Social Life at Harvard – Page 11 – The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Foundation

Interior Design, and Redesign, Harvard 1900

Posted on January 10, 2010 by Michael Weishan in Articles, FDR Suite

Shortly after last year’s FDR dinner, I received an email from a certain Mr. Dave Robinson in Maine, inquiring as to whether or not we’d be interested in taking a look at some of the Harvard photos and ephemera he’d inherited from his grandfather, Chester Robinson, ’04, a friend and a classmate of FDR’s. I said certainly. Well, one thing led to another, I got busy, Dave got busy, then we made arrangements to get the materials scanned, then there was further delay, then mysteriously the ISB drive Dave sent me arrived empty: you get the general idea. Almost a year passed, and I still really hadn’t had a chance to see the extent of the collection.

The files arrived last week, and I opened them today.

Are we in for a treat!

Over the next few weeks I’ll be showing you more of the incredible treasure trove of material that the Robinson family has been kind enough to share with us, but let’s just say we’ve taken a major step forward in locating specific items to purchase or replicate. For now, I wanted to share with you these six photos, of Chester (Chet) Robinson’s rooms. They show Robinson and his roommate Goodhue’s bay-windowed corner suite in the old Russel Hall, a Claverly like building that stood where today’s Russell (C-Entry) now stands. What’s fantastic about these photos, (and to my knowledge unique in the Harvard collection) is that they show the same room from three views, with two different decorative schemes. Somewhere during their four years, the pair decided to redecorate, in keeping with the shift in taste that was occurring right around the turn of the century. Ornate Victorian styling was moving out, and what would become Arts and Crafts, and eventually, neo-Colonial, was beginning to take hold. What’s critical about finding these pictures, just as we are about to paper the FDR suite, is what it reveals about the wallpaper: we’ve been wondering whether or not our selection of solid silk papers for the bedrooms, as we had seen in the Vanderbilt Suite, was typical of the time, or merely the product of Vanderbilt’s elevated design aesthetic. No longer:

Here’s the window seat before. Note the rather frilly drapes, and the striped wall paper. Two Morris chairs, similar to those coming to the FDR suite, and again, all those Harvard pillows we see in many of the photos. Heaven knows where we will find or recreate those! And how’s this for bizarre coincidence: the view out the windows reveals Westmorly, and the windows of the FDR suite!

Now look at this: a much more distinguished arrangement, with a solid, silk like material on the walls, almost identical to what we were guessing for the FDR Suite bedrooms. YES! The name placards, by the way, are another typical element of Harvard student rooms of the period, though generally they are located over the individual’s bedroom door.

A view of the hearth before. Note the Meerschaum pipes (present in almost every room photo) and the beer mugs (another ubiquitous student item.)

Here’s the hearth view after: you can tell it’s years later from the medals now hanging from the pictures: these are club and sports member medallions, and Dave’s family still has many of them, as well as the picture of dear old John the Orangeman, just visible on the mantle behind the mugs to right.

The doors to the bedrooms before: the curtains over the doorways appear in many of the room pictures of the period, and seem very odd to modern eyes. Most bookcases had curtains as well, as shown in the picture two above this one – to keep out coal and wood dust from the fires.

The door view after: a much more civilized arrangement than the ad hoc day bed previously. Note the Crimsons hanging from a hook on the wall. In general, it’s surprising how much the decor has matured over the interval. One (or both) of these gentlemen had a very good eye!

All in all, these six pictures provide a wealth of invaluable leads as to what kind of items we’ll need to acquire for the Suite, and as well as confirming both our reproduction of the printed study paper, and use of solid silks elsewhere. They also remind us what we often forget: the past is not static, locked at a single point and place the way we tend to view it from photos. It changed and moved, just like the present. Something to keep in mind when re-creaeting a set of rooms occupied for four years by two men of maturing times and taste…

We are all hugely grateful to Dave Robinson and his family for sharing this amazing time capsule with us, and I look forward to sharing more of it with you, our readers, over the next month.

Lathrop Brown and FDR: The Harvard Years

Posted on December 11, 2009 by Michael Weishan in Articles, FDR Suite

(This is the second installment in a continuing series taken from the unpublished notes of filmmaker Pare Lorentz. For the introduction to these articles, click HERE.)

