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A menu from a dinner at the Porcellian Club 1884 (original in the Buttolph collection of menus, NYPL.)
A menu from a dinner at the Porcellian Club 1884 (original in the Buttolph collection of menus, NYPL. The New York Public Library ( NYPL) is one of the leading public libraries of the world and is one of America's most significant Research libraries. )

The Porcellian Club is a male-only final club at Harvard University, sometimes called the Porc or the P. A final club (often mispronouned "finals club" is an Undergraduate social club at Harvard College. C. The year of founding is usually given as 1791, when a group began meeting under the name "the Argonauts,"[1] or as 1794, the year of the roast pig dinner at which the club, known first as "the Pig Club"[2] was formally founded. The club's motto, Dum vivimus vivamus (while we live, let's live) is literally Epicurean. The club emblem is the pig, and some members sport golden pigs on watch-chains or neckties bearing pig's-head emblems. [3][4]

The Porcellian is the iconic "hotsy-totsy final club,"[5] often bracketed with Yale's Skull and Bones and Princeton's Ivy Club. Skull and Bones is an elite Secret society based at Yale University, in New Haven Connecticut. Princeton University is a private Coeducational research university located in Princeton, New Jersey. The Ivy Club, was founded in 1879 with Arthur Hawley Scribner as its first head E. Digby Baltzell ranks the social ladder of the final clubs at Harvard as "Porcellian and A. E Digby Baltzell (Edward Digby Baltzell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1915 to a wealthy Episcopalian family D. , the most exclusive,. . . followed by Fly, Spee, Delphic, and Owl. "[6] A history of Harvard calls the Porcellian "the most final of them all,"[7]. Also, an urban legends website mentions a belief that "if members of the Porcellian do not earn their first million before they turn 40, the club will give it to them. An urban legend or urban myth is a form of modern Folklore consisting of stories thought to be factual by those circulating them "[8]

Contents

Founding

According to a Harvard Crimson article of February 23, 1887:

This society was established in 1791. It occupies rooms on Harvard street, and owns a library of some 7000 volumes. Its members are taken from the senior, junior and sophomore classes about eight from each class. The origin of its name is popularly supposed to be as follows: In the year 1791, a student brought a pig into his room in Hollis. In those days the window-seats were merely long boxes with lids, used to store articles in. Said student having an antipathy to the proctor who roomed beneath, was accustomed to squeeze piggy's ears and make him squeal whenever said proctor was engaged in the study of the classics. The result would be a rush by the proctor for the student's rooms, where the student was to be found studying (?), peacefully seated on his window-seat. Piggy, in the mean time had been deposited beneath, and no sound disturbed the tranquillity of the scene. On the departure of the hated proctor, a broad grin would spread over the countenance of the joker, and in a little while the scene would be repeated with variations. But when it was rumored that his room was to be searched by the faculty, the joker determined to cheat them of their prey. So he invited some of his classmates to the room, and the pig being cooked, all present partook of a goodly feast. They enjoyed their midnight meal so much that they determined then and there to form a club and have such enterainments periodically. In order to render historical the origin of the club, and also to give it a classic touch, they decided to call it the Porcellian from Latin "porcus. " In 1831, the society bearing the name of the "Order of the Knights of the Square Table" was joined to the Porcellian, as "the objects and interests of the two societies were identical. "

Clubhouse

Porcellian Club
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location: 1320-24 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Added to NRHP: June 30, 1983
NRHP Reference#: 83000824
MPS: Cambridge MRA

