Blog archives for September, 2009

Editor’s Note: This week’s post is by our guest contributor, Lary Shaffer. I discovered Lary via the Internet earlier this year, and immediately came to respect his almost encyclopedic knowledge of Morris chair design. He’s quite a character as well; a former filmmaker and college professor – a “recovering academic” as he puts it – [...]

As mid-term examinations slowly creep up on current undergraduates thanks to the new, advanced Harvard academic calendar, we thought it might be appropriate to show you a bit of the testing rigors FDR endured. Our new research assistant Nina Ranalli (a senior at Eliot House) and I were poking around the Archives last week, and [...]

“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 [...]

It all started so simply. Last fall while photographing the FDR Suite, I noticed some curious bits of something dangling behind the large radiator in the main study. What could they be? Those infamous Harvard dust motes again? Ah no! Historical clues, perhaps? The mind raced…. in vain. Most turned out to be prosaic modern [...]

Here’s a scene that FDR knew intimately. It was taken in May 1900, during the period Franklin was in Cambridge finalizing his room arrangements at Westmorly Hall for the upcoming year. Though the perspective would change considerably during his time at Harvard, owing to the ambitious enclosure program instituted by President Eliot, this view would [...]

I’ve been doing a bit of research on the Porcellian Club, in advance of the architectural walking tour I’m leading this November for the Harvard Alumni Association entitled Presidential Pathways: Tracing TR and FDR at Harvard (More on that later.) My interest springs, of course, from the fact that TR was a Porcellian member, counting [...]