Are Lobsters Ambidextrous? (15 page)

Why
do we wear caps and gowns at graduations? Why are the caps flat and square? What does the color of gowns signify?

The first organized institutions of higher learning appeared in Paris and Bologna in the early twelfth century. In this era, virtually everyone, male and female, old and young, wore long flowing robes that didn’t look too different from our graduation gowns of today. Rich people might have worn silk robes with ornamentation while the poor wore plain, coarse wool robes, but the style varied little.

Robes were in vogue until around 1600, when gowns were generally worn only by older and professional men. By the end of the seventeenth century, only legal and other officials wore gowns. But by the time robes for men had become passé, they had long been prescribed for use as academic garb, especially
by English universities, and the tradition of wearing gowns at graduation had stuck.

In Roman law, a slave was freed when he was allowed to wear a cap. This symbol of emancipation might have been the inspiration for Oxford adopting the practice of placing a cap on the recipient of a Master’s of Art when he graduated. The cap symbolized independence for the former bachelor.

Why was the hat square? Square hats called birettas were already in vogue at the time, but they weren’t totally flat like the mortarboard that Oxford established as the standard. In her book
The Story of Caps and Gowns
, published by graduation uniform giant E. R. Moore Company, Helen Walters offers three theories:

1. 1.
   The shape was derived from the master workman’s mortar board.
   
2. 2.
   The cap was meant to resemble the quadrangular shape of the English university’s campus.
   
3. 3.
   The shape symbolized the “squareness” of both the scholar and his books. In those days, we presume, squareness was a positive trait.
   

Early academic caps sported tufts where we now have tassels. Tassels appeared in the eighteenth century, and appear to be merely cosmetic additions.

Americans were quick to adopt English university customs in graduation garb all the way back to colonial times. Several Ivy League universities and prestigious small colleges used gowns and mortarboards from the start.

Only around 1885 did the practice extend to most colleges. In 1894, a commission was authorized to choose a standard for graduation uniforms. Its conclusions have determined our uniforms for the last hundred years:

Bachelors—wear black gowns with worsted material and long, pointed sleeves.

Masters—wear black silk or black woolen gowns with long, closed sleeves that have an arc of a circle near the bottom and a slit for the arm opening.

Doctors—wear black silk gowns with full, round, open sleeves that are faced with velvet and have three bars of velvet on each sleeve.

All three graduates wear a mortarboard, but only doctors’ caps may be velvet, and only doctors and presidents of universities may wear gold tassels.

English universities vary clothing and color schemes from school to school. The United States is one of the only countries to have a standardized code.

In 1911, E. R. Moore introduced the Official High School Cap and Gown. It was gray to differentiate it from the university gown, its sleeves were full and round, and the matching gray cap was the typical Oxford mortarboard with a silk tassel.

Although E. R. Moore’s motive might have been commercial, the popularity of caps and gowns for secondary school graduations spread quickly, not only because parents appreciated the pomp and circumstance at a momentous occasion, but for financial reasons. In the early twentieth century, students of affluent families might pay forty or fifty dollars for a graduation outfit when the caps and gowns could be rented for $1.50. The caps and gowns allowed poor students to “compete” with their richer comrades.

Of course, every school soon wanted caps and gowns. Normal schools, and later their descendants, junior colleges, chose blue for the color of their gowns. Some grammar schools even started using caps and gowns—maroon became the most popular color.

Several of the readers who posed this question also asked about the tradition of moving the tassel from left to right to signify graduation. Obviously, the tassel shift symbolizes the graduation itself, but we have been unable to trace its exact origins. We do know that this practice goes in and out of favor. While some schools retain the practice, many, if not most, universities do not, insisting that the tassel remain hanging on the left side
of the mortarboard while the commencement speaker drones on and on and on.

 

Submitted by Andrew Kass of Staten Island, New York. Thanks also to Michael Silverson of Exeter, New Hampshire; Lisa Coates-Shrider of Cincinnati, Ohio; Linda Galvao of Tiverton, Rhode Island; Gina Guerrieri of Shawnee, Oklahoma; and Jamie Hubert of Spring Lake, Michigan
.

 

Why
aren’t skyscrapers ever made out of brick?

