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Clubs

Art Club

Trinity's Art Club was officially formed in the early 1980s with the goal of promoting appreciation of the fine arts on campus. The club planned to hold lectures, invite artists to campus, hold workshops, and have student and staff art exhibits.

The club organized buses in 1984 and 1985 to bring students to art exhibits in New York and Boston. Also in 1985, the club collaborated with St. Anthony Hall to put on a salon that would feature student-made art. This was entitled “The First Annual Coleman Salon,” and displayed paintings, graphic designs, drawings, sculptures, and photography.

Chemistry Club

The Chemistry Club, also known as The Chemical Society, is a club for students interested in chemistry that is sponsored by Trinity's Chemistry Department. The club organizes chemistry-related events throughout the school year, and has officer positions such as President, Vice President, Social Chair, and First Year Representative.

The club first started appearing in Trinity media in the late 1930s, at that time as the “Chemistry Club” rather than the “Chemical Society.” The club attended lectures presented by biochemists, traveled to other colleges to attend Science Conferences, and brought attention to Trinity's own literature and research pertaining to chemistry that could be found in the library.

Athletic Clubs

See Athletics.

Drama / Theatrical Performance Clubs

Dramatic Club

The Dramatic Club was founded in 1871 by and for students interested in dramatic entertainment and performance. The club would meet to read plays and occasionally perform them for the campus. The club was not open to everyone, and the members were “limited.” The club originally intended to utilize the old Parthenon Hall to practice.

The Shakespeare Club was another dramatics club formed around the same time, and the two quickly became rivals.

Dramatic Combination

The Dramatic Combination was another drama performance group formed in the late 19th century. Featured in the Trinity Ivy in 1886, the group was made up of 33 students and put on plays including Ruy Blas, Don Caasar de Bazan, Michael Strogoff, and The Gladiator.

Dramatic Society

The Dramatic Society existed at least as far back as 1871 and is referenced in the Trinity Ivy as recently as 1986. It existed primarily to put on plays for the benefit of students, faculty, or alumni.

Shakespeare Club

The Shakespeare Club was formed in 1872 as an alternative drama performance group to the Dramatic Club, formed the year before. Some students were “not content” with the readings of Shakespeare done in the Dramatic Club, so they formed their own group to focus on critical readings of Shakespeare's work.

Thespian Club

Trinity College Dramatic Association

The Trinity College Dramatic Association was a drama performance group started in the 1870s. The group changed their name to the Trinity College Jesters in 1908, a previously established dramatic club.

As the T.C.D.A, the association put on around 3 plays each year and held meetings to elect officers and edit the group's constitution that was drawn up by the members in 1913. This constitution included articles that dictated what powers the stage manager held, how the group utilized props and costumes, how expenditures for performances were filed, and their policy on complimentary tickets to performances.

Some plays performed by the association included A Thrice Told Tale and A Pretty Piece of Business.

Eating Clubs

Popular today among Ivy-league colleges Princeton, Yale, and Harvard, eating or dining clubs originated in the 19th century as social organizations which meet regularly for dinner, conversation, or other events. They were largely replaced by the modern Greek Life system. Often, membership is required to participate and meals may be provided by an outside entity such as a private chef. According to Trinity College, participation in a meal plan is mandatory except for “students who are living off campus or members of Trinity’s authorized eating clubs (St Anthony’s Hall, Alpha Delta Phi and Psi Upsilon).”

Castle Thunder

City Hotel

City Hotel was an eating club that existed at least from 1873-74.

College Hall

College Hall was an eating club that existed in 1873.

MMC

The MMC was an eating club that at least existed in 1875. They only identified their members through a series of numbers. Its motto was “I cannot eat but little meat/My stomach is not good:/But sure I think that I can drink/With him that wears a hood.”

Mutual Benefit Eating Club

Mutual Benefit Eating Club was an eating club that existed in 1874. Its headquarters were located in Jarvis Hall. It had nine members in 1874.

Mystique 7

Organized in 1861, its motto was “C.C.C.” and little else is known about it.