The Lathrop Brown Interviews: Part II – The Harvard Years

Having a good time was of major importance in those days at Harvard. Customary procedure was to study for ten days with a tutor before an examination and never open a book for the rest of the time. FDR and LB were both loyal to this tradition and quickly found activities to fill their time. FDR went to work on the Harvard Crimson, spending one year trying out, the next as an editor, and the third as editor-in-chief.

Many students carefully arranged their schedules so as to have no Saturday or afternoon classes. FDR was not as trivial about this as some of his classmates. He took the usual courses and achieved no scholastic honors, but he was extremely interested in his newspaper work and in the people he met. L.B. remembers that he was always agitating for something, but does not recall any specific matters.

FDR’s paramount interest was people, hence his liking for reporting. He met a great many more students and professors because of his work on the Crimson than he would have without it. LB cites an instance when he and FDR amused themselves one evening checking off their class list (about 600) to see who knew more of them. FDR won; he knew (had spoken with them, that is) perhaps half of the 600; LB isn’t sure but thinks this incident may have occurred late in their sophomore year.

LB and FDR's first Harvard Yale Game. Certainly they were there, though the stadium wasn't: it was still three years away. These tickets incidentally, have convenient match strikers on the back: so much easier to light your pipe!

LB and FDR’s first Harvard Yale Game. Certainly the two were there, though the stadium wasn’t: it was still three years away. These tickets, incidentally, have convenient match strikers on the back: so much easier to light your pipe! Courtesy: Harvard University Archives

FDR came to Harvard as just another inconspicuous freshman. Once again, he was not outstanding in athletics. He continued rowing for exercise, but did not participate in interscholastic contests. He did not become a campus hero, but was well liked by all who knew him. He liked to go to parties every so often; he liked making noise and having a good time, but he was definitely not interested in dissipation. He would take a drink with his pals and get as much pleasure out of it as another would get out of a dozen drinks. He bubbled over easily.

A gentleman’s dance card of the period. Courtesy: Harvard University Archives.

FDR enjoyed social activity. He dined out frequently with relatives and friends in Boston. Boston families, LB notes, were extremely hospitable toward Harvard students, especially if they had debutante or pre-deb daughters. FDR and LB were invited to the “Friday Evenings” – dances attended by the younger girls who had just put up their hair, lengthened their skirts, etc. The more sophisticated Harvard lads refused to attend, but FDR and LB, dutiful and proper, went regularly and enjoyed themselves…..

Harvard students who lived in Boston frequently invited out-of-town classmates, such as FDR and LB, to spend the weekends with them… FDR and LB roomed together throughout their Harvard years, but their interests were not always the same. FDR was concentrating on the Crimson, LB on football. [Editor’s note: LB managed the freshman team his first year, and the Varsity his last.]

LB notes that FDR was like a racehorse that makes a slow beginning and then comes up from behind. During senior year, it was the custom to elect several students for such prominent roles as First Marshal of the Class, Chairman of Class Day, etc. There were three marshals, and usually the captains of the baseball, football and rowing teams were elected. The chairmanship of Class Day usually went to some busy fellow who liked to run things. All four were invariably campus celebrities – “front runners” – who, after their brief spurt of glory, faded into oblivion.

FDR was elected to none of these posts. [He ran, and lost – his first taste of electoral defeat.] Instead he was chosen as class chairman, his job being to keep in touch with members of the class after graduation.

LB recalls a rip-roaring fight which FDR spark-plugged at the class reunion three years after graduation. It was customary for the class’s executive committee to be composed of graduates who lived in the Boston-New York-Philadelphia area and this committee had a tendency to become self-perpetuating, giving the rest of the class no opportunity to kick out those they didn’t like. LB feels fairly certain FDR was fighting from within; i.e. he was one of the committee anyway, but that he resented the injustice of the set-up. FDR started a big fight about it and managed to get everything changed.

For years, we’ve wondered what the medals are that we so often see hanging from pictures in period Harvard student rooms like the one above. (Check out the picture at the far right) Thanks to LB’s comment about the Institute, and a bit of detective work, now we know….

FDR belonged to the usual number of clubs. He was a member of the Hasty Pudding, also of the Institute of 1770 (named after the year of its inception). The institute may have started with high purpose, as a literary society perhaps, but it wasn’t that in FDR’s and LB’s day.

