Jefferson Literary and Debating Society - History

History

The Jefferson Society was founded on July 14, 1825, by sixteen disgruntled members of the now-defunct Patrick Henry Society in Room Seven, West Lawn, where a member of the society continues to live to this day. In the 186 years since then, the history of the Society has been the history of the University itself: no other organization has been active for as many years in the life of the school and her students.

Membership in the Society grew rapidly in the early years after its founding, and it finally secured a permanent meeting place in Hotel C (originally designed as a dining hall) on the West range. The Society and Hotel C have been synonymous since. Hotel C is known as "Jefferson Hall," and Society members refer to both the Society and Hotel C as the "Hall."

The new accommodations allowed the Society to take a prominent role in the Social life in the mid 19th century. Before fraternities and athletics were en vogue, the several literary and debating organizations on grounds were at the epicenter of the social scene: The Jefferson Society held numerous cotillions and dances in the hall and in the Dome Room of the Rotunda.

By 1855, the University of Virginia was the second largest University in the nation after Harvard University, enrolling 645 students. That school year, the Society admitted 155 new members: nearly a quarter of the student body of the University. The Hall thrived in its prosperity, forming literary publications, giving scholarships, donating books to the University's libraries, and endowing a stone for the building of the Washington Monument, where the name of the Society may still be seen inscribed in the stone at the 270th-foot landing.

In the hotheaded antebellum years, the Society could become raucous. Its elections were condemned by the Faculty for "such turbulence as to degrade the reputation of the University." An especially coveted honor was to be selected as "final orator," a post apparently comparable to that of a valedictorian today. As Virginius Dabney writes, "The man chosen student orator for the 1858 finals received four challenges to duels the night of the balloting and two more the next day."

The Society played a key role in establishing student journalism at the University, founding the University Magazine as early as 1856. Later known as the Virginia Spectator, the paper played a major part in University life for a century, with its profile ranging from high seriousness to satire, until being shut down by the president of the University in the late 1950s for obscenity. The Jefferson Society sponsored the magazine for many decades.

The United States Civil War threatened the existence of the Society, who donated most of its funds to the cause of the Confederacy. During the war The Hall was used as a hospital for Confederate troops, and the Society met elsewhere. The Society regained its vigor after the War and by the turn of the century, it began to focus on the more formal aspects of forensics, collaborating with the Washington Literary Society and Debating Union in 1913 to form the Virginia High School Debate League, an organization that hosts thousands of secondary school students in debate to this day.

Both of the World Wars threatened the health of the Society, which now had to compete with a robust Greek Life and a thriving athletics scene. In a now familiar pattern, however, the Society revitalized at the end of the Wars. William Faulkner visited the Society, the Moomaw Oratorical Contest began, and membership numbers leapt. In 1965, the Society became the first organization at the University to admit African-Americans; women graced the membership of the Hall two years later.

The Jefferson Society went through a tumultuous time in the early 1990s. The Cavalier Daily student newspaper and The Washington Post printed accusations that members of the Society made unwanted sexual advances toward "probationary" members. Additionally, the Society was accused of violating the University's alcohol policy by allowing alcohol into Jefferson Hall. The Board of Visitors conducted an investigation and concluded that the accusation of systemic sexual impropriety was unfounded – rather, that one individual had acted inappropriately and that the organization's leadership acted quickly and appropriately to punish that member. However, the Society was found to be in violation of alcohol policy and, as such, lost control of Jefferson Hall for the Fall 1993 semester. Since then, alcohol has not been permitted inside Jefferson Hall during its meetings.