Games/Gaming Clubs

(Trinity) Chess Club

The Chess Club was a club for students interested in playing chess to gather and compete against each other, faculty, and occasionally other colleges.

The club was first formed in 1870, but reformed and reorganized in 1899 to encourage more participation, organize more tournaments, spend less time arguing about rules and more time playing during meetings, and to ensure that players of similar skills were matched against each other to make the games more entertaining.

The club was reformed in 1933. Their charter membership upon forming was six members with President Remsen Ogilby as the Honorary President. In 1934, the club prepared to play matches against Harvard, Yale, Northeastern, and M.I.T.

The Chess Club has since disappeared.

(Trinity) Cribbage Club

Cribbage is a card game typically played between two players. The first mention of Trinity's Cribbage Club was in 1872.

The Cribbage Club had advertisements in The Trinity Tablet and was listed under “clubs” in several editions of the Ivy in the early 1870s. Their feature in the 1876 addition of the Ivy included the tagline: “Not the golden, but the crib(b)age club.”

Euchre Clubs

Euchre is a card game typically played between two teams of two using a standard deck of cards. Its peak popularity in the United States was in the 19th century.

U(Cur) Club

The U(Cur) Club at least existed in 1876 with four members.

Ukur Klub

The Ukur Klub was another group for students interested in playing the card game euchre. The club was mentioned in the 1874 edition of the Ivy just under the other Trinity club dedicated to the game (aptly named Euchre Club).

Their motto in the yearbook was “Never turn it down,” and their members had titles using terminology related to the game (one member being a king, another listed as a counter). Following the list of members was the phrase “No jokers allowed.”

Physics Club

The Trinity Physics Club was founded in 1947 for students who were interested in physics and willing to “drink a cup of tea with the staff” and talk about new developments and research in the field. The club had a bulletin board organized that displayed updates found in newspapers and magazines, attended lectures by visiting scientists, and provided students with information about employment and graduate school opportunities.

The club required students to have completed one semester of physics to be able to join, as stated in the 1960-191 edition of The Trinity Handbook. The handbook also stated that everyone who joined would be given a subscription to Physics Today, the American Institution of Physics magazine.

Pre-Medical Club

Trinity's Pre-Medical Club was founded in 1933 by a group of pre-med undergraduates who wanted a club to represent them at Trinity. The Club's mission included helping pre-med students plan out their courses, meeting local physicians and doctors, discussing topics amongst themselves, and “keeping up” with other colleges who had already established similar clubs.

Political Party Clubs

Trinity College Democratic Club

The Trinity College Democratic Club first appeared on campus in 1868, and has had many different chapters and reformations since. Typically, the club forms during election season in order to organize support for the Democratic candidate in the Presidential elections.

During the election season, the club attends and organizes rallies, finds ways to get involved in the general and Presidential elections, and attends intercollegiate conferences with other Democratic groups. The club allows students interested in politics to get involved at both national and local levels.

Trinity College Grant Club

The Trinity College Grant Club was formed for the political campaign of 1868. The group included the quote “I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer” along with a list of their officers in a Trinity Tablet paper posted July of that year.

Political Science Club

The Political Science Club officially formed in 1913 as a way for students to study and talk about current affairs and encourage participation in civic work. The constitution drawn by its founding members stated that the club was open to any students that had taken at least one course on the American Government or in Political Science. The original club limited its membership to only 12 students. The constitution also had an article that outlined how political discussions at meetings would be structured and how they could later be published by the executive committee of the club.

During meetings, the club holds mock debates, reads papers concerning different topics, and discusses current affairs relating to Political Science. The club would also regularly sponsor speakers to give lectures during meetings that were open to other students to attend. Speakers included principles of colleges, local governors, and even the Dutch nobility. The topics of these lectures greatly varied. For example, the Dutch nobility talked about the politics and economy of the Netherlands. In 1962, a prominent leader of the American Communist Party came to campus to talk about communist tactics in the United States. Multiple lectures took place in 1964 debating the apartheid happening in South Africa.

