The Quadrangle, Harvard University.

Title

The Quadrangle, Harvard University.

Description

View of the Harvard University Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

ca. 1880

Artist

Anonymus

Historical Description

The first hundred Puritan refugees from England, the so-called Pilgrim Fathers, who landed on the east coast of North America in 1620 on the Mayflower and established the colony of Plymouth, were followed by thousands of other emigrants over the next few years. A larger group of emigrants led by John Winthrop, who reached New England in 1630 with eleven ships, founded the Massachusetts Bay colony with the city of Boston. Newtown was established as a neighboring town in 1631, which received the name Cambridge a few years later. The colony's supreme legislature, the Massachusetts General Court, decided on October 28, 1636, despite a shortage of funds, to establish a college to meet the need for clergy throughout the settled territory. The men around John Winthrop appropriated 400 pounds in two installments. The project received a generous grant from Puritan clergyman John Harvard, who died in 1638 and left his library and half of his estate to the college. In John Harvard's honor, the college received its name. It took more than a hundred years for Harvard College, which was strictly religious, to evolve into an institution of higher learning with a broader curriculum. In 1811, Massachusetts General Hospital was founded, the teaching hospital that still exists today. Subsequently, especially during the tenure of Charles William Eliot from 1869 to 1909, Harvard developed into a modern university. During this period, enrollment increased from 1000 to 3000 per year, the schools of medicine and law were renewed, and others were created. The latter included schools of economics, dentistry, and art. In addition, Radcliffe College was created under Eliot in 1879.