This month in Harvard history

Oct. 15, 1901 – The Harvard Union (now the largest part of Barker Center for the Humanities) is dedicated.

Oct. 1, 1908 – With 59 students, the Graduate School of Business Administration formally opens as a Graduate Department of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Through this initial connection to established departments, President Charles William Eliot and Dean Edwin Francis Gay hope to get the newcomer off to a well-supported start. Other U.S. universities begin offering business training as early as 1886, but the course of study is overwhelmingly undergraduate. In seeking to establish business as a profession, Harvard Business School becomes the country’s first business program limited to college graduates. By the end of the first academic year, the School has 80 students (regular and special) from 14 colleges and 12 states.

Oct. 6-7, 1909 – In a grand, two-day ceremony attended by 13,000, President A. Lawrence Lowell is formally installed as Harvard’s 22nd President.

Oct. 26, 1912 – The Boston Elevated Railway Co. opens Stadium Station on lower Boylston (now Kennedy) St. for the convenience of Saturday Harvard football crowds.

– From the Harvard Historical Calendar, a database compiled by Marvin Hightower