Headlines from Harvard history

From the pages of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine

Illustration by Mark Steele

1921

Thirteen female students from the Graduate School of Education apply for tickets to the Yale Game. The Bulletin reports that three ticket clerks “whose temperaments are especially nervous have followed the advice of their physicians by resigning.”

1931

The Corporation decides that Harvard will not participate in a fundraising postseason football game for unemployment relief, to avoid setting a potentially troublesome precedent and further commercializing college football by playing only to raise money. Collections at the Dartmouth, Holy Cross, and Yale games, however, raise more than $20,000 for the same purpose.

1941

Two freshmen enliven hour-exam period with their Crimson classified: “Wanted—Information where one may obtain a human corpse in reasonable condition.” The 42 phone calls in response range from students wishing to be embalmed after hourlies to several funeral directors, the police department, and the morgue. The Yardlings plead simple curiosity as the impetus for the ad.

1961

Among alterations proposed for the Harvard School of Business Administration after a two-year study initiated by its dean is a change of name. The Bulletin reports a “widespread feeling” that the present name “does not imply an institution of professional stature, and that there should be…a Harvard Business School.”

1981

The Harvard-Radcliffe Conservative Club publishes the first issue of The Harvard Salient. Its editors all “commend free enterprise, limited government, a redoubtable national defense, the integrity of community, and the sustaining prescriptions of tradition,” and promise not to practice the incendiary journalism of the year-old Dartmouth Review.

2001

A new plaque installed in Memorial Church honors three Radcliffe alumnae—Lucy Nettie Fletcher ’10, Ruth Holden ’11, and special student Helen Homans —who died in World War I while serving as nurses.

You might also like

Highlights from Harvard’s Past

The Medical School goes coed, University poet wins Nobel Prize. 

Free Speech, the Bomb—and Donald Trump

A Harvard cardiologist on the unlikely alliances that shaped a global movement to prevent nuclear war

Snapshots of Harvard History | Summer 2025

Including profundity and pretzels

Most popular

Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival

Without Christopher Marlowe, there might not have been a Bard.

Harvard President Alan Garber Helps First-Years Move In

As a potential settlement with the Trump administration looms, Garber gets students settled. 

How MAGA Went Mainstream at Harvard

Trump, TikTok, and the pandemic are reshaping Gen Z politics.

Explore More From Current Issue

Brandon Terry, wearing a blue suit, standing before The Embrace, a large bronze sculpture of intertwined arms in Boston Common.

A New Narrative of Civil Rights

Political philosopher Brandon Terry’s vision of racial progress

Two people moving large abstract painting with blue V-shaped design in museum courtyard.

A Harvard Art Museums Painting Gets a Bath

Water and sunlight help restore a modern American classic.

Man, standing in small group of people outside the courthouse, holding a sign that reads "HANDS OFF HARVARD" in red letters

Harvard’s Summer in Court

What Columbia’s settlement means for the University