Each signature may be linked to the others by up to 53 thematic connections. Some are common to many signatures; others highlight unusual, yet notable, associations and interests. Friendships are not represented because so many signers were friends. Go to "The Bohemians" to view and interact with all 53 connections.
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Skull and Bones, Yale University’s legendary secret society, is best-known as a launching pad for leaders in the world of business and politics. However, the society, which was founded in 1832, has also counted among its members many from the world of publishing and writing. This was especially true for the classes which graduated during the second decade of the twentieth century. Two Skull and Bones members who signed Frank Shay’s door were publisher John Chipman Farrar (Yale Class of 1918) and screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart (Yale 1916). Among their fellow Bonesmen in the late 1910s and early 1920s were writer Archibald MacLeish (Yale 1915), poet Phelps Putnam (Yale 1916), William Morrow publisher Francis Thayer Hobson (Yale 1920), and Time-Life founder Henry Luce (Yale 1920). Of course, Bonesmen of this era also included future businessmen and politicians, such as George W. Bush’s grandfather, Connecticut senator Prescott Bush (Yale 1917), and Charles Taft (Yale 1918), politician and son of President William Howard Taft (who was himself a Bonesman). Among the many traditions of the society is use of aliases—sometimes bestowed, sometimes chosen, often macabre—among its members. The name Donald Ogden Stewart took for himself was “Hellbender.”
