Porcellian Club
Encyclopedia
Final club
A final club is an undergraduate social club at Harvard College.- Origins :The historical basis for the name final clubs is that Harvard used to have a variety of clubs for freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, with students of different years being in different clubs, and the "final clubs"...
at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, sometimes called the Porc or the P.C. The year of founding is usually given as 1791, when a group began meeting under the name "the Argonauts," or as 1794, the year of the roast pig dinner at which the club, known first as "the Pig Club" was formally founded. The club's motto, Dum vivimus vivamus (while we live, we shall live) is literally Epicurean. The club emblem is the pig and some members sport golden pigs on watch-chains or neckties bearing pig's-head emblems.Originally started by a group of 30 students from Massachusetts who desired to avoid the dining halls and their food by roasting pigs.
The Porcellian is the iconic "hotsy-totsy final club," often bracketed with Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
's Skull and Bones
Skull and Bones
Skull and Bones is an undergraduate senior or secret society at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. It is a traditional peer society to Scroll and Key and Wolf's Head, as the three senior class 'landed societies' at Yale....
and Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
's Ivy Club. A history of Harvard calls the Porcellian "the most final of them all." Also, an urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
s website mentions a belief that "if members of the Porcellian do not earn their first million before they turn 40, the club will give it to them."
Founding
According to a Harvard Crimson article of February 23, 1887:
This society was established in 1791. It occupies rooms on Harvard street and owns a library of some 7000 volumes. Its members are taken from the senior, junior and sophomore classes about eight from each class. The origin of its name is popularly supposed to be as follows:
In the year 1791, a student brought a pig into his room in Hollis. In those days the window-seats were merely long boxes with lids, used to store articles in. Said student having an antipathy to the proctor who roomed beneath, was accustomed to squeeze piggy's ears and make him squeal whenever said proctor was engaged in the study of the classics. The result would be a rush by the proctor for the student's rooms, where the student was to be found studying (?), peacefully seated on his window-seat. Piggy, in the mean time had been deposited beneath, and no sound disturbed the tranquillity of the scene. On the departure of the hated proctor, a broad grin would spread over the countenance of the joker and in a little while the scene would be repeated with variations. But when it was rumored that his room was to be searched by the faculty, the joker determined to cheat them of their prey. So he invited some of his classmates to the room and the pig being cooked, all present partook of a goodly feast. They enjoyed their midnight meal so much that they determined then and there to form a club and have such entertainments periodically. In order to render historical the origin of the club and also to give it a classic touch, they decided to call it the Porcellian from Latin "porcus."
In 1831, the society bearing the name of the "Order of the Knights of the Square Table" was joined to the Porcellian, as "the objects and interests of the two societies were identical."
Clubhouse
Known to members as the "Old Barn", the Porcellian clubhouse is located at 1324 Massachusetts Avenue above the store of clothier J. August. The building was designed by the architect and clubmember William York Peters. Its entrance faces the Harvard freshman dormitories and the entrance to Harvard YardHarvard Yard
Harvard Yard is a grassy area of about , adjacent to Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that constitutes the oldest part and the center of the campus of Harvard University...
called the Porcellian, or McKean, Gate. The gate was donated by the club in 1901 and features a limestone carving of a boar's head. Access to the clubhouse is strictly limited to members, but non-members are allowed in the first floor room known as the Bicycle Room.
Despite the exclusivity and mystique, some, like National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
columnist/editor, Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
speechwriter and Dartmouth
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
emeritus professor of English Jeffrey Hart
Jeffrey Hart
Jeffrey Peter Hart and raised in New York, New York, is a cultural critic, professor emeritus of English at Dartmouth College, essayist, and columnist who lives in New Hampshire, United States. After two years as an undergraduate at Dartmouth, he transferred to Columbia University, where he...
, have noted the club's modest physical and metaphorical character. Hart (who had never actually been inside the club) wrote:
- ...To illustrate, may I invoke Harvard's famous Porcellian, an undergraduate club of extraordinary exclusiveness? ... [I]t is devilishly hard to join. But there is nothing there, hardly a club at all. The quarters consist entirely of a large room over a row of stores in Harvard Square. There is a bar, a billiards table and a mirror arranged so that members can sit and view Massachusetts Avenue outside without themselves being seen. That's it...Porcellian is the pinnacle of the Boston idea. Less is more. Zero is a triumph.
Harvard Crimson
The Harvard Crimson
The Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
, the university newspaper, published pictures of the interior.
A portrait of George Washington Lewis, entitled "The Steward (Lewis of the Porcellian)" by Joseph DeCamp
Joseph DeCamp
Joseph Rodefer DeCamp was an American painter.-Biography:Born in Cincinnati, Ohio where he studied with Frank Duveneck. In the second half of the 1870s he went with Duveneck and fellow students to the Royal Academy of Munich...
hangs in the clubhouse. An obituary in TIME Magazine on April 1, 1929 notes:
George Washington Lewis, of Cambridge, Mass., for over 45 years the esteemed Negro steward of the Porcellian Club at Harvard College; in Cambridge, Mass. Ancient and most esoteric of Harvard clubs is Porcellian, founded in 1791.* An oil portrait of Steward Lewis hangs in the clubhouse. Steward Lewis had ten Porcellian pallbearers.
