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Columns::February 10, 2003
New task force studies information technology on campus
Provost search committee recommends five finalists
Federal Reserve System vice chair to give Charter Lecture
Black History Month celebrates du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk
WUOG’s Spanish-only radio program becomes a local staple
Campus Closeup
Retirees
Kudos
Looking for the perfect match
Broadening the horizons
Campus News
Literary society exhibit chronicles 200-year history on UGA campus
By Jean Cleveland
jclevela@uga.edu
Rare, beautiful and “sometimes just plain weird” items from 200 years of literary society tradition at UGA are exhibited in the main library lobby and at the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library to celebrate the bicentennial of the Demosthenian Literary Society.
“Among the more genteel and academic diversions, there were commencement balls and readings of orations and poems,” says Steven Brown, head of the UGA archives. “Members of the first graduating class, however, felt the need for something more, a formal society that could promote learning and foster skills needed in active public life, while providing social interaction.”
The Demosthenian Literary Society will observe the anniversary on Feb. 22 with a dinner at Trumps and its annual “all-night meeting.” Speakers will include Athens Mayor Heidi Davison and screenwriter Mark Busse, who is speechwriter for Florida governor Jeb Bush.
“To Improve the Mind Is Commendable” is on display through February.
Founded on Feb. 19, 1803, Demosthenian was joined by the Phi Kappa Literary Society in 1820.
“Phi Kappa flourished on the antebellum campus with strong support from early members such as Alexander Stephens,” says Brown. “As can be seen through a variety of correspondence, both groups also pursued the strategy of offering honorary memberships to prominent Americans, including Martin Van Buren.”
Photographs, newspaper clippings, maps, diplomas, commencement and ball invitations, an arrow, meeting minutes, depictions of membership pins and a Demosthenian gavel allegedly fashioned from wood from the fabled “Toombs Oak” are used to illustrate student life and the history of the literary societies.
Among the more enticing pieces of correspondence is a letter from Judah Benjamin, secretary of the Confederate navy, declining an invitation on April 14, 1861, “in the present condition of public affairs when we know not what a day may bring forth.”
One display case chronicles the Demosthenian Wall of Fame, including correspondence with onetime Demosthenian, UGA alumnus and Italian fashion designer Marchese Emilio Pucci, discussing his election to the honor and subsequent plans to attend the annual spring banquet.
Another Wall of Fame member, Ralph Reed, graces the cover of Time magazine as its man of the year in 1995 as head of the Christian Coalition.
In 1846, a rival society, the Temple of the Skull and Bones of the Mystical Seven, was established on campus.
“Literary or not, the few records we have of the ‘temple’ reveal a group intent on mystery, regalia, nicknames, pseudo-Biblical language and humor,” Brown says. “Among their nicknames we find Don Juan Bum, Delicate McDecent, Tristam Shandy, and Godolphin Grasshopper. In daily or ‘heathen’ life, Godolphin Grasshopper was Alonzo W. Church, son of the president of the university.”
A single letter from another secret society, the “Kruphians,” is all that is known of their existence.
Gilbert Head, an archivist who remains active in Demosthenian, helped assemble the exhibit and contributed items from his personal cache of memorabilia.
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