Known to members as the "Old Barn",[9] the Porcellian clubhouse is located at 1324 Massachusetts Avenue above the store of clothier J. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP is the United States government's official list of districts sites buildings structures and objects deemed worthy of Cambridge Massachusetts is a City in the Greater Boston area of Massachusetts, United States. The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP is the United States government's official list of districts sites buildings structures and objects deemed worthy of Events 350 - Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, is defeated and killed by troops of the Usurper Year 1983 ( MCMLXXXIII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar) The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP is the United States government's official list of districts sites buildings structures and objects deemed worthy of Massachusetts Avenue, known to locals as Mass Ave, is a major thoroughfare in Boston Massachusetts and several cities and towns northwest of Boston August. Its entrance faces the Harvard freshman dormitories and the entrance to Harvard Yard called the Porcellian, or McKean, Gate. Harvard Yard is a grassy area of about twenty-five acres (01 km² adjacent to Harvard Square in Cambridge Massachusetts, which constitutes the oldest part The gate was donated by the club in 1901 and features a limestone carving of a boar's head. [10] Access to the clubhouse is strictly limited to members, but non-member males and females are allowed in the first floor room known as the Bicycle Room.

Despite the exclusivity and mystique, some, like National Review columnist/editor, Ronald Reagan speechwriter, and Dartmouth emeritus professor of English Jeffrey Hart, have noted the club's modest physical and metaphorical character. National Review ( NR) is a biweekly Magazine and Web site, founded by the late author William F Dartmouth College ( is a private, Coeducational University located in Hanover, New Hampshire, U Jeffrey Hart (b April 22, 1930 in Brooklyn New York) is a cultural critic professor emeritus of English at Dartmouth College, essayist Hart wrote:

. . . To illustrate, may I invoke Harvard's famous Porcellian, an undergraduate club of extraordinary exclusiveness? . . . [I]t is devilishly hard to join. But there is nothing there, hardly a club at all. The quarters consist entirely of a large room over a row of stores in Harvard Square. There is a bar, a billiards table, and a mirror arranged so that members can sit and view Massachusetts Avenue outside without themselves being seen. And that's it. Virtually the sole activity of Porcellian is screening applicants. Porcellian is the pinnacle of the Boston idea. Less is more. Zero is a triumph. [11]

Much of the secrecy surrounding the exclusive Porcellian clubhouse evaporated when the Harvard Crimson, the university newspaper, published pictures of the interior. The Harvard Crimson, the daily Student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873 [12]

The Steward (Lewis of the Porcellian), 1919.
The Steward (Lewis of the Porcellian), 1919.

A portrait of George Washington Lewis, entitled "The Steward (Lewis of the Porcellian)" by Joseph DeCamp hangs in the clubhouse. Joseph Rodefer DeCamp ( November 5, 1858 - February 11, 1923) was an American painter. An obituary in TIME Magazine on April, 1, 1929 notes:

George Washington Lewis, of Cambridge, Mass. , for over 45 years the esteemed Negro steward of the Porcellian Club at Harvard College; in Cambridge, Mass. Ancient and most esoteric of Harvard clubs is Porcellian, founded in 1791. * An oil portrait of Steward Lewis hangs in the clubhouse. Steward Lewis had ten Porcellian pallbearers.

Historical significance

Theodore Roosevelt and other members of the Roosevelt family belonged to the club, but Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was president of the Harvard Crimson, never managed to be elected a member. He later told a friend that this had been "the greatest disappointment in his life". [13] Harvard graduate Joseph P. Kennedy was also blackballed from the Porcellian Club; a biographer writes that "For years later, Joe Kennedy remembered the day he didn't make the Porcellian Club, the most desired in his mind, realizing that none of the Catholics he knew at Harvard had been selected. Joseph Patrick "Joe" Kennedy Sr (September 6 1888 &ndash November 18 1969 was a prominent American businessman and political figure and the father of U "[14]

An 1870 travel book said:

A notice of Harvard would be as incomplete without a reference to the Porcellian Club as a notice of Oxford or Cambridge would be in which the [Oxford] Union Debating Society held no place. Status and membership The Oxford Union is an Unincorporated association, holding its property in trust in favour of its objectives and members and governed This and the Hasty Pudding Club, an organization for performing amateur theatricals, are the two lions of Harvard. The Hasty Pudding Club was founded by Nymphus Hatch a junior at Harvard College, in 1790. The Porcellian Club is hardly a place of resort for those who cultivate the intellect at the expense of the body. The list of active members is small, owing in part to the largeness of the annual subscription. The great desire of every student is to become a member of it. . . the doings of the club are shrouded in secrecy. . . All that can be said by a stranger who has been privileged to step behind the scenes is that the mysteries are rites which can be practised without much labour, and yield a pleasure which is fraught with no unpleasant consequences. [15]

