Manuscript Society is a senior secret society at Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 in New Haven, Connecticut. Toward the end of each junior year, 16 undergraduates are "tapped" to be inducted into the society, which meets twice weekly for dinner and discussion (once per week with undergraduates only, once with alumni, honorary members and invited guests). Undergraduates are selected for their strength in academics, extracurricular activities, character and commitment to truth. Manuscript is known for having the best of the intellectual and artistic undergraduates among its members and calls itself an "Arts and Letters" society.

History and Traditions

Founded in 1952, Manuscript was Yale's seventh "landed" senior society; that is, its alumni trust owns its building, or "tomb." Manuscript was the first of the "above-ground" societies to tap women along with Elihu

Elihu (secret society)

Elihu, founded in 1903, is the sixth oldest secret society at Yale University, New Haven, CT. While similar to Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key and Wolf's Head societies in charter and function, Elihu favors privacy over overt secrecy...

  and St. Elmo

St. Elmo (secret society)

St. Elmo Society is a secret society at Yale University. It was founded in 1889 as an independent entity for seniors within the nationally chartered fraternity, Delta Phi , Omicron Chapter .-History:...

. Each delegation is elected by a consensus of Manuscript alumni, trustee members, and others, unlike other secret societies, where undergraduate members shoulder more of the burden of selecting, recruiting and initiating their descendants.

The Wrexham Foundation is the society's alumni board of trustees. Since 1956, the foundation has underwritten a scholarship in the humanities for a "senior who shall be judged to have written the best senior essay in the field of the humanities." Administered by Yale, it is given in memory of Wallace Notestein

Wallace Notestein

Wallace Notestein was an American historian, Sterling Professor of English History at Yale University from 1928 to 1947.-Works:*A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718...

, M.A. 1903, Ph.D. 1908, Litt.D. 1951.

Manuscript also briefly played host to the 1991-92 classes of Skull and Bones

Skull and Bones

Skull and Bones is an undergraduate senior or secret society at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. It is a traditional peer society to Scroll and Key and Wolf's Head, as the three senior class 'landed societies' at Yale....

, who were temporarily locked out of their own tomb by alumni who objected to its undergraduates' decision to tap women for the first time in the spring of 1991.

It holds the number 344

344

Year 344 was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Leontius and Bonosus...

 to be sacred. Possible explanations of this include the fact that this was the date that the Greek philosopher and scientist, Aristotle, travelled from Assus to Lesbos to study natural history and marine biology.

The Society supposedly holds Enlightenment

Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...

 ideals, and the sun and sunflowers are both important symbols to members. The society also retained close connections with the campus literary society Chi Delta Theta in the early 1950s.

The society holds an annual gathering in its tomb on Hallowe'en. A Manuscript event is described in the novel Joe College by Tom Perrotta

Tom Perrotta

Thomas R. Perrotta is an Albanian-American/ Italian-American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election and Little Children , both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films...

.

Architecture

Designed by King-lui Wu

King-lui Wu

King-lui Wu was a Chinese-American architect and professor at Yale University from 1945–1988.- Life and work :King-lui Wu was born in Guangzhou , China in 1918. Wu's father was a businessman, but despising the work, he also pursued painting and poetry writing...

, Manuscript's tomb is mid-century modern

Mid-century modern

Mid-Century modern is an architectural, interior and product design form that generally describes mid-20th century developments in modern design, architecture, and urban development from roughly 1933 to 1965...

, unusual amid other societies' elaborate mid- to late-19th Century buildings. It appears from the outside to have only one level, yet conceals eight subterranean floors. The tomb holds a vast collection of notable modern and contemporary art. The Yale University Art Gallery

Yale University Art Gallery

The Yale University Art Gallery houses a significant and encyclopedic collection of art in several buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Although it embraces all cultures and periods, the Gallery possesses especially renowned collections of early Italian painting,...

 is said to have temporarily stored pieces there. Wu was often heard to say that he designed the building "for privacy, not for secrecy."

Notable members

Name	Yale Class	Known for
David Calleo	1954	Intellectual historian
Michael Pertschuk Michael Pertschuk Michael Pertschuk is a consumer and public health advocate, author and former government official. He served as consumer counsel and later chief counsel and staff director to the U.S...	1954	Consumer advocate, author and former government official -
H. John Heinz III H. John Heinz III Henry John Heinz III was an American politician from Pennsylvania, a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate .-Early life:...	1960	US senator
David Gergen David Gergen David Richmond Gergen is an American political consultant and former presidential advisor who served during the administrations of Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. He is currently Director of the Center for Public Leadership and a professor of public service at Harvard Kennedy School. Gergen is...	1963	Presidential Advisor and Political Commentator
Richard H. Brodhead Richard H. Brodhead Richard Halleck Brodhead Marquis Who's Who on the Web currently serves as the ninth president of Duke University and is a scholar of 19th-century American literature.-Early life and education:...	1968	9th President of Duke Univ.
Jodie Foster Jodie Foster Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....	1985	Actress
Jen Banbury Jen Banbury Jen Banbury is an American playwright, author and journalist. She studied at Yale University and was a member of Manuscript Society. After publishing plays and a novel, she turned to reporting in 2003, becoming a freelancer who has reported for NPR, Salon.com, and other organizations. In 2003 and...	1989	Playwright
Anderson Cooper Anderson Cooper Anderson Hays Cooper is an American journalist, author, and television personality. He is the primary anchor of the CNN news show Anderson Cooper 360°. The program is normally broadcast live from a New York City studio; however, Cooper often broadcasts live on location for breaking news stories...	1989	News Anchor
Jonathan Zittrain Jonathan Zittrain Jonathan L. Zittrain is a US professor of Internet law at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School, a professor of computer science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and a faculty co-director of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society...	1991	Professor of Internet Law at Harvard Univ.
Cleanth Brooks Cleanth Brooks Cleanth Brooks was an influential American literary critic and professor. He is best known for his contributions to New Criticism in the mid-twentieth century and for revolutionizing the teaching of poetry in American higher education...	Hon.	Literary Critic
Steven Smith Steven B. Smith (professor) Steven B. Smith is the Alfred Cowles Professor of Political Science at Yale University. He is the ninth master of Branford College at Yale....	Hon.	Political Scientist
Vincent Giroud	Hon.	Historian of French Opera

Sources

• Robbins, Alexandra. Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power. Back Bay Books, 2003. ISBN 0-316-73561-2
• Perrotta, Tom. Joe College: A Novel (2000) ISBN 0-312-36178-5
• Light & Truth Publication
• King-lui Wu
• Architectural Record, November, 1965. "Ingenious Use of a Narrow Site".