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| Book and Snake | |
|---|---|
| Name | Book and Snake |
| Founded | 1863 |
| Type | Senior secret society |
| Campus | Yale University |
| City | New Haven |
| State | Connecticut |
| Country | United States |
| Motto | Prodesse Quam Conspici |
| Website | (private) |
Book and Snake is a senior secret society founded at Yale University in 1863, known for its private membership, distinctive iconography, and social influence within collegiate and civic networks. The organization has maintained a presence in New Haven with ties to prominent figures in American law, politics, finance, and academia, while attracting attention from journalists, historians, and legal scholars. Its activities, membership, and property have intersected with institutions and events spanning the Ivy League, national politics, and corporate leadership.
The society emerged during the American Civil War era amid social shifts at Yale College and in New Haven, contemporaneous with organizations such as the Scroll and Key, Skull and Bones, Wolf's Head, Berzelius, and DKE. Early records link its founding period to debates at Yale over class societies, fraternity culture at Columbia University, and secret societies at Harvard University and Princeton University. By the late 19th century the group had established a notable clubhouse presence in residential New Haven neighborhoods near Old Campus and Elm Street. Over subsequent decades, membership included future figures associated with the U.S. Supreme Court, United States Senate, House of Representatives, Federal Reserve System, and executive branch agencies. The society's timeline intersects with events such as the Spanish–American War, Progressive Era, World War I, Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War, as alumni entered institutions like Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School, Yale School of Management, Council on Foreign Relations, and Brookings Institution.
Iconography used by the society incorporates traditional motifs found in collegiate secret societies, resonant with artifacts held by museums like the Yale University Art Gallery and archives at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Emblems have been discussed in the context of heraldry collections associated with British Museum scholarship and in comparative studies of societies such as Phi Beta Kappa and Order of the Coif. Visual elements have been mentioned in press coverage by outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time (magazine), and The New Yorker, and analyzed by historians at institutions like Harvard University, Princeton University, Columbia University, and University of Pennsylvania.
Alumni networks have included politicians, jurists, financiers, and academics connected to institutions and roles such as the United States Court of Appeals, U.S. District Court, Securities and Exchange Commission, U.S. Department of State, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Council, Department of Defense, and corporate boards of major firms listed on the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. Individual members have been reported in biographies associated with awards like the Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize, Rhodes Scholarship, and fellowships from MacArthur Foundation. Membership lists intersect with alumni of colleges in the Ivy League and with leaders who served at organizations such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, ExxonMobil, General Electric, AT&T, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Berkshire Hathaway, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Apple Inc., Facebook, and Amazon (company) in corporate governance or advisory roles. Notable public officeholders connected to the society have appeared in histories of administrations like the Roosevelt administration, Truman administration, Eisenhower administration, Kennedy administration, Johnson administration, Nixon administration, Reagan administration, Clinton administration, Bush administration, and Obama administration.
Ritual practices have been characterized by secrecy common to senior societies and have been compared in studies alongside the ceremonies of Skull and Bones and Scroll and Key. Traditions reportedly include private dinners, alumni gatherings at venues in New Haven Green and on Yale campus, and participation in convocations connected to colleges such as Yale College and programs at Pauli Murray College and Branford College. The society's alumni events have taken place alongside conferences at institutions like Council on Foreign Relations, Aspen Institute, Brookings Institution, and professional associations including the American Bar Association, American Medical Association, and American Historical Association.
The society maintains a tomb-style meeting hall in New Haven near landmarks such as Yale Bowl, Yale Law School, Sterling Memorial Library, and Harkness Tower. The property has been a subject of municipal records at the New Haven City Hall and in real estate filings with the Connecticut Secretary of the State. Architectural descriptions compare its facilities to other collegiate society halls studied by preservationists from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and documented by scholars at the Society of Architectural Historians and Historic New England.
The society has periodically attracted scrutiny in journalistic investigations by outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NBC News, CBS News, ABC News, and Reuters regarding issues of exclusivity, discrimination, and transparency. Legal matters involving alumni have intersected with court dockets in federal venues such as the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut and appellate litigation in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Civil-rights and anti-discrimination debates have referenced statutes enforced by the U.S. Department of Justice and state regulators in Connecticut; university policy reviews involved officials from Yale University and higher-education consortia including the Association of American Universities and the American Council on Education.
Category:Yale University societies