A telling indication of the position of the Porcellian in the Boston WASP establishment is given by an historian of Boston's Trinity Church, H. H. Richardson's architectural masterpiece. White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, commonly abbreviated to the Acronym WASP, is a sociological and cultural Ethnonym For other churches with this name please see Trinity Church (disambiguation Trinity Church in the City of Boston, located in the Back Henry Hobson Richardson ( September 29, 1838 &ndash April 27, 1886) was a prominent American Architect of the 19th In speculating as to why Richardson was chosen, he writes:

the thirty-four-year-old possessed one great advantage over the other candidates: as a popular Harvard undergraduate he had been a member of several clubs, including the prestigious Porcellian; thus he needed no introduction to the rector, Phillips Brooks, or five of the eleven-man building committee—they were all fellow Porcellian members. Phillips Brooks ( December 13, 1835 – January 23, 1893) was a noted United States clergyman and author who briefly served as "[16]

Membership criteria

A biography of Norman Mailer says that when he was at Harvard "it would have been unthinkable. Norman Kingsley Mailer ( January 31, 1923 &ndash November 10, 2007) was an American Novelist, Journalist, . . for a Jew to be invited to join one of the so-called final clubs like Porcellian, A.D. Club, Fly, or Spee. The Porcellian Club is a male-only Final club at Harvard University, sometimes called the Porc or the P The AD Club is a Final club established at Harvard in 1836 the continuation of a chapter of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity existing as an honorary chapter True flies are Insects of the Order Diptera ( Greek: di = two and pteron = wing possessing a single pair of "[17] A history of Harvard notes the decline in Boston Brahmin influence at Harvard during the last quarter of the 1900s, and says "a third of [the presidents of the Final Clubs] were Jewish by 1986 and one was black. Boston Brahmins, also called the First Families of Boston and cold roast Boston, are the class of New Englanders who claim hereditary and cultural descent The Porcellian. . . took an occasional Jew, and in 1983 (to the horror of some elders) admitted a black—who had gone to St. Paul's. This is about St Paul's School in the United States For other schools with the same name see the disambiguation page. "[7]

More recent information on the membership of the Porcellian Club may be found in a 1994 Harvard Crimson article by Joseph Mathews. He writes, "Prep school background, region and legacy status do not appear to be the sole determinants of membership they may once have been, but . . . they remain factors. "[18]

Joseph McKean Gate

In 1901 a gate to Harvard Yard, directly opposite the clubhouse, was erected. According to a notice published in the Harvard Crimson, on March 20, 1909:

A gate is to be erected at the entrance to the Yard between Wadsworth House and Boylston Hall. It is to be erected by members of the Porcellian Club in memory of Joseph McKean 1794, S. T. D. , LL. D. and Boylston Professor of Rhetoric, Oratory and Elocution, and also the founder of the Porcellian Club.

The gate features prominently the symbol of the club, the pig's head, and is a famous Harvard landmark.

Members

According to a 1940 Time magazine article[23]:

The Pork had as members James Russell Lowell, the two famed Oliver Wendell Holmeses (the author of Autocrat of the Breakfast Table and the Supreme Court Justice), Owen Wister, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, President Theodore Roosevelt (the Franklin Roosevelts go Fly Club). Year 1986 ( MCMLXXXVI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar) See Hamilton Fish (disambiguation for others with the same name See Hamilton Fish (disambiguation for others with the same name Hamilton Fish Jr Endicott "Chub" Peabody ( February 15 1920 &ndash December 1 1997) was Governor of Massachusetts from January 3 Groton School is a private Episcopal, college preparatory Boarding school located in Groton Massachusetts, U James Roosevelt (December 23 1907 – August 13 1991 was the oldest son of President Franklin D Among its living members are Massachusetts' Governor Leverett Saltonstall, Congressman Hamilton Fish, Yachtsman Harold Stirling Vanderbilt, Poloist Thomas Hitchcock Jr. , U. S. Ambassador to Italy William Phillips, Journalist Joseph Alsop, and Richard Whitney, now of Sing Sing Prison, of whom all good Porkies prefer not to speak. The Pore is very much a family affair. Upon its roster, generation after generation, appear the same proud Boston names—Adams, Ames, Amory, Cabot, Gushing, etc.

