This month in Harvard history

May 20, 2004 2 min read

May 13, 1941 – At the Harvard Forest (Petersham, Mass.), the University dedicates Shaler Hall and the Fisher Museum as working and living quarters for Forest staff and students.
May 14, 1942 – Peruvian President Manuel Prado visits Harvard during a “Good Neighbor” tour of the eastern U.S. (His son Manuel I. Prado is also a senior at the time.) During a special welcoming ceremony in the Faculty Room of University Hall, Prado brings greetings from Lima’s University of San Marcos (est. 1551), where before his election he had taught calculus. From the steps of Widener, 1,000 students cheer him. Later, Prado lunches with Gov. Leverett Saltonstall ’14 and other Harvard and state officials at the Harvard Club of Boston. In a radio address broadcast in Spanish from the Club to fellow South Americans, Prado pledges Peru’s full support in fighting the Axis powers.
May 26, 1942 – The Herbert Weir Smyth Classical Library formally opens in a top-floor room of Widener Library. The Smyth Library consists of the great private collection of its late namesake (Class of 1878), who served as the Eliot Professor of Greek Literature from 1902 to 1925. Parts of Smyth’s collection are also placed in the Widener stacks and (the rarest and most valuable volumes) in the newly opened Houghton Library. – From the Harvard Historical Calendar, a database compiled by Marvin Hightower

Sections