In answer to the question about social consciousness: LB feels FDR definitely demonstrated this during his years at Harvard. It was plain enough, says L.B., that FDR’s attitude was not that of a reactionary Republican. Many a Harvard student, with similar background and upbringing spent his college years sitting in a club, looking out of the window and criticizing everyone who went by.

[The Porcellian, the most exclusive of Harvard’s final clubs, was famous for this, having installed a mirror that scanned the Mass Ave, obviating the need for members to present themselves at the window. FDR tried, and failed to be admitted. FDR had no inclination for this kind of activity. Instead of sitting around with his pals, he was out working for the Crimson, getting to know as many people as he could, talking with students and professors. He was constantly reaching out and broadening his interests.

LB recalls FDR sang first bass in the Freshman Glee Club [LB sang second]. LB also recalls his and FDR’s initiation into ‘the Dickie,’ [The DKE, the next step after the Institute of 1770, and required of social climbers interested in joining a final club] which he described as a rough, beer-drinking organization. The freshman (chosen in “10’s”, to a maximum of 70 or 80) went through a week’s hazing, which called for their looking, and acting, like tramps. Unshaven, dirty, they had to do everybody’s errands. Everything had to be done on the run. No walking permitted. This week was a real test – no holds barred – and ended up with a wonderful party that called for a considerable amount of physical endurance. FDR had a fine time.

LB does not think FDR was particularly influenced by any of his professors at Harvard. As for his eligibility, LB says they never gave it a thought. Some of the Boston mothers may have, but not the lads and lassies themselves.

110 Years Later: Harvard Changed? Yes, and No…

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Michael Weishan in Articles, FDR Suite

This week, one of our student researchers, Nina Ranalli of Eliot House, has the guest columnist slot. Having myself spent a large part of the last two years sifting through a Victorian twilight of stuffed daybeds, dances at the Somerset, shooting parties in Sudbury, and Brahmin prides and prejudice, I note that I’ve become somewhat accustomed to the gas-lit feel of the age. Nina however, has the fresh perspective of the class of 2010, and I think you’ll find, as I did, that her impressions are quite revealing – both of our times, and FDR’s. MDW

As a student researcher, I’ve been having great fun perusing student diaries from the month of March, 1900, collected in the Chest of 1900 project. I’m reading them to find the interesting, amusing, and enlightening aspects of student life in 1900. Here are a few of the tidbits I’ve found that show how much the undergraduate experience has changed since then.

The funniest bit so far is from Richard Derby’s (’03) diary. He describes a bit of a food fight at dinner:

The idea of playfully launching bits of food at our friends wouldn’t be unimaginable to students today– it’s the presence of a tablecloth that seems almost inconceivable!

And continuing on the subject of undergraduate life, I find the last sentence from Harrie Chamberlin’s (’01) dairy entry on March 2th, 1900 more than a little startling:

Fire? Build? Heat?

I have a fireplace in my room, too, but I take for granted that it’s inoperable, long-since sealed over due to safety or energy concerns. In fact, I imagine most undergrads wouldn’t tolerate the hassle involved with maintaining a fire for warmth! We get up in arms enough about the heating systems in the houses laying dormant when we’re a bit chilly. In this case, it’s the stark difference between daily life in 1900 and in 2009 that shocks us.

Not just structural, but social changes have of course occurred as well. Mr. Lane, the College Librarian who requested all the diaries, kept a journal himself when a group of Cubans visited Cambridge in the summer of 1900. The anti-Catholic attitude of some people at Harvard becomes apparent from his notes. He says:

“Mrs. Gulick is very much annoyed over the fact (as she states it) that the Catholics are taking to themselves the whole credit of the Cuban summer school and have told people that the President is a Roman Catholic and have spread the impression that the College is practically a Catholic institution… Certain Catholic societies to keep open and provide for a waiting room in Harvard for men and in Phillips Brooks House for women and they have called these places salas catolicas. It has been a mistake, it seems to me, to allow this name to be used, but it can hardly be changed now.”

The obvious tension between Catholics and non-Catholics would seem out of place on today’s campus– student groups and organizations disagree all the time, but generally avoid the adversarial attitude implicit in this quote.

Despite the clear changes in undergraduate life, in another entry Harrie Chamberlin manages to convince me that students in 1900 weren’t so different from us after all. Take a look at a paragraph from his March 9th entry.

He says, “I find difficultly in deciding whether I am exceedingly busy or only moderately busy and lazy.”