Historical significance
Theodore Roosevelt and other members of the Roosevelt family belonged to the club, but Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
, who was president of the Harvard Crimson, never managed to be elected a member. At some time, in his late thirties, he told his relative Sheffield Cowles that this had been "the greatest disappointment in his life". Harvard graduate Joseph P. Kennedy was also blackballed from the Porcellian Club; a biographer writes that "For years later, Joe Kennedy remembered the day he didn't make the Porcellian Club, the most desired in his mind, realizing that none of the Catholics he knew at Harvard had been selected."
An 1870 travel book said:
- A notice of Harvard would be as incomplete without a reference to the Porcellian Club as a notice of Oxford or Cambridge would be in which the [Cambridge] Union Debating Society held no place. This and the Hasty Pudding ClubHasty Pudding ClubThe Hasty Pudding Club is a social club for Harvard students. It was founded by Nymphus Hatch, a junior at Harvard College, in 1770. The club is named for the traditional American dish that the founding members ate at their first meeting...
, an organization for performing amateur theatricals, are the two lions of Harvard. The Porcellian Club is hardly a place of resort for those who cultivate the intellect at the expense of the body. The list of active members is small, owing in part to the largeness of the annual subscription. The great desire of every student is to become a member of it... the doings of the club are shrouded in secrecy... All that can be said by a stranger who has been privileged to step behind the scenes is that the mysteries are rites which can be practised without much labor and yield a pleasure which is fraught with no unpleasant consequences.
A telling indication of the position of the Porcellian in the Boston establishment is given by an historian of Boston's Trinity Church
Trinity Church, Boston
Trinity Church in the City of Boston, located in the Back Bay of Boston, Massachusetts, is a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. The congregation, currently standing at approximately 3,000 households, was founded in 1733. The current rector is The Reverend Anne Bonnyman...
, H. H. Richardson's architectural masterpiece. In speculating as to why Richardson was chosen, he writes:
- the thirty-four-year-old possessed one great advantage over the other candidates: as a popular Harvard undergraduate he had been a member of several clubs, including the prestigious Porcellian; thus he needed no introduction to the rector, Phillips BrooksPhillips BrooksPhillips Brooks was an American clergyman and author, who briefly served as Bishop of Massachusetts in the Episcopal Church during the early 1890s. In the Episcopal liturgical calendar he is remembered on January 23...
, or five of the eleven-man building committee—they were all fellow Porcellian members."
Membership criteria
A biography of Norman MailerNorman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
says that when he was at Harvard "it would have been unthinkable... for a Jew to be invited to join one of the so-called final clubs like Porcellian, A.D. Club
A.D. Club
The A.D. Club is a final club established at Harvard University in 1836, the continuation of a chapter of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity existing as an honorary chapter until 1846, and then as a regular chapter until the late 1850s...
, Fly, or Spee." A history of Harvard notes the decline in Boston Brahmin
Boston Brahmin
Boston Brahmins are wealthy Yankee families characterized by a highly discreet and inconspicuous life style. Based in and around Boston, they form an integral part of the historic core of the East Coast establishment...
influence at Harvard during the last quarter of the 1900s, and says "a third of [the presidents of the Final Clubs] were Jewish by 1986 and one was black. The Porcellian... took an occasional Jew and in 1983 (to the horror of some elders) admitted a black—who had gone to St. Paul's
St. Paul's School (Concord, New Hampshire)
St. Paul's School is a highly selective college-preparatory, coeducational boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire affiliated with the Episcopal Church. The school is one of only six remaining 100% residential boarding schools in the U.S. The New Hampshire campus currently serves 533 students,...
."
More recent information on the membership of the Porcellian Club may be found in a 1994 Harvard Crimson article by Joseph Mathews. He writes, "Prep school background, region and legacy status do not appear to be the sole determinants of membership they may once have been, but ... they remain factors."
Joseph McKean Gate
In 1901 a gate to Harvard Yard, directly opposite the clubhouse, was erected. According to a notice published in the Harvard Crimson, on March 20, 1909:
A gate is to be erected at the entrance to the Yard between Wadsworth House and Boylston Hall. It is to be erected by members of the Porcellian Club in memory of Joseph McKean 1794, S.T.D., LL.D. Boylston Professor of Rhetoric, Oratory and Elocution, and also the founder of the Porcellian Club.
The gate features prominently the symbol of the club, the pig's head and is a famous Harvard landmark.
Notable members
- Theodore RooseveltTheodore RooseveltTheodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
- 26th President of the United States - Henry Cabot LodgeHenry Cabot LodgeHenry Cabot "Slim" Lodge was an American Republican Senator and historian from Massachusetts. He had the role of Senate Majority leader. He is best known for his positions on Meek policy, especially his battle with President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 over the Treaty of Versailles...
