Walking Tour of Harvard College's Old Yard
Eichstedt and Small, 2002
Segregation and Marginalization of Knowledge
Trivialization and
Deflection
Why a Walking Tour
- Accessible to wide range of demographics
- Showcase depth and breadth of slavery at Harvard
- Visitor Flexibility
- Counter Traditional Narrative
- Focus on Old Yard
The Smith
Campus Center
Formally the Holyoke Center
- Edward Holyoke - president 1737-1769
- Son Edward Augustus Holyoke kept a series of diaries - includes two references to Juba
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Highlights the presence of enslaved individuals within the Holyoke household, and shows considered these individuals part of family unit
The Joseph McKean Gate
- 1901
- Gift of the Harvard Porcellian Club
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George Washington Lewis
- From the late 1800s and early 1900s George Washington Lewis served as Steward of the Club
- Lewis of Lewisville -> Free African Americans in Cambridge
Wigglesworth House
- Edward Wigglesworth served as a professor of divinity, while his son - also named Edward Wigglesworth - served as Harvard’s fourteenth president
the elder owned
Hannibal
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Wadsworth House
- First built in 1727, home to 9 Harvard Presidents
- Benjamin Wadsworth President from 1725 to 1737
- Direct impact of slavery intertwined with the administration and leadership of Harvard College -> buys while president
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Grays Hall
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- Built in 1863, it roughly stands atop of the former Peyntree House, the “first building in the United States designed expressly for collegiate education”
- Home to Nathaniel Eaton
- In a 1639 Confession, Eaton's wife speaks to the presence of “the Moor,” which “drawn from the Spanish name for North Africans...was a common term for African slaves.”
Matthews Hall
- Sits atop the site of the former “Indian College” which was in operation from roughly 1656 to 1698
- Such schools emphasized assimilation and deculteration
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Massachusetts and Harvard Hall
While the details of who lived and worked in each of these buildings can be hard to uncover today, these original dormitories and living spaces can be taken as representative of Harvard in the 18th century
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Holden Chapel
- Built in 1774, named for Samuel Holden, Director of the Bank of England
- Bank of England finances transatlantic slave trade, capital used to colonize and preserve colonies (many of which were reliant on enslaved labor)
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Financial Impact of Slavery on Campus
Stoughton Hall
- Built in 1804 - named after Lieutenant-Governor William Stoughton
- Chief Justice in Salem Witch Trials - sought to “eradicate all witches from Massachusetts Bay Colony” via hanging and execution
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Appointed to both positions by Increase Mathers, Harvard's 7th President
- Owns enslaved man named Dick
- Bequeaths to John Danforth in his 1701 will
Stoughton
"I do hereby signify to my Executor, That it is my Mind & Will that my Negro Servant called Spaniard shall not be sold after my Decease; but I do then give Him his Liberty: Let him then be esteemed a Free Negro”
- 1719 Will
Mathers
John Harvard Statue
- Statue said to be a depiction of John Harvard
- has become a symbol of Harvard in many ways
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Harvard found itself connected to the perpetuation of hateful and racist ideology towards black individuals through the KKK.