In this case, the similarity between 1900 and 2009 is shocking. I can imagine this very sentence coming from practically any of my friends or roommates. I might even venture to say that packed schedules, deluges of homework, and excessive procrastination are defining characteristics of the undergraduate experience. Furthermore, we love to talk about this busy/lazy dilemma amongst ourselves– how much homework one has and how little homework one has done are probably the most popular conversations on campus. As much as our day-to-day experiences of College life have changed since 1900, then, perhaps our attitudes haven’t!

Additional Views of the Union

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Michael Weishan in Articles, FDR Suite

Many of you asked to see a bit more of the Union as FDR knew it, so here are some additional shots I was able to dig up in the Harvard Archives.

First, the basement plan I showed you before, though this time with the complete rotunda area. FDR would have been quite familiar with this space, as not only were his Crimson offices next door, but the rotunda housed the ticket office for the Athletics office, the starting point for those all important football games.

Below, the first floor plan. Several interesting things here. Notice first of all, the separate entrance for ladies. (This by the way, has presented me with a bit of an historical puzzle, because if you go look at the old Union, it appears as if the door was on the other side. Of course I could be looking at it wrong. The facade has been altered several times.)

Where many of us will remember the kitchens and serving area, originally there was a restaurant dining room open to guests and alums, as well as an “athlete’s training table” where specially tailored meals were served for those in the rigor of sport pursuits. (What precisely they ate, given the nutritional mores of the time, I can but imagine: steak and eggs with cod liver oil?) Below, the dining room. The brochure advertising the Union (from which these pictures come) promises “excellent restaurant style fare and service” something “not always easily found in Cambridge.”

Next, a view of the “living room” (McKim’s own term, and an interesting early usage) looking east. The dining room above is on the other side of the wall behind the fireplace at far end. In my day, a large door had been cut through linking the two rooms. Notice the TR chandeliers, as well as the elaborately molded ceiling. I’m trying to remember back, and I seem to recall that the medallions featured a design of interlocked “H’s” and “U’s” This ceiling was completely destroyed when the room was carved up in the late 1990’s – a tremendous architectural loss.

The second floor featured several interesting features: a ladies dining room, another billiard room, and the library and smoking room.

Here’s the library, brand new and only half filled with books, just as FDR would have known it. (He served on the library committee and bought books for the collection.) Notice the statues of Victorian worthies, just visible on the top of each shelf. Later views show that this room had become almost a reliquary of white marble sculpture. It was from here, incidentally, just a few years later, that T.S. Eliot borrowed a volume, Arthur Symons’s, The Symbolist Movement in Literature, which shaped his entire literary career.

The top floor featured guest rooms for visitors (sans private bath, as was the custom of the day) plus the relatively modest homes of the Harvard Monthly and Harvard Advocate.

The Chest of 1900

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Michael Weishan in Articles, FDR Suite

February 22, 1900

At the last meeting of the University Council it was suggested that an attempt be made to bring together for the benefit of our successors at the close of the twentieth century, as complete a record as possible of the present daily life of the University….

Let each one during the month of March 1900 keep a careful journal of his daily doings, recording faithfully, and in as much details as he can, all that goes on from day to day, including his college work, his professional interests, his family relations, his amusements, in fact, all the elements of his life… Let him imagine that he is writing without reserve to some friend at a distance…in detail as vividly as possible, a picture of what is taking place…

It is proposed to add to the written narratives a comprehensive collection of photographs of places, buildings and rooms, and everyone is asked to contribute what photographs he can, particularly pictures of his home, both interior and exterior views…

These will deposited in a zinc-lined chest or chest, soldered up securely, locked by two different keys… to remain absolutely closed until 1925… with no general use of the records…earlier than 1960.

William Lane, College Librarian.

And so began the letter that saved the FDR Suite Restoration Project; for without this turn-of-the-last-century effort to compile a time capsule by the University, today we would have almost no knowledge of student rooms or student life of 1900. Fortunately for us, Lane’s call to arms, dubbed the Chest of 1900, was generally well received by staff and students: In response to this plea, Julian Burroughs, ’01, an avid member of the Camera Club, set off to photograph interior and exterior scenes of Harvard. These shots have provided most of the information on period furnishings and decor you’ve seen on the fdrsuite.org site, and form the base guide for our Restoration in absence of actual period photos of the FDR suite. In addition to this trove of pictures, the Chest also contains many volumes of journals, letters, diaries and other ephemera, which Nina Ranalli, one of our student researchers, is now sifting through to give us a more thorough picture of undergraduate life during FDR’s time at Harvard.

