Campus & Community

This month in Harvard history

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October 1941 – In “The Undergraduate” column of the “Harvard Alumni Bulletin,” Dana Reed ’43 reports the passing of one more Harvard tradition: “Bill Young, head cheer-leader, announced that two ‘rahs’ have been cut from the Crimson’s famous nine-rah cheer, and even the short cheer has been reduced to ‘Har-r-r-vard! Rah! Rah! Team!’ The reason, Young says, is [. . .] simply that the cheers need streamlining.”

October 1947 – The “Harvard Business Review” – reputedly “the most plagiarized magazine in America” – marks its 25th anniversary, printing 20,000 copies of a silver-jubilee issue. The publication also announces plans to move from quarterly to bimonthly publication (January, March, May, July, September, November).

Late October 1954 – Two raccoons brave the big city to explore an oak tree in the President’s garden at 17 Quincy St. (now Loeb House and no longer the President’s residence). “According to an M.C.Z. [Museum of Comparative Zoology] mammalogist, these animals rarely occur so close to Harvard Square.” (Quotation: “Harvard Alumni Bulletin,”11/6/54)

Oct. 6, 1955 – WGBH-TV begins a weekly series on “The Facts of Medicine,” funded by an educational grant from the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. to Harvard and the Lowell Institute. David D. Rutstein, head of the Department of Preventive Medicine, conducts the 40-part series, “which has few predecessors in the world of telecast.”

“‘Through these carefully planned programs,’ President [Nathan Marsh] Pusey announced, ‘we hope to make it possible for the individual to understand the nature of recent medical developments and to help him reach wise decisions, in consultation with his own physician, on matters affecting his own health and that of his family and his community.’ ” (Quotation: “Harvard Alumni Bulletin,” 9/24/55)

Oct. 2, 1956 – Official University enrollment stands at 12,043.

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