Feature Article

The Establishment of the Cap and Gown: 1881-1907

The establishment of the cap and gown at Oberlin takes place at a time when the trappings of collegiateness in general were on the rise. For example, the college "yell"--a distinctive cheer for sporting events--was adopted in the late 1880s. A note in the student newspaper, The Oberlin Review confirms the date and eloquently bemoans a poor rendition of the cheer:

Oberlin has had a yell for three years and has not yet learned how to give it. As rendered at the ball game Saturday, it sounded like a hymn tune in long meter, sung at a funeral to an accompaniment of dropping clods and clattering coffin lids.⁷

Additionally, the Student Handbook for 1893-94 specifies colors for the College, the Conservatory of Music, and each respective graduating class. Confirming the degree of interest in such things, the handbook also includes a lengthy table of principal universities and colleges with their distinctive yells and colors.⁸

In 1890, the college pin came into existence as a sign of "college distinction." An editorial in the Review urged its development:

Why not have an Oberlin pin or button? The last three years have seen the adoption of college colors and of our unrivalled yell. The next step in the line of college distinction should be a pin with appropriate device or a button in the college colors. In several weeks the students will scatter widely for the Christmas holidays. It would be pleasant to carry around with them some badge or emblem of the college they represent, so that a discriminating public may distinguish them from " the fast set" at Harvard: or from the glittering youth of the agricultural colleges.⁹

The quickness with which the idea took shape was stunning. The very next week the Review printed a full-page advertisement for the pin:

The CRIMSON and GOLD!
WE HAVE A COLLEGE PIN!
"A Long felt Want" Supplied.
Buttons for Gentlemen
For Ladies, Pins.
Neat, Tasty, Elegant¹⁰

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