Skull and Bones

Skull and Bones, secret society of senior (fourth-year undergraduate) students at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, that was founded in 1832. Male society members are called Bonesmen, and many have ascended after graduation to positions of prominence in business or government. Three of them—William Howard Taft, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush—became U.S. presidents.

Skull and Bones was formed in 1832 by William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft. According to some accounts, the society was formed after a dispute over elections to Phi Beta Kappa. Other sources conjecture that Russell modeled the society after European groups he encountered while studying in Germany. The society’s original name was the Eulogian Club. It was incorporated in 1856 as the Russell Trust Association.

The emblem of the society is a skull and crossbones with the number “322” beneath it. The number is generally taken to refer to the year (322 bce) of the death of the Greek orator Demosthenes, a turning point in the transformation of ancient Athens from democracy to plutocracy. The society’s clubhouse is a monumental brownstone building in New Haven called the Tomb. Originally built in 1856, the Tomb was doubled in size in 1903 and has since been further enlarged.

Skull and Bones is the oldest of several secret societies on the Yale campus. Like most of the others, it chooses 15 new members every spring at a ceremony called “tap day” (or “tap night”). Juniors are notified of their selection by a society member who ritually claps them on the shoulder. The society has always kept its affairs secret, but for many years it publicized its membership roster. Some new members are high-achieving students, while others are descendants of socially prominent families. Even though Yale University has admitted women since 1969, females were not granted membership into Skull and Bones until 1992.

A persistent rumour has it that the stolen skull of the Apache leader Geronimo is among the relics that Skull and Bones keeps in its Tomb. In 2009 Geronimo’s descendants sued unsuccessfully to get the skull in question turned over to them.