Casque and Gauntlet (also known as C&G and the Casque and Gauntler Senior Society) is the second-oldest senior society at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Its object "to united in fellowship men and women of strong character and high ideals; to promote their mutual welfare and happiness; to render loyal service to Dartmouth College and to aid and encourage one another in performing their duties to God and their fellow man."

History 
Casque and Gauntlet was founded in March 1886 by students at Dartmouth College. Albert J. Thomas had the idea of creating a senior society like those at Yale University and recruited Fordyce P. Cleaves and Wilder D. Quint. From those three, other potential members were recruited. The founders decided to was to limit the society's membership or annual delegation to nineteen seniors. The first delegation and founding fathers of Casque and Gauntlet were:

Cleaves, Thomas, and especially Quint were inspired Alfred Lord Tennyson's "Idylls of the King" and the other members agreed on this concept. They selected the organization's name to represent "truth, fidelity, and loyalty to each other". Its president was called Arthur, The Pendragon, after King Arthur, and the members took the names of the various Knights of the Round Table. Its ritual was written by Quint, with the Holy Grail as "the focal point of their fraternal life". Wentworth designed the society's pin. The group also develops its emblem, the profile of a knights helmet or casque with a glove or gauntlet. Its alumni association began publishing a newsletter and directories in the 1890s.Initially, the group lacked a regular meeting place. At one point, they had four rooms above Cobb's Store but also used a cemetery and a barn on Stump Lane. C&G moved into a house at 1 South Main Street in the fall of 1894. The society dubbed their new residence "the Castle on the Corner". The house was built in 1823 by Dr. Samuel Alden who lived there until he died in 1842; Joseph Emerson lived there until 1888 when it became a boarding house for students owned by Susan Brown. The Castle was rented from Brown under a long-term lease. 

Originally, members in C&G ended upon graduation. In 1895, an Alumni Association was incorporated in Boston. Initially, the main activity of the association was organizing an annual dinner for alumni. However, the Alumni Association purchased the Castle in 1901. The house was transferred to the newly formed Trustees of Casque and Gauntlet in 1904. The alumni launched a campaign in 1911 to raise funds to improve the house, including selling stock to alumni. In 1915, the society installed a rear addition designed by architect Fred Wesley Wentworth, a founding member. 

A group adopted a new constitution and by-laws in 1923 and its collegiate group and Alumni Association merged into a single organization called The Casque and Gauntlet, giving all of its initiates a lifetime membership. In 1924, C&G published a songbook and began publishing its Bulletin. During World War II, the society stopped its activities and leased the house to the university. The university gave the Castle back to the society in July 1946. However, C&G struggled to rebuild its membership after the war and was financially depleted. 

Once Dartmouth allowed female students C&W was criticized as a single-sex organization, especially after it voted to remain all-male in 1977-78. The 1979 delegation also voted to admit women after the encouragement of the university's board of trustees. Its first female King Arthur was elected in 1986.

In August 2020, the society leased its house to the university as graduate student housing for three years. This was done because its use as an undergraduate residence was no longer financially sustainable.

Symbols and traditions 
The badge of Casque and Gauntlet is "the Bonnie Gold Pin." It was designed by founding member Wentworth. A sword called Excalibur, after the legendary sword of King Arhur, is laid on the shoulder of each new member as they are "knighted". Members of Casque and Gauntlet are called knights and ladies. Its emblem is a casque on top of a gauntlet.

Membership 
Members of C&G nominate and select tappees as a group. Tapping takes place at a time the College coordinates with the other senior societies, usually around Winter Carnival. In the 1950s, the society discontinued its practice of blackballing, instead relying on a system of prospects receiving a 75% vote to be tapped. It also experimented with allowing each member to select their own replacement. Following coeducation at Dartmouth in 1972, the class of 1979 delegation voted unanimously to nominate women for membership. Members are selected based on achievement, character, and service to Dartmouth. 

C&G is co-ed. The first six women members of C&G joined the class of 1980 delegation.

While C&G's membership is not secret, some elements of the society are kept secret, as one might expect from a sorority or fraternity.  Society meetings, held — like all Dartmouth senior societies — on Monday nights, are closed; the initiation ceremony and other details are also kept secret.