According to a note to the obituary of the Club Steward on Monday, April 1, 1929, in TIME Magazine:

The Porcellian roster includes Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. , Poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Nicholas Longworth, Poet James Russell Lowell, Richard Henry (Two Years Before the Mast) Dana, Novelist Owen Wister, John Jay Chapman. The club's favorite brew is a mixture of beer and gin.

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b c d e Sheldon, Henry Davidson (1901). Student Life and Customs. D. Appleton.  , p. 171: source for 1791 origins as the "Argonauts;" later named "The Pig Club", "The Gentlemen's Club", finally "The Porcellian". "Small as the membership has been, the roll of graduates shows many of the most famous of the Sons of Harvard, including Wendell Phillips, Channing, [Joseph] Story, [Edward] Everett, Prescott, Adams, Palfrey, Charles Sumner, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and John Lothrop Motley. " Online at Google Books
  2. ^ Shand-Tucci, Douglas (2001). Harvard University. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 1-56898-280-1.   p. 89: ". . . Harvard's still-extant Porcellian Club, which arose out of a legendary dinner of roast pig (hence the club's name) in 1794 at Moore's Tavern. Unlike [Phi Beta Kappa], the Porcellian's motto, Dum Vivimus Vivamus, indicates that they were not beguiled by concerns academical or even literary, but, rather by pure conviviality.
  3. ^ Sedgwick, John, "Brotherhood of the Pig", GQ: Gentlemen's Quarterly 58 (November 1988), p. 30, as quoted by Horwitz, Richard P. (1998). Hog Ties : Pigs, Manure, and Mortality in American Culture. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 0-312-21443-X.   pp. 27-28: ""My father was generally oblivious to the animal world, but he did have an unusual affection for pigs. Around our house. . . he had porcelain pigs, ceramic pigs, carved pigs, embroidered pigs, painted pigs. . . . They overran our living-room mantelpiece, swept over the tabletops, covered his bureau, popped up on his cuff links, watch chain and ties and even appeared on our drinking glasses and saltcellar. . . . Why all these pigs? Because my father was a Brother Porcellian. . . and the pig is the club's emblem. "
  4. ^ a b Schlesinger, Arthur Meier [1958]. The Coming of the New Deal. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-34086-6.   p. 461. [NYSE president] Richard Whitney "had attended Groton and Harvard. Richard Whitney ( August 1, 1888 - December 5, 1974) was an American financier president of the New York Stock Exchange . . . his clubs were the Links, the Turf, the Field, the Racquet, and the Knickerbocker; from his watch chain there dangled the gold pig of Harvard's Porcellian. "
  5. ^ Myrer, Anton (2002). The Last Convertible. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-093405-0.   p. 130, "I . . . pulled up in front of the Porcellian or Sphinx or Onyx or whichever hotsy-totsy final club it was"
  6. ^ Baltzell, E. Digby (1991). E Digby Baltzell (Edward Digby Baltzell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1915 to a wealthy Episcopalian family The Protestant Establishment Revisited. Transaction Publishers. 0887384196.   p. 23: "At Harvard, Porcellian and A. D. , the most exclusive, are followed by Fly, Spee, Delphic, and Owl. The narrow top drawer at Yale includes Fence, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Zeta Psi, and St. Anthony, while at Princeton, the more socially circumspect clubs on Prospect Street include Ivy, Cap and Gown, and Colonial. "
  7. ^ a b Keller, Morton; Phyllis Keller (2001). Making Harvard Modern: The Rise of America's University. Oxford University Press U. S. . ISBN 0-19-514457-0.   p. 472
  8. ^ Mann, Elizabeth (1993), "The First Abridged Dictionary of Harvard Myths", The Harvard Independent December 9, 1993, pp. Events 536 - Byzantine General Belisarius enters Rome while the Ostrogothic garrison peacefully leaves the city Year 1993 ( MCMXCIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar) 10-11 as quoted by the alt. folklore. urban website in Harvard Legends
