Notable Alumni

The Signet has been nourished by great teachers, scholars, philosophers, and artists who have held a central place in American cultural life. Two have been presidents of the United States.

In our efforts to share here at least as much information about our Society’s history as is shared on Wikipedia, we include a list of some Signet alumni who have gone on to make their names in the arts and letters—and in science, politics, and more.

Arts and letters:

James Agee, novelist, screenwriter, poet, author
Conrad Aiken, author
John Ashbery, poet, writer
Matthew Aucoin, composer and conductor
John Berendt, writer
Andy Borowitz, writer, comedian, actor
Leonard Bernstein, composer and conductor
Earl Derr Biggers, novelist and playwright
Van Wyck Brooks, literary critic
T. S. Eliot, poet, author
Robert Frost, poet
Matt Haimovitz, cellist
Donald Hall, poet
Mason Hammond, Classics scholar
Lincoln Kirstein, writer, impresario, co-founder of NYC Ballet
Kenneth Koch, poet and playwright
Abbott Lawrence Lowell, Harvard President, historian
Robert Lowell, poet
Arthur Kopit, playwright
Yo-Yo Ma, cellist
Norman Mailer, writer
Sarah Manguso, poet
Samuel Eliot Morison, author, educator, maritime historian, retired Rear Admiral
Charles Eliot Norton, scholar
George Plimpton, writer, journalist
Scott Rothkopf, director of the Whitney Museum
George Santayana, philosopher, poet, novelist
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., historian
Wallace Stevens, poet
John Updike, writer
John Hall Wheelock, poet

Journalism:

Jill Abramson, journalist
Charlotte Alter, journalist
Frank Rich, critic, writer
Walter Isaacson, writer, biographer
Hendrik Hertzberg, senior editor, The New Yorker
Joseph Lelyveld, journalist, author
Reihan Salam, journalist
Alessandra Stanley, critic, writer
Richard Tofel, journalist, author

Media and entertainment:

Megan Amram, comedy writer and producer
Frederick Grandy, actor and member of the U.S. House of Representatives
Tommy Lee Jones, actor
Rashida Jones, actress
Colin Jost, comedian
John Lithgow, actor
Donal Logue, actor
Conan O'Brien, comedian
Natalie Portman, actress
James "Toofer" Spurlock, fictional character on television show 30 Rock
Yara Shahidi, actress
Robert Sherwood, playwright and screenwriter
Whit Stillman, writer-director
Baratunde Thurston, writer, comedian and commentator
Tom Werner, producer, Red Sox co-owner
Alan "Scooter" Zackheim, reality show winner Beauty and the Geek

Sciences:

James B. Conant, scholar, chemist
Charles W. Eliot, Harvard President, chemist, mathematician
William James, psychologist and philosopher
Thomas Kuhn, philosopher
Andrew Weil, author, physician, established field of integrative medicine

Diplomacy, national security, judiciary, politics:

Charles Joseph Bonaparte, grandson of Jérôme Bonaparte (youngest brother of Emperor Napoleon I), United States Cabinet Member, and Signet Society's first president.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
President Theodore Roosevelt
Caspar Weinberger, former Secretary of Defense
Daniel Ellsberg, political activist, economist
Benazir Bhutto, late Prime Minister of Pakistan
Chuck Schumer, U.S. Senator from New York
Richard Blumenthal, U.S. Senator from Connecticut
Jay Rockefeller, former U.S. Senator from West Virginia
William Weld, former Massachusetts Governor
Mark Penn, pollster, author
Juliette Kayyem, diplomatic affairs expert
Caroline Kennedy, diplomat
Learned Hand, federal judge