Notable members 

 Carlos Baker (1889) – writer, biographer, and academic
 John Barros (1996) – businessman and politician
 David Birney (1961) – actor and director
 Tom Braden (1940)  – journalist and CIA operative
 James P. Breeden (1956) – minister and civil rights activist 
 David J. Bradley (1938) – writer and politician
 LLewellyn Link Callaway Jr. (1930) – publisher of Newsweek
 Rukmini Callimachi (1995) – journalist, West African bureau chief for the Associated Press
 John Carleton  – lawyer and Olympic skier
 Michael W. Coefield (1962) – attorney and trial lawyer
 Channing H. Cox (1901) – Governor of Massachusetts
 David Dawley (1963) – author and Civil Rights activist
 Joseph H. Edwards (1899) – football player and coach
 Edmund Ezra Day (1905) – president of Cornell University
 Charles T. Duncan (1945) – attorney, law professor, and NAACP council
 Dick Durrance (1933) – professional skier
 Dick Durrance II (1965) – photographer
 Charles S. Feeney (1943) – president of the National League
 William E. Frenzel (1950) – U.S. House of Representatives
 Theodor Seuss Geisel (1925) – author and illustrator known as Dr. Seuss
 Stephen Geller (1962) – screenwriter and author
 Louis V. Gerstner Jr. (1963) –  chairman of the board and CEO of IBM, CEO of RJR Nabisco, and president of American Express    
 Ned Gillette (1967) – adventurer, skier, author, and journalist
 Edwin Osgood Grover (1894) – publisher and editor
 Harvey P. Hood (1918) – chairman of HP Hood
 Ernest Martin Hopkins (1901) – president of Dartmouth College
 Fred A. Howland (1887) – attorney, businessman, and Secretary of State of Vermont
 Chiharu Igaya (1957) – Olympic medalist for alpine skiing
 William Johnson (1953) – justice, New Hampshire Supreme Court
 DeWitt Jones III (1965) – photojournalist and filmmaker
 Mindy Kaling (2001) – actress, writer, and comedian
 Steve Kelley (1981) – syndicated political cartoonist
 John G. Kemeny (1973, honorary) – mathematician, computer scientist who co-developed BASIC, and president of Dartmouth College
 Heinz Kluetmeier (1965) – photographer for Sports Illustrated
 Craven Laycock (1896) – dean of Dartmouth College
 Philip Sanford Marden (1894) – author and newspaper editor
 David T. McLaughlin (1954) – president of Dartmouth College
 Stephen Christopher Meigher III (1968) – publisher with Time, Inc.
 Jonathan Moore (1954) – Ambassador and Director of the Bureau of Refugee Programs
 Michael Moriarty (1963) – actor
 George Munroe (1943) – professional basketball player and CEO of Phelps Dodge Corporation
 James Nachtwey (1970) – photojournalist
 Lloyd K Neidlinger (1923) – All-American football player and dean of Dartmouth College
 Robert Oelman (1931) – president of NCR Corporation
 Jim Page (1963) – Olympic skier and coach
 Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. (1942) – president of Skidmore College
 Richard Parker (1968) – economist and co-founder of Mother Jones
 Fred Lewis Pattee (1888) – author and academic
 Alan Reich (1952) – founder of the National Organization on Disability and executive with Polaroid
 Robert Reich (1968) – academic, economist, U.S. Secretary of Labor
 J. Burton Rix (1906) – college football and basketball coach
 Nelson Rockefeller (1930) – Vice President of the United States and Governor of New York
 Paul Sample (1920) – artist
 Herman T. Schneebeli (1930) – U.S. House of Representatives
 David Shula (1981) – professional football coach
 Charles Manley Smith (1891) – Governor of Vermont
 Charles Starrett (1926) – actor
 Waltman Walters (1917) – head of surgery at the Mayo Clinic and editor of the Archives of Surgery
 Albert Lincoln Washburn (1935) – Arctic explorer, geologist, and Olympic skier
 Fred Wesley Wentworth (1887) – architect
 Alfred Adams Wheat (1889) – Chief Justice of the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia
 Michael Winn (1973) – author and academic
 Jerry Zaks (1967) – stage director, and Tony Award winner

See also
 Dartmouth College student groups
Collegiate secret societies in North America

References

Dartmouth College undergraduate societies
Student societies in the United States
Fred Wesley Wentworth buildings
Student organizations established in 1886
1886 establishments in New Hampshire
Secret societies in the United States