The Origin of RPI's Colors, Cherry and White

What follows below is a letter dated March 31, 1947, written by Samuel Rezneck, then a Professor of History at Rensselaer, to Mr. Henry L. Snyder of Allentown, Pennsylvania. It covers the history of Rensselaer's school colors. The document was found in the Institute archives at the Fixman Room in the Folsom Library.

Dear Sir:

Professor W. F. Spafford, Head of the Department, turned over to me your letter of March 19 to see what I might be able to discover concerning the origin of the Institute colors. The subject aroused my detective instinct; and, following a necessarily hurried investigation, I am able to report the following clues:

1. In a sense in which the inquiry refers to "the official colors of the Institute," thereby implying an official act of adoption by the Institute, the answer is relatively easy and clear.

   The colors, cherry and white, were incorporated in the Institute coat of arms which was prepared in 1904 at the request of Director Ricketts by a Boston architect, Mr. R. C. Sturgis. A beautiful print of this design, in full colors, is to be found in The Polytechnic, January 20, 1905 (p. 102). Director Ricketts tells the story of how this came about in his History of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (3rd edition), pp. 184-185. It should be noted that the official coat of arms, as prepared in 1904, includes the colors, blue and gold, as well as the familiar cherry and white, but only the last two are usually printed now. The official Institute design incorporated the Van Rensselaer coat of arms and colors, which were red, white, blue and gold.

2. But the question is how cherry and white had come to be accepted as the Institute colors already by 1904. The answers appears to be approximately as follows, as far as I was able to trace it through the files of The Polytechnic, which goes back to 1886:
   1. Interest in school emblems and colors appears to be a product of student activity and an accompaniment of a growing sense of school spirit and solidarity during the latter nineteenth century. For example, when the question of Institute colors became the subject of student discussion in 1890, an old graduate, Mr. G. H. Bradley, of the class of 1850, communicated his reminiscences to The Polytechnic, telling how thrilled he was in 1851 when he met on the head waters of the Magdalena River in New Grenada (now Venezuela) "a long-haired, sunburned, rough-looking fellow wearing on his tattered vest the 'level pin' that marked him as an R.P.I. man." This "spirit-level pin" would appear to have been the oldest R.P.I. emblem, but there is no mention of color in it.

   2. By 1887, however, cherry had in some way become the recognized Institute color, and an editorial in The Polytechnic (March 19, 1887) compares it favorably with the colors of other colleges: the scarlet of Rutgers, the "ruddy gore" (crimson) of Harvard, the "weak pink" of Hamilton, the "Confederate cardinal and gray" of Stevens and the Boston Tech., concluding that cherry was not to be "spoken of in the same day with the garnet of Union. There can be no doubt that cherry is a ripe color."

   3. In the same issue, however, was broached the idea of changing the Institute color or "at least to add to the cherry long ago adopted." The mystery, on which I am unable to cast more light at present for want of any clear evidence, is when and how the original color, cherry, came to be adopted. At any event, various objections, mostly humorous, were raised in 1887 to a single school color. A freshman wearing a "blazer of solid cherry" had been nearly gored by a bull; and "a football player in the Institute color . . . much resembles a vulgar evil one, such as may be seen at any masquerade ball." The proposal was then made--the first I know of: "Why not make it cherry and white?"

   4. Nothing further happened until 1890, when The Polytechnic again raised the issue. In this year the Student Union had been organized, and there was an increased interest in student athletics. And so the editor now complained (December 20, 1890) that, although "for more than twenty years custom has made cherry the symbol by which every R.P.I. man should be distinguished," few knew what shade it was. The subject of the proper "Institute cherry" was a proper one for the R.P.I. Union to determine, and it should then be put up in the gymnasium for comparison.

   5. On March 21, 1891 the editor returned to the theme and recommended the revival of the old custom of wearing a school pin, to replace the more familiar class pins and class colors then being used. It was also proposed now that only official members of school teams be authorized to wear an R or R.P.I. on their uniforms.

   6. Action soon followed upon this recommendation. A student mass meeting is reported in The Polytechnic of June 27, 1891, which named a committee of three to select a design for a school pin. It was voted to retain the old Institute color, cherry, but "permission was given, however, to combine it with white." (p. 254) Thus cherry and white appear to have been adopted as the school colors in 1891 by the vote of a mass meeting of students held under the auspices of the Union; and this action authorized, probably for esthetic reasons chiefly, the combination of the customary Institute color, cherry, with white.

   7. On the reopening of school in the fall of 1891 the committee of three went to work receiving and passing upon many designs submitted. It then recommended a design to another mass meeting of students on October 16, 1891, and approval was given to a badge "of cherry and white enamel." The emblem was further described as being "in the form of a button and represents the target of a leveling rod." (The Polytechnic, October 31, 1891) This appears to be the first mention of the target as part of the design and it seems to have been incorporated in to the button independently of, and subsequently to, the recommendation of cherry and white as the Institute colors, first made as early as 1887.

   8. As a final note, the report in The Polytechnic of November 28, 1891, may be cited, to the effect that the first lot of the buttons, selling at three dollars, had been sold out within three hours, and that new ones would soon be available to the students. These undoubtedly are the buttons referred to by Director Ricketts in his History.

This answer to your inquiry is a bit fuller than I originally intended, because I became intrigued by the subject myself, and because I thought that the information would by of interest to us here at the Institute, also.

Very truly yours,

Samuel Rezneck
Professor of History