Wild·cat/ˈwīldˌkat/ - noun: passionate, intelligent, articulate individual; must possess love for bi-polar Chicago weather and a never-ending midterm season; must own an unhealthy amount of purple clothing.
In theory, the hue that has found its way into much of our wardrobe is not even a "real" color, lying somewhere between violet and red on the visual spectrum. Color theorists classify it as a secondary color since red and blue are both needed to create it. Yet this non-spectral color has been symbolic of royalty, wealth and power for centuries. The color itself is sparsely found in nature, but you can be sure that here in Evanston, we are brimming with purple pride.
At Northwestern, we are perhaps lucky enough to be represented by a color that so few universities have adopted as their own. It stands for everything our school believes in: academia, prestige and pride. In institutions of higher learning around the world, it is usually worn by the highest academic officials, such as the University President. These connotations date back to 1900 B.C. when a Minoan civilization on the island of Crete began making purple dyes. The ancient land of Phoenicia (meaning “land of purple”) was actually the center of the purple dye industry. This dye was so difficult to make that its rarity afforded itself only to wealthy royals. In fact, Byzantine empresses only gave birth to future heirs in the Purple Chamber of their palaces.
Yet as our school color, purple has transcended its meaning of wealth and royalty. Surely there are other schools, such as University of Northern Iowa or Kansas State University, that flaunt this color on their campuses, but we are only among a handful of schools that do so. It is a rarity and it is one thing, among many others, that has become a strong identifying factor of our university.
Here, it stands merely for the immense pride that our student body encompasses. From the athletes representing us in the Big Ten to the students cheering in the stands, all of us have made a trip to Norris or Beck’s to purchase our own piece of Wildcat garb.
“I’ve always joked around that I wanted to go to a college where the colors included purple,” said Communication freshman Tina Umanskiy. “When it came down to it, Northwestern was the perfect place for me and so was its color.”
Though our school was founded in 1851, Northwestern didn't adopt a school color in the 1870s. “The original impetus for colleges and universities to adopt official colors evolved as a consequence of the flourishing of intercollegiate athletics during the decade immediately following the Civil War,” wrote retired University archivist Patrick M. Quinn in Northwestern Memo article published in December 1979.
As football developed into a popular sport, University officials needed to choose a color to represent the university and to distinguish Northwestern athletes.
In 1879, the colors black and gold were adopted because a committee of students could not seem to agree on a single color and more significantly, a single vision for the University. Shortly thereafter, Northwestern changed its original colors from black and gold to purple and gold mainly because “it was discovered that other schools has preempted those colors,” Quinn wrote.
In 1892, the school color was officially dubbed purple, solely to emulate the prestigious east coast universities that adopted a single-color scheme as well. From then on, purple has stuck with the university while countless other aspects have changed. At the time, it was meant to represent the prestige and originality of the University itself.
Over the last century our school color has evolved to parallel the spirit of our community. The fact is, Northwestern is not an East Coast Ivy. Yet the majority of students here never wanted it to be. Purple embodies university's eccentric character and symbolizes the Midwestern quirks and charm that have attracted thousands of students to Northwestern from all around the world.
“When you see fans at a football game wearing purple, or a professor in class with a purple tie, you are reminded of what a special community that you are a part of,” said Northwestern Wildside president Alex Wilcox. It’s evident that the single-color scheme not only embodies the sense of community so readily felt when one steps into Evanston, but also the definition of a Wildcat itself.