The club was also cited as being important during war time. In 1918, the club was sent literature pertaining to World War I by the government that they redistributed to the entire campus. The club eventually donated 17 books about the war to Trinity's library.

Skating Club

The Skating Club was founded in 1869 due to, as the Trinity Tablet put it, “filthy lucre.” It has since disappeared.

Spanish Club

The Spanish club was founded in 1954 according to the Trinity Handbook and is open to all levels of Spanish speakers. They submitted their constitution to the campus Senate and were officially recognized in 1956.

The club focuses on teaching and utilizing Spanish in a way that is applicable to the real world. Lectures, movies, and discussions presented by the club are done in Spanish in order to immerse club members in the language. Lectures have included a discussion of Fidel Castro presented by a native Cuban that focused on how the country reacts to outside criticism.

Telegraph Clubs

Like students today, the students of the past interested in new technology found ways to implement, learn, and experiment with new and upcoming technologies. Telegraph clubs were organized by students interested in telegraphy, the device or system that allows the transmission of information by coded signal over distance. ¹⁾ Students in these clubs elected officers and were responsible for the maintenance and operation of the telegraph, including fees for messaging.

Brownell Hall Telegraph Company

This may refer to the first telegraph lines set up in Brownell hall by two members of the senior class in early 1873 “in room 28, Brownell Hall, the first wire extending from the table to the window.” The “operation” soon became too large for one room, and “a wire was soon stretched from the room to number 15, same hall, and the circuit completed by an attachment to the gas pipe. The line was next extended from No. 15 the entire length of the Campus to 77 College St., where an aspirant for telegraphic honors then resided. This was all that was done during that Collegiate year with the exception of establishing an additional station at 34, B. H.” ²⁾

By December, 1873, “telegraphing became quite a rage” with students playing chess, checkers, and other games via telegraph. ³⁾ At this time, “opposition lines” were also installed exclusively in Jarvis Hall. In November, 1874, the Tablet reported that the Brownell Hall Telegraph Co. was prosperous with twelve operators.

College Union Telegraphic Association

The Trinity College Telegraphic Association, later the College Union Telegraphic Association, was organized in early 1874 by students who were “interested in telegraphy” and had begun operating telegraph lines throughout campus. The club elected officers including President, Secretary Treasurer, Chief Operator, Battery Superintendent, Line Repairer, and Messenger Boy.

Its main office was located at 41 Jarvis Hall (Later 13 Brownell Hall), and it had multiple branch offices in Jarvis Hall, Brownell Hall, down Washington Street, at Western Union Telegraph Co., and Hartford Depot.

It is unclear whether this club was a continuation or formalization of the Brownell Hall Telegraphic Company, or whether it was a separate/rival organization.

Walking Clubs

Globe Trotters

Knickerbocker Walking Club

The Knickerbocker Walking Club was a walking club that was “reorganized” in 1882, and was most likely named after a style of loose men's pants. The club had a feature in the 1882 edition of the Ivy, listing the club members names under a drawing of a silhouette of a man walking.

One of the “ramps” taken by the club described in the The Trinity Tablet was 25 miles long. They had started walking from the college in the early morning and reached Meriden, CT by midday. From there, they ate dinner, explored the surrounding hills, and made their way back to campus.

Pedestrian Club

The Pedestrian Club was formed in 1892 for “men who have an aversion to horses” according to the Trinity Tablet. It has since dissolved.

Walking Club

The Walking Club existed at least from 1874-76. In 1876, it had 10 members.

Whist Clubs

Whist is a card game typically played between two teams of two using a standard deck of cards. It was most popular during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Alpha Delta Phi Whist Club

The Alpha Delta Phi Whist Club existed at least in 1879 in which they played 1,046 total points.

Brownell Hall Whist Club

The Brownell Hall Whist Club was established in the early 1870s. They were featured in the 1874 edition of the Ivy, callings themselves “Champions of the College”. Along with the members' names, the number of games (114) and average game length (15 minutes) were listed.