Crotonia was the first

literary society A literary society is a group of people interested in literature. In the modern sense, this refers to a society that wants to promote one genre of writing or a specific author. Modern literary societies typically promote research, publish newsle ...

to exist at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

. Little is known about it. It was already defunct before 1766.

Context

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the course of study at Yale was drastically different from what it is now. The majority of literature studied was that of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and, in the extensive study of the

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

, Hebrews. English literature was not introduced into the curriculum until the 1850s. The young men who studied at Yale at the time felt the need to supplement their studies with a working knowledge of contemporary literature and a forum in which to gain “skill in making known

heir Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offic ...

own thoughts in good, plain English” . The literary societies, which first appeared at Yale and soon afterward at many other colleges and universities, were designed to fill this void. Unlike other societies, students of any class from freshmen to seniors could be members of the literary societies; in fact, by the end of the eighteenth century, everyone at Yale belonged to one and there was often fierce competition for the recruitment of freshmen.

Activities

These societies were primarily debating societies, but they also held speeches and poetry readings and each had a substantial library, filled with books that one could not find in Yale College's collection. Only the members of a given society had access to its library, and debates primarily took place within the society, though by the mid-1800s it was not unheard of for a speech to be attended by members of all three societies, or for inter-society debates to be organized. At the end of the Civil War, the Yale College faculty attempted to ban fraternities and sophomore societies. As a cover for their continued existence, many of these groups took the guise of small debating societies.

Linonia Linonia is a literary and debating society founded in 1753 at Yale University. It is the university's second-oldest secret society. History Linonia was founded on September 12, 1753, as Yale College's second literary and debating society, af ...

and

Brothers in Unity Brothers in Unity (formally, the Society of Brothers in Unity) is an undergraduate society at Yale University. Founded in 1768 as a literary and debating society that encompassed nearly half the student body at its 19th-century peak, the group di ...

no longer dominated the college's social scene, and the Yale Union became the primary forum for debate. In 1872, Linonia and Brothers in Unity gave up their libraries to the college's collection and were wholly absorbed by the Union, which enjoyed intermittent existence until 1934 when it became the

Yale Political Union The Yale Political Union (YPU) is a debate society at Yale University, founded in 1934 by Alfred Whitney Griswold. It was modeled on the Cambridge Union and Oxford Union and the party system of the defunct Yale Unions of the late nineteenth and ...

References

Literary societies Culture of Yale University {{lit-org-stub