Blog archives for August, 2009

“To whom the conception of a Harvard Union is due is beyond my knowledge; but we owe the fostering of the idea to many men, and we owe the grounds to the Corporation. As you see, it is the result of Harvard team-work, of mutual reliance, the future abiding place of comradeship; and therefore let [...]

Many of you may not be aware (as I was not, despite 3 years residence) that Adams House possesses a tremendous artistic treasure built into its walls, one that gives us a fascinating glimpse of what FDR’s Harvard must have looked like. I’m referring to the incredible series of murals in the Coolidge Room, the [...]

For those of you interested in learning more about what music was like in the early years of the past century, this fascinating excerpt from the 1910 Encyclopedia of American Music details the state of affairs quite thoroughly. To make the article more enjoyable, I’ve edited the text, added the illustrations, as well as provided [...]

This is just a short post to introduce our email subscribers to the new FDR Suite Restoration Project blog. Rather than sending out email notices every so often, we thought this illustrated format might make much more interesting reading. So please, take a look around, peruse a bit, and if you like what you see, [...]

In our continuing search to furnish the Suite, we’re looking for period books, among them the bestsellers of 1903. If you have copies of these books in good condition that carry publication dates before 1904, we would be delighted to accept your donation. Occasionally, these items appear on ebay as well, and are undoubtedly lurking [...]

While 110 years isn’t that long ago in relative terms, in many ways FDR’s Harvard existed in an entirely different world than the one most of us knew. As an amusing example, here’s a clipping I found preserved in one of the student scrapbooks now in the Harvard University Archives:
Cambridge Damsel Causes Riot at Harvard [...]

Due to some persistent sleuthing on the part of Carl Jay, Chief Preservationist for Shawmut construction, the original plans for FDR suite were discovered this past May at the offices of Harvard Real Estate. The drawings, shown below, had been misplaced for years due to a cataloging error, but turned up just in time: Adams, [...]

Thanks to the folks at parlorsongs.com, we’ve received 20 presentation copies of sheet music from 1900-1903, selected especially for the Suite, and through the good offices of our former, and much lamented music tutor, David Trippett, we were able to record some of these pieces last May. Check out our website page, The Songs FDR [...]

Hello Everyone! For months now, I’ve been promising that we would provide regular updates on our progress renovating FDR’s student digs at Harvard, as well as announcements of news, events, donations and recent scholarship. Ultimately I decided that the best way to do this was to start a blog, rather than sending out some type [...]