January-February 2004 > John Harvard's Journal

Yesterday's News

Yesterday's News

From the pages of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine

1924 In a Crimson poll on Prohibition, the Harvard community votes nearly two to one to keep the Volstead Act in force, and 1488 to 940 in favor of more rigorous enforcement.

Illustration by Mark Steele

1949 Statistics compiled by the Alumni Records Office indicate that "John Harvard," for the first time in history, lives west of the Hudson River: 50.5 percent of Harvard graduates now live outside New England and New York State, and their number is growing.

1954 The College announces that maids will no longer make students’ beds, the first step in phasing out a housekeeping arrangement that began 295 years earlier.

1969 The Faculty votes to withdraw academic credit for Reserve Officers’ Training Corps activities at Harvard—home of the oldest ROTC program in the country.

1979 The Science Center is evacuated after about 250 milliliters of nitroglycerine is discovered in a basement lab. The undergraduate who produced it, some in his dorm room, where he had been conducting experiments, leaves Harvard for the semester.