In looking through this invaluable collection, and realizing how completely we rely in it for information, two things immediately come to mind. The first is a prayer of thanks that responses like this one – also found in the chest – weren’t general:

Very truly? Hardly.

I’m afraid Mr. J Winthrop Platner, despite his grand signature (which is really swell!) loses that round to history.

Of course hindsight is 20-20.

But what of futuresight?

What’s truly scary is the realization that future generation of scholars won’t have the benefit of William Lane’s forethought. The University’s record of student rooms, for instance, is paltry for the period before 1900; occasional at best for the teens and 20s; a bit more flush from the 30s with the construction of the Houses; then it tapers off dramatically. The 70s and 80s are almost entirely blank.

The University too, is alarmed, and is actively trying to fill in the gaps (see below) though with what success I don’t know. With the FDR Suite, we’ve relied on the Victorians’ collecting mania, especially their fondness for scrapbooks. Without the various Harvard student scrapbooks stuffed full of theater programs, notices for athletic events, photos, ticket stubs, etc., we would very much out of luck.

What then is the permanent ephemera (if I may be pardoned that oxymoron) of today’s email age?

I don’t know about you, but I’ve decided it’s high time to go through my files and dig out those old photos, letters and other bits and pieces from my student days, and send them off to the Archives. No one will see them for a while (the records remain sealed for your lifetime) but that’s just fine by me. If some future historian owes me the tiniest fraction of what I owe William Lane and his Chest of 1900, I will feel well recompensed indeed.

The FDR Suite Restoration at Adams is a self-supporting project, and advanced only through your contributions to the FDR Suite Foundation. Please consider giving generously to support our efforts.

A Project in Search of a Piano – And a Donor – Plus, A Discovery!

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Michael Weishan in FDR Suite

“The study furniture was two desks and chairs, a large day bed, a piano and two casual chairs. FDR sang 1st bass on the Freshman Glee Club (I, 2nd bass) which is part of the justification for the piano” Lathrop Brown to Master Brower, 1958

“Our piano is coming tomorrow, $40 for the year which is $10 off the regular price. It is a very nice one and of good tone.” FDR to Sara, November 1900.

As we begin to gear up furnishing the Suite, we’ve started the search for an upright piano. While we don’t know precisely what FDR’s piano looked like, we can make a good guess. The picture above comes from just down the hall, in what’s been called the Vanderbilt Suite, B-22. These rooms, which are unique in Westmorly, were customized for William K. Vanderbilt Jr’s second (and last year) at Harvard by the building’s architect – and Vanderbilt cousin – Whitney Warren, as this 1898 article from the New York Times attests:

The chronology of our photo is a bit uncertain; given the richness of the decor, we’ve always presumed it was taken the year “Willie K,” as he was known at Harvard, was in residence. But the music on the piano, identified by our friends at parlorsongs.com, turns out to be the The Absent Minded Beggar, published 1899, leaving scant time for this picture to have been taken while Willie was in residence. The Vanderbilt heir had left Harvard to be married by March of 1899, and as most of the other Burroughs pictures were taken in May of 1900, it begins to seem likely that this view reflects the furnishings of the next, if perhaps less famous, certainly equally opulent occupant.

No matter. This Times article, which I just tracked down today, at last confirms the color of the wall covering! This is a great discovery, as a similar treatment is a potential candidate for one of the FDR Suite bedrooms, and we can now establish with certainty the color scheme…

But, I digress – as is so common in historical ramblings like these – from the main topic at hand, the piano…

The piano in the Vanderbilt Suite was an Ivers and Pond, and judging from the many ads found in the Crimson for piano rentals in this pre-Victrola age, Ivers and Pond, a Boston manufacturer, was the leading supplier to Harvard students of means.

Thus, we’re now in active search of an Ivers and Pond upright piano dating from between 1895 and 1900, and we need your help! This kind of instrument normally runs in the $2000-4000 range restored, and periodically surfaces at various NE retailers and on Ebay; an instrument like this would make a fantastic individual or institutional contribution to the FDR Suite, which we would gladly commemorate with a small plaque. And of course, the gift is fully tax deductible.

Won’t one of you consider returning the gift of music to these historic halls?

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