# Manuscript Society

Manuscript Society is a senior society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. It is reputedly the arts and letters society at Yale.

## History

Founded in 1951, Manuscript was Yale's seventh "landed" senior society. That is, its alumni trust owns the society's meeting place or "tomb". The Manuscript Society was one of the first senior societies to offer membership to rising females at Yale College.
Each delegation is selected by consensus among Manuscript alumni, trustees, delegates, and significant others, unlike other Yale societies where undergraduate members more freely select, recruit, and initiate their society's next delegation.
The Wrexham Foundation is the society's alumni arm. Since 1956, the foundation has underwritten the Wrexam Prize, a scholarship in the humanities for the senior who writes the best essay in the field of the humanities.
Manuscript briefly played host to the 1991-92 classes of Skull and Bones, who were temporarily locked out of their tomb by alumni who objected to its undergraduates' decision to offer membership to women. From its beginning the society also retained close connections with the campus literary society Chi Delta Theta, which formed in 1821
Manuscript Society is part of a four-society "Consortium" with the Aurelian Honor Society, Book and Snake, and Berzelius.

## Traditions

The society holds the number 344 to be sacred. It supposedly holds Enlightenment ideals, and the sun and sunflowers are both important symbols to members.
The society holds an annual gathering in its tomb on Halloween. Its members also invite guests to events featuring notable alumni.

## Chapter house

Designed by King-lui Wu, Manuscript's white granite tomb was built in 1952. The tomb is mid-century modern, unusual amid other societies' elaborate mid-to-late-19th century buildings. It featured a circular intaglio mural in white-glazed brick that was designed by Josef Albers. The circle, which is only visible in direct sunlight, symbolizes the bond connecting the members.
It appears from the outside to have only one level, yet conceals several subterranean floors and a courtyard. The tomb holds a collection of notable modern and contemporary art. The Yale University Art Gallery is said to have temporarily stored pieces there. Wu said that he designed the building "for privacy, not for secrecy." Dan Kiley designed the landscaping which includes a Japanese water garden.

## Popular culture

Manuscript is described in the novel Joe College by Tom Perrotta as "basically the cool people's version of a secret society".

## Notable members

| Name | Class | Notability |
| Josef Albers | Honorary | Artist |
| Jen Banbury | 1989 | Playwright, author, and journalist |
| Alan Bernheimer | 1970 | Poet |
| Noah Bookbinder | 1995 | Professor of law at George Washington University |
| Maia Brewton | 1998 | Child actress and lawyer |
| Richard H. Brodhead | 1968 | 9th President of Duke University |
| Cleanth Brooks | Honorary | Literary critic |
| Matthew Bruccoli | 1953 | F. Scott Fitzgerald scholar |
| David Calleo | 1955 | Intellectual historian, political economist at Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University |
| Anderson Cooper | 1989 | Journalist and news anchor with CNN |
| Robert A. Dahl | Honorary | Professor of political science at Yale University |
| Eli Whitney Debevoise II | 1974 | U.S. Director of the World Bank |
| Charles Derber | 1965 | Professor of sociology and social critic |
| Juan Negrín Fetter | 1967 | Director of Wixarika Research Center |
| Robert Fiore | 1964 | Film producer and director |
| Jodie Foster | 1985 | Director and Academy Award winning actress |
| Henry Geldzahler | 1957 | Art historian and curator |
| Tamar Gendler | 1987 | Professor, chair of the Yale University department of philosophy |
| David Gergen | 1963 | Presidential advisor and political commentator |
| Robert Glick | 1962 | Director of the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research |
| Cyrus Hamlin | Honorary | Literary critic and longtime Yale professor |
| E. D. Hirsch, Jr. | Honorary | Literary critic and proponent of cultural literacy |
| H. John Heinz III | 1960 | U.S. Senator |
| Cheryl Henson | 1984 | Puppeteer and president of the Jim Henson Foundation |
| Rodger Kamenetz | 1970 | Professor and certified dream therapist |
| Zoe Kazan | 2005 | Actor and playwright |
| Byron Kim | 1983 | Minimalist artist |
| Anthony Lapham | 1958 | General Counsel of the CIA from 1976–1979 and Chair of the American Rivers |
| Brooke Lyons | 2003 | Actor |
| Jane Maienschein | 1972 | Director of the Center for Biology and Society, at Arizona State University |
| Richard Maltby, Jr. | 1959 | Tony Award-winning director |
| Patrick McCaughey | Honorary | Former director of the Yale Center for British Art |
| Ved Mehta | Honorary | Author and advocate for the blind |
| Ted Morgan | 1954 | Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist |
| Wallace Notestein | Honorary | Sterling Professor of English History at Yale |
| Soni Oyekan | 1970 | Chemical engineer and inventor |
| Michael Pertschuk | 1954 | Consumer advocate, author and former government official |
| Scott Peterson | 1988 | Author and journalist |
| James Prosek | 1997 | Author and naturalist |
| Dale Purves | 1960 | Neuroscientist, director of Neuroscience and Behavioural Disorders at Duke |
| Richard Rhodes | 1959 | Pulitzer Prize-winning author |
| Duncan Robinson | Honorary | Master of Magdalene College and Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum |
| Richard Selzer | Honorary | Surgeon, author, and professor of surgery at Yale |
| William Kelly Simpson | Honorary | Art historian and head of college of Timothy Dwight College |
| Steven Smith | Honorary | Political scientist and head of college of Branford College |
| Paul Steiger | 1964 | Editor-in-Chief of ProPublica, former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal |
| Robert Storr | Honorary | Curator, critic, painter, and writer. |
| Robert Farris Thompson | Honorary | Art historian and master of Timothy Dwight College |
| Rosanna Warren | 1976 | Poet and scholar |
| Elisabeth Waterston | 1999 | Actor |
| Stephen F. Williams | 1958 | Senior Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit |
| Jonathan Zittrain | 1991 | Professor of Internet Law at Harvard University |
| Karl Zinsmeister | 1981 | Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under George W. Bush |