March-April 2007 > John Harvard's Journal

Yesterday's News

Yesterday's News

From the pages of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine

1922 Heywood Broun ’10, in a column reprinted in the Bulletin, rues the fact that Harvard is no longer the literary center it once was. “When a Princeton man speaks of Scott Fitzgerald,” Broun writes, “his Harvard companions must remain silent or adopt the somewhat irrelevant remedy of saying, ‘Well, who won the last freshman eight-oared race?’”

1937 President James Conant and 18 Law School faculty members publicly oppose President Roosevelt’s plan to pack the Supreme Court.

1942 To prepare students for military service, Harvard begins a compulsory physical training program for all undergraduates, involving four hours a week of supervised calisthenics, double-time marching, and “vigorous exercise.”

1947 Harvard students boycott a local tavern that has refused to serve several black undergraduates, and a University-wide Committee on Discrimination has been set up.

1952 The editors bemoan the fading popularity of formal dress, as evidenced by the ascendancy of the ready-made suit over the tailored. Sartorial fads include string ties, six-foot mufflers, elbow patches, and white shoes.

1962 The Harvard Corporation plans to appoint a civil-defense officer whose responsibilities will include determining the University’s need for fall-out shelters.

1972 In the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, a thousand graduate students strike over proposed scholarship cutbacks coupled with a partial tuition increase. During their “work stoppage,” eight of 10 students honor the picket lines.

1992 The editors laud President Neil Rudenstine’s plan to bring together administrative leaders from the University’s separate institutions to “map each school’s course for the next five to 10 years” and to combat Harvard’s highly decentralized nature.