Petitions document actions taken by your organization, as well as the organization’s relationship with campus administration. By transferring a petition to the University Archives, you are preserving your call to action.

Transfer to Archives: Annually

In 1895, President John C. Kilgo and Trinity College’s Board of Trustees initiated what would ultimately become a 25-year ban on football. Alumni and students strongly protested this ban several times, culminating in this 1918 petition to the Board of Trustees signed by 281 students. The following year, football returned to campus as an intramural sport, and intercollegiate play resumed the year after.

Why is this historically important?

• The number of signatures on the petition can tell something about the importance of the issue to Duke students.
• Sport historians might examine the students’ call for an end to the football ban in the context of the rising importance of intercollegiate athletics to colleges and universities, as well as the impact of World War I on the desire for physical fitness.

First two pages of football petition, February 14, 1918. From the Board of Trustees Records, 1860-2004. Duke University Archives.