This month in Harvard history

May 16, 2002 1 min read

May 1908 – Funding prospects for the newly created (March 30, 1908) Graduate School of Business Administration look so grim that it may not open in September as planned. On May 19, however, an anonymous benefactor (later revealed to have been Maj. Henry Lee Higginson) comes to the rescue, underwriting the shortfall in full. In response, the Corporation chooses Economics Professor Edwin Francis Gay as the School’s first Dean. The School eventually opens on Oct. 1 with 59 students seeking the new Master of Business Administration degree.
May 1931 – The George Edward Woodberry Poetry Room – a gift of Harry Harkness Flagler – opens on the third floor of Widener Library. (The room is now in Lamont Library.)
May 1939 – Near Austin Hall, the new Littauer Center for Public Administration is ready for occupancy.
May 21, 1940 – The Harvard Crimson publishes a statement endorsed by hundreds of students vowing “never under any circumstances to follow the footsteps of the students of 1917” who had gone off to fight in World War I. Thirty-four members of the Class of 1917 defend their actions in a statement published on May 31.- From the Harvard Historical Calendar, a database compiled by Marvin Hightower

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