Origin of Term "Ivy League"

[Fred Shapiro]

A few years ago Barry Popik, with his usual outstanding research, traced
the term "Ivy League" back to December 1935 (the OED has 1939).  Now a
new book about Ivy League football pushes it back even further:

[1933 Stanley Woodward in _N.Y. Herald Tribune_ 14 Oct. in Mark F.
Bernstein _Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession_
(2001) xii  A proportion of our eastern ivy colleges are meeting little
fellows another Saturday before plunging into the strife and the turmoil.]

1935 Alan Gould in _Providence Journal_ 8 Feb. in Mark F. Bernstein
_Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession_ (2001) 281
(heading) Brown seen as charter member of Ivy League.


Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Public Services     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  and Lecturer in Legal Research            Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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