  9. ^ Matthews, Joe (1994). The Harvard Crimson, March 5, 2004 [1]
  10. ^ a b c Gewertz, Ken (2005) "Enter to grow in wisdom: A tour of Harvard's gates". Events 363 - Roman Emperor Julian moves from Antioch with an army of 90000 to attack the Sassanid Empire, in a "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " The Harvard Gazette (a publication of the Harvard News Office), December 15, 2005 [2]
  11. ^ Hart, Jeffrey (1996) "What is American?". Events 533 - Byzantine general Belisarius defeats the Vandals, commanded by King Gelimer, at the Battle of Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. National Review, 48, (April 22, 1996); Online at [3], p4
  12. ^ "In Da Club". Events 1500 - Portuguese Navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral becomes the first European to sight Brazil. Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar) The Harvard Crimson: FM Magazine, (February 6, 2003). Events 46 BC - Julius Caesar defeats the combined army of Pompeian followers and Numidians under Metellus Scipio Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. Archived online October 26, 2004 at [4]
  13. ^ Frances Richardson Keller, Fictions of U. Events 740 - An Earthquake strikes Constantinople, causing much damage and death "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " S. History : A Theory & Four Illustrations, Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2002, p. 116.
  14. ^ Thomas Maier (2004). The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings. Basic Books. ISBN 0465043178.  , p. 72
  15. ^ Rae, W. Fraser (1870). Westward by Rail: The New Route to the East. Longmans, Green, And Co. .   p. 354-5. Google Books text
  16. ^ a b O'Gorman, James F. (2004). The Makers of Trinity Church in the City of Boston. University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 1-55849-436-7.   p. 14
  17. ^ Dearborn, Mary (2001). Mailer: A Biography. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-15460-4.   p. 23
  18. ^ op cit.
  19. ^ Frances Richardson Keller, Fictions of U. S. History : A Theory & Four Illustrations, Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2002, p. 116.
  20. ^ Beam, Alex (2002). Gracefully Insane: The Rise and Fall of America's Premier Mental Hospital. Public Affairs. ISBN 1-891620-75-4.   p. 174: "After a stint on Bowditch Hall, where Robert Lowell immortalized [Louis Agassiz Shaw II] as 'Bobbie. . . '" Beam quotes two pages of "Walking in the Blue", apparently as an introduction to the book, just before Chapter I.
  21. ^ "How the mentally ill have been treated — and mistreated — in America", Chicago Tribune, May 15, 2002. The Chicago Tribune is a major daily Newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and owned by the Tribune Company Events 1252 - Pope Innocent IV issues the Papal bull Ad exstirpanda, which authorizes but also limits the See also 2002 (disambiguation Year 2002 ( MMII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar.
  22. ^ LaFerla, Ruth (2002), "Where the Upper Crust Crumbled Politely"; The New York Times, (Review of Alex Beam's book, Gracefully Insane). July 28, 2002[5]
  23. ^ a b c d e "The Pore" Time Magazine, February 26, 1940 website archive
Events 1540 - Thomas Cromwell is executed at the order of Henry VIII of England on charges of Treason. See also 2002 (disambiguation Year 2002 ( MMII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. Time (trademarked in capitals as TIME) is a weekly American Newsmagazine, similar to Newsweek and Events 747 BC - Epoch (origin of Ptolemy 's Nabonassar Era 364 - Valentinian I is proclaimed Year 1940 ( MCMXL) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar of the Gregorian calendar.
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