- American statesman, a Republican politician and a noted historian. - Edward EverettEdward EverettEdward Everett was an American politician and educator from Massachusetts. Everett, a Whig, served as U.S. Representative, and U.S. Senator, the 15th Governor of Massachusetts, Minister to Great Britain, and United States Secretary of State...
- Secretary of State, President of Harvard, Senator from Massachusetts - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932...
- Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Professor at Harvard Law School - Wendell PhillipsWendell PhillipsWendell Phillips was an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, and orator. He was an exceptional orator and agitator, advocate and lawyer, writer and debater.-Education:...
- leading abolitionist - H. H. Richardson, architect
- William York Peters, architect
- Robert Gould ShawRobert Gould ShawRobert Gould Shaw was an American officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. As colonel, he commanded the all-black 54th Regiment, which entered the war in 1863. He was killed in the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina...
- Colonel of 54th Massachusetts Regiment, first black regiment in Union Army, Civil War - Joseph StoryJoseph StoryJoseph Story was an American lawyer and jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1811 to 1845. He is most remembered today for his opinions in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee and The Amistad, along with his magisterial Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, first...
- Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, leading Federalist theorist - Richard WhitneyRichard Whitney (financier)Richard Whitney was an American financier, president of the New York Stock Exchange from 1930 to 1935, and a convicted embezzler.-Biography:He was born on August 1, 1888 in Boston, Massachusetts to George Whitney, Sr....
- president of the New York Stock ExchangeNew York Stock ExchangeThe New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...
(1930–1935) embezzler - "'Bobbie,' Porcellian '29, a replica of Louis XVI without the wig..." Character ridiculed in Robert LowellRobert LowellRobert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
's poem, "Walking in the Blue"; identified as Louis Agassiz Shaw II, an upper-class Bostonian who murdered his Irish maid and was sequestered at McLean HospitalMcLean HospitalMcLean Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts.It is noted for its clinical staff expertise and ground-breaking neuroscience research... - James Russell LowellJames Russell LowellJames Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets who rivaled the popularity of British poets...
- poet - Owen WisterOwen WisterOwen Wister was an American writer and "father" of western fiction.-Early life:Owen Wister was born on July 14, 1860, in Germantown, a well-known neighborhood in the northwestern part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, Owen Jones Wister, was a wealthy physician, one of a long line of...
- novelist - Joe W. Alsop - journalist (1932)
- Cameron WinklevossCameron WinklevossCameron Howard Winklevoss is an American rower and entrepreneur. He competed in the men's pair rowing event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics with his identical twin brother and rowing partner Tyler Winklevoss. Cameron and his brother are known for co-founding HarvardConnection along with Harvard...
- Won a law suit against Facebook with his twin brother and Divya NarendraDivya NarendraDivya Narendra is an American businessman. He is currently the CEO and co-founder of SumZero. He also co-founded HarvardConnection with Harvard classmates Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss....
. - Tyler WinklevossTyler WinklevossTyler Howard Winklevoss is an American rower and entrepreneur. He competed in the men's pair rowing event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics with his identical twin brother and rowing partner Cameron Winklevoss...
- Won a law suit against Facebook with his twin brother and Divya Narendra. - Hamilton Fish IIIHamilton Fish IIIHamilton Fish III was a soldier and politician from New York State...
- 1910
According to a 1940 Time magazine article:
The Pork had as members James Russell Lowell, the two famed Oliver Wendell Holmeses (the author of Autocrat of the Breakfast Table and the Supreme Court Justice), Owen Wister, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, President Theodore Roosevelt (the Franklin Roosevelts go Fly ClubFly ClubThe Fly Club is a male-only final club at Harvard University, founded in 1836.Both the Fly and A.D. Club, another Harvard final club, trace their beginnings to the Harvard chapters of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. The A.D. surrendered its chapter credentials in 1865 and broke off from the national...
). Among its living members are Massachusetts' Governor Leverett Saltonstall, Congressman Hamilton Fish, Yachtsman Harold Stirling Vanderbilt, Poloist Thomas Hitchcock Jr., U. S. Ambassador to Italy William Phillips, Journalist Joseph Alsop, Richard WhitneyRichard WhitneyRichard Whitney may refer to:* Richard Whitney , American financier, president of the New York Stock Exchange, convicted embezzler* Richard Whitney , American portrait and landscape artist...
, now of Sing SingSing SingSing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison operated by the New York State Department of Correctional Services in the town of Ossining, New York...
Prison, of whom all good Porkies prefer not to speak. The Pore is very much a family affair. Upon its roster, generation after generation, appear the same proud Boston names—Adams, Ames, Amory, Cabot, Gushing, etc.
According to a note to the obituary of the Club Steward on Monday, April 1, 1929 in TIME Magazine:
The Porcellian roster includes Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt Jr., Poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Nicholas Longworth, Poet James Russell Lowell, Richard Henry (Two Years Before the Mast) Dana, Novelist Owen Wister, John Jay Chapman. The club's favorite brew is a mixture of beer and gin.