We consulted many architects about this question, and they flooded us with reasons why bricks weren’t particularly desirable material for skyscrapers. In no particular order, here are some of the problems involved:

 

1. Bricks are more expensive than the alternatives. Not only are they relatively expensive to manufacture, but laying bricks is extremely labor-intensive, which is one of the reasons we see fewer bricks even in ranch style suburban homes than we used to.

2. In order to support a skyscraper, the walls at the base of the building must be extremely thick, wasting valuable space. David Bahlman, of the Society of Architects, indicated that bricks would need to be two and one-half feet deep at the base to support even a six-floor building.

3. Bricks need a substructure of steel beams to support them. According to architectural consultant Bill Stanley of Buellton, California, skyscrapers with steel frames can be covered (or “clad”) with brick panels, but “brick is a poor material for cladding because of its weight, and the possibility of coming loose and falling.”

4. The size of individual bricks is not large enough aesthetically to fit the scale of a skyscraper.

 

Notwithstanding this brick bashing, we have a confession to make. The premise of this question is incorrect. There are skyscrapers made of brick. Indeed, one of the first skyscrapers in
the world, the Monadnock Building in Chicago, built in 1889, rests mainly on brick. The Monadnock Building is sixteen stories high and is often studied by urban architects.

The design problems inherent in such a tall brick building are elucidated by Lynn S. Beedle, director of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The bricks make the building so heavy that the walls must be made thicker and thicker on the lower floors, so that the walls at the base are almost six feet thick. You couldn’t build a brick building much higher because “there wouldn’t be much space left on the ground floor for elevators.”

Charles N. Farley, director of the Brick Institute of America, wants
Imponderables
readers to know that brick is being used on newer skyscrapers, too. Most laymen don’t realize that the gargantuan Empire State Building contains brick because it is clad with limestone panels. Two recently built New York City skyscrapers, the fifty-three-story World Wide Plaza and the sixty-story Carnegie Hall Tower, both use brick for the exterior skin. Brick remains a feasible exterior for those who can afford it.

 

Submitted by Herbert Kraut of Forest Hills, New York
.

 

Why
are nine-volt batteries rectangular?

Most of the best-selling battery configurations (e.g., AA, AAA, C, D) are 1.5 volts. Nine-volt batteries, formerly known as “transistor batteries,” contain six 1.5-volt batteries. The 1.5 cells within the casing are cylindrical.

If you were to stack six cylinders in the most economical shape, wouldn’t a rectangle be the most natural choice? Just try putting six cylinders into a square or cylindrical casing without wasting space.

Dan Halaburda, marketing manager for Panasonic, told us that the shape of nine-volt batteries goes back to when they were used to power communication devices in which space was at a premium. Today, the most common application for nine-volt batteries is in smoke detectors.

 

Submitted by Matt Garrett of Augusta, Missouri
.

 

Why
do most mailboxes say “Approved by the Postmaster General” on them? How do they differ from mailboxes without the approval?

We thought these were simple and innocent questions. But as grizzled veterans of researching postal Imponderables, we should have known better. For the saga of the U.S. mailbox is a long one; in fact, the household mailbox debuted in 1891, when Postmaster General John Wanamaker launched an experiment. Until then, it was the policy of postal carriers to knock on the door of households and hand-deliver mail. Just the seconds waiting for house occupants to come to the door wasted delivery time, so mailboxes were inevitable.

We may think of a mailbox as a rather simple object, but an earlier commission appointed by the postmaster general in 1890 examined 564 prototypes of mailboxes and found them all want
ing. What the commission was looking for, as the 1891 annual report of the postmaster general stated, was a device

 

in which the letter carrier could deposit mail without delay and from which he could also, as he went his rounds upon the same trips, collect mail without delay. Not one of these devices exactly fitted the requirements; for the box must necessarily be inexpensive, neat, proof against the weather, proof against mischiefmakers or thieves, simple enough not to get out of order and not to require time to open, ornamental enough to please the household, big enough to receive papers, and ingenious enough to indicate the presence of mail matter to the passing collector.

 

The commission later examined another 1,031 designs, and found that “Not one of these was entirely acceptable.”

Originally, only rural delivery mailboxes had to be approved by the postmaster general. Imagine the problems of the rural postal carrier with farflung routes. Megaera Harris, research historian at the office of the postmaster general, explains: