Skulls and Keys

by David Alan Richards

Overview

The mysterious, highly influential hidden world of Yale’s secret societies is revealed in a definitive and scholarly history.

Secret societies have fundamentally shaped America’s cultural and political landscapes. In ways that are expected but never explicit, the bonds made through the most elite of secret societies have won members Pulitzer Prizes, governorships, and even presidencies. At the apex of these institutions stands Yale University and its rumored twenty-six secret societies. Tracing a history that has intrigued and enthralled for centuries, alluring the attention of such luminaries as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Skulls and Keys traces the history of Yale’s societies as they set the foundation for America’s future secret clubs and helped define the modern age of politics.

But there is a progressive side to Yale’s secret societies that we rarely hear about, one that, in the cultural tumult of the nineteen-sixties, resulted in the election of people of color, women, and gay men, even in proportions beyond their percentages in the class. It’s a side that is often overlooked in favor of sensational legends of blood oaths and toe-curling conspiracies. Dave Richards, an alum of Yale, sheds some light on the lesser known stories of Yale’s secret societies. He takes us through the history from Phi Beta Kappa in the American Revolution (originally a social and drinking society) through Skull and Bones and its rivals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While there have been articles and books on some of those societies, there has never been a scholarly history of the system as a whole.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681775173
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	09/05/2017
Pages:	832
Sales rank:	461,269
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 2.70(d)

About the Author

With both undergrad and law degrees from Yale University, David Alan Richards was tasked by Yale President Kingman Brewster to write a history of the Yale Corporation to undergird that board’s expansion in the nineteen-sixties to include previously-excluded women and ethnic and religious minorities. His Rudyard Kipling: A Bibliography, co-published in 2010 by the British Library and Oak Knoll Press, was nominated for the bibliography prize of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers. Earlier works include co-editing Kipling and His First Publisher (Rivendale Press: 2001) and authoring Rudyard Kipling: The Books I Leave Behind (Yale University Press: 2007). Residing in Scarsdale, New York, he is Senior Counsel with Steptoe & Johnson LLP. He is a longtime officer of New York City's Grolier Club and serves as secretary of the St. Bartholomew's Conservancy and on the legal committee of the Yale Club of New York City.

Editorial Reviews

07/31/2017
More is decidedly less in this granular look at Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, and lesser-known Yale secret societies. Richards (Rudyard Kipling: A Bibliography), a Yale alumnus and Bonesman, has the right credentials, but instead of broadly contextualizing the shifting fortunes of the societies, he overwhelms readers with myriad trivialities about the groups he’s studied (the typical menu of a Skull and Key supper in the 1840s, the types of stone used to construct that society’s building) and lists of their powerful and famous alumni. The groups’ 18th-century antecedents and 19th-century origins are well detailed, but, bafflingly, the main text ends in 1991, when women were finally admitted to the ranks of the most prestigious groups. Richards treats the last decade-plus summarily in a brief epilogue, ending without expanding on the point that “living this life is clearly seen as desirable in the Yale College of today.” Despite the book’s length, Richards has an even longer version available online. More exhausting than exhaustive, this volume will disappoint those who slog through to the end. Agent: John Silbersack, Trident Media. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Given the secrecy of secret societies, we may never uncover all there is to know, but with Skull and Keys, David Richards comes as close as possible to giving us full and rich pictures of Yale’s distinctive and peculiar institutions. Those interested in Final Clubs at Harvard and Eating Clubs at Princeton will find much to ponder comparatively. And those interested in the history of Yale, of elites, of higher education, and of America over the course of two centuries will learn much from Richards’ prodigiously researched, engaging, and thoughtful book. They will find out about the history of collegiate rituals, changing patterns of American elitism, the connections between the local and the national—including how the welcomed and increased diversity of undergraduates in New Haven collided with traditional and often entrenched institutions and practices."

Daniel Horowitz

"In his book, Richards, a member of Skull and Bones, crafts an extensive historical narrative about the place of secret societies son Yale’s campus and within the American public imagination."

Yale News

"History illuminates the past and guides us in the future. Yale’s secret societies have been mysterious, misunderstood, and maligned. In the context of Yale history, David Richards has done a superb job of exploring and explaining these unique institutions. This book will inform the reader and help open a new, intelligent discussion about higher education and leadership."

Henry Chauncey

2017-06-15
An overstuffed history of the secret clubs that have been part of Yale University tradition since its earliest years.Want to be a big man on campus in New Haven? First, you'll have to get slapped—hard. That was, in any event, the old ritual by which at least one of Yale's secret societies invited new members to join the fold. And what happened when the invitation was accepted? At a certain point in history, as biographer and Yale Corporation historian Richards (Rudyard Kipling: A Bibliography, 2009, etc.) writes, the initiate might have been swept into secret intelligence work. During the Cold War, Yale was laced with "talent spotters who would forward the names of likely agents to the CIA," and during World War II, the same spotters staffed the ranks of the OSS and other military intelligence agencies even as the societies dwindled as their members were scattered "to far corners of the country or to overseas battlegrounds." The author begins by examining how these societies formed in the first place. In part, he suggests, they were mutual-aid societies for students struggling to make sense of a place in which the faculty did not deign to mix with their charges, and they were also places for entertainment (Phi Beta Kappa began not as an honorary society but as a dining club). Recent years seem anticlimactic in light of the fraught times of conflict, the Civil War as well as later ones. As Richards notes, George H.W. Bush, a Skull and Bones initiate, had already proven himself a war hero—and, though well-connected, had among his classmates non-upper crust veterans on the GI Bill entering a "doorway to a postwar world." Indeed, writes the author, the secret societies aren't just a WASP domain; many have opened to women and people of all ethnicities and orientations, and they have mirrored and sometimes led the larger society in liberalization. Much too long but full of intriguing revelations and even a little skulduggery—though conspiracy theorists still won't find all the keys here.

Kirkus Reviews