The story of a seal
Judith Goodstein

When the class of ’51 returns to campus this week for their half-century reunion, it won’t just be buildings that have upped and gone away; so has the Caltech seal they knew. And therein hangs a tale.

In 1923, soon after physicist Robert Millikan became head of Caltech, the school commissioned Belgian artist Godfroid Devreese to create a work of art “which will for a thousand years to come, we hope, be the symbol by which the California Institute will be most widely known.” Devreese completed the design in 1925 (figure 1). In his charge to the artist, Millikan stipulated that the seal show an older man passing the torch to a younger one, both of them in the clouds. He wanted the figures to symbolize the spirit of research being passed from one generation to the next, from maturity to youth.

The motto “The truth shall make you free,” also chosen by Millikan, comes from the New Testament and appears above the two figures. Taken in the context of the emblem, the passing on of knowledge, Millikan seemed to be endorsing scientific truth. Still, the motto is ambiguous as it appears on the seal, and perhaps he wanted it that way—a message that would strike a responsive chord both with the faculty and with Caltech’s financial supporters, who tended to be more religious.
The line alongside the seal in small type, “Founded by A. H. Fleming,” goes back to a 1920 Board of Trustees resolution. Arthur Fleming had agreed to leave the bulk of his fortune to Caltech and, in consideration of his gesture, the board supported having his name appear on the seal.
Millikan apparently liked the emblem, referring to it as Caltech’s official seal. The executive council (Millikan’s cabinet) authorized its use on diplomas, where it appears to this day. For the next 40 years, the Devreese design was considered the official seal.

In the 1960s there were calls to update the seal, and in 1969, with Harold Brown’s inauguration as president and the pending admission of female undergraduates, Caltech’s administration eyed two “new and improved” renderings. Apparently they couldn’t decide which one to use; both versions (figures 2 and 3) appeared on Brown’s inauguration publications.

Brown thought the Devreese seal didn’t help Caltech’s public image or its fund-raising efforts. He suggested that school officials get the opinion of trustee Henry Dreyfuss, a well-known industrial designer. In reply, Dreyfuss provided a sketch (figure 4), just after Caltech started admitting undergraduate women, and wrote, “Instead of boys chasing one another, we have a boy chasing a girl, or vice versa.”

Meanwhile, the trustees officially adopted another seal, a torch held by one hand, with little discussion. The students, however, took exception, and suddenly everyone on campus had an opinion about it. Should there be one hand or two holding the torch? To make matters worse, when in 1970 the board started delving into history, it discovered that the Devreese seal had never been officially approved by either the board or Millikan’s executive council. It had merely served as the de facto official seal for those many decades.

In 1984, the issue of the seal came to a head. The board rescinded its 1969 action adopting an official seal. The Devreese design was adopted as the official seal retroactively to 1925, but was taken out of use except on diplomas. And the logo in figure 5 was approved for publications, events, and all the mugs, T-shirts, and other souvenirs now sold in the bookstore. Millikan may yet have the final word.

Judith Goodstein is Caltech’s archivist and registrar, and a faculty associate in history.
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