This month in Harvard history

May 12, 1638 – By order of the Great and General Court, Newetowne is renamed Cambrige (Cambridge).

May 1638 – The College Yard expands as the Town of Cambridge grants the College a lot of land that today includes Harvard, Hollis, Stoughton, and Holworthy halls.

May 1855 – Led by Charles W. Eliot (Harvard’s future 21st President) and Edward H. Ammidown, a Harvard Club of Boston is formed. It goes bankrupt in 1857, however, and a Boston club does not reemerge until 1908.

May 1879 – The committee on women’s education (chaired by Elizabeth Cary Agassiz) announces its first course offerings (51) in the following subjects: English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, Spanish, history, mathematics, music, natural history, philosophy, physics, and political economy.

If required, instruction could also be given in chemistry (pending available laboratory space), Sanskrit, comparative philology, and Romance philology. Full tuition costs $200; a single course is $75. With this fee structure and $16,000 in contributions, the committee expects the educational experiment to survive four years.

May 21, 1890 – A University statute combines faculty of the Lawrence Scientific School with the College Faculty (which is the same as the Graduate School Faculty) to form the 62-member Faculty of Arts and Sciences. There are 12 Divisions, with larger ones broken down into Departments.

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