158

Group portrait of the incoming members of Yale's Skull and Bones Society.

[New Haven, CT], circa 1910s
Photograph, 10 x 16½ inches, on original plain heavy mount, uncaptioned; minor wear and toning.

The secretive Skull & Bones Society selected 15 new members from the Yale junior class every May. They took a similar group portrait of their incoming members each year: 15 members arrayed in the same pattern, the grandfather clock set to 8:00, and of course the skull and crossed bones on the table at center. 

Prescott Bush of the Yale Class of 1917 appears in a very similar Skull and Bones photograph from 1916, with the same photo studio backdrop. The young man standing third from left bears some resemblance to famous member Averell Harriman of the class of 1913, and the one standing fifth from left resembles Albert Burr Darling of the class of 1916, but we haven't been able to match the other members who joined from either of those classes.

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