.6 ha) courtyard with a main entrance from the New Haven Green known as Phelps Gate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brothers in Unity</span> Literary society at Yale University, US

Brothers in Unity is an undergraduate literary and debating society at Yale University. Founded in 1768 as a literary and debating society that encompassed nearly half the student body at its 19th-century peak, the group disbanded in the late 1870s after donating its collection of books to help form Yale's central library.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yale University Library</span> Library system of Yale University

The Yale University Library is the library system of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Originating in 1701 with the gift of several dozen books to a new “Collegiate School," the library's collection now contains approximately 14.9 million volumes housed in fifteen university buildings and is the third-largest academic library system in North America and the second-largest housed on a singular campus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Calliopean Society</span> Literary fraternity at Yale University, US

The Calliopean Society, also known as the Fraternity of Phi Epsilon Mu, is a literary and debating society at Yale College founded in 1819, disbanded in 1853, and revived in 1950. Its name refers to Calliope, chief of the muses and muse of epic poetry, daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne (memory).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yale Political Union</span> Student debate society at Yale University

The Yale Political Union (YPU) is a debate society at Yale University, founded in 1934 by Alfred Whitney Griswold. It was modeled on the Cambridge Union and Oxford Union and the party system of the defunct Yale Unions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which were in turn inspired by the great literary debating societies of Linonia and Brothers in Unity. Members of the YPU have reciprocal rights at sister societies in England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Torch Honor Society</span> Secret society at Yale University, US

The Torch Honor Society, also known as Torch, is a student secret society at Yale College that was initially established in 1916 and reformed in 1995. Its members include former President George H. W. Bush and William F. Buckley Jr.

References

  1. Richards, David (2017). Skulls and Keys: The Hidden History of Yale's Secret Societies. Simon and Schuster. ISBN   978-1681775814.
  2. Catalogue of Members of the Linonian Society of Yale College. New Haven, Connecticut: Linonian Society. 1841.
  3. "An Irrepressible Urge to Join". Yale Alumni Magazine. March 2001. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
  4. "'Linonia' Revived". Yale Daily News. 1904-10-13.
  5. "Linonia Revived As Debate Society". 1958-11-17.
  6. "Sterling Memorial Library". Yale University Library. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
  7. "Linonia Revived As Debate Society". 1958-11-17.
  8. "Linonia Society Elects". Yale Daily News. 1959-04-09.

See also