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Harvard and The American Revolution
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This guide provides information on selected primary and secondary sources about Harvard between 1764 and 1783. Most of this material is available for use in the Archives' reading room; links are provided for the few documents that have been digitized and are available online. Archives' call numbers are noted in italics.
Additional material in the Archives pertaining to Harvard at the time of the American Revolution can be found by searching HOLLIS and by visiting the Archives' reading room to consult with the reference staff.
If you are looking for biographical information about Harvard students, alumni, and other individuals, please use the Archives' biographical research guide.
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Corporation Records
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Minutes of meetings, also known as College Records. (Use the Tolman card index in the Archives' reading room to identify specific topics within these volumes.)
1750-1778 UAI 5.30.2 Volume II
1778-1795 UAI 5.30.2 Volume III
Corporation Papers and College Papers, including correspondence and other records, compiled at various times, arranged by date within each grouping. (Use the Tolman card index in the Archives' reading room to identify specific topics within these records.)
Corporation Papers, First Series, 1764-1780 UAI 5.120 Box 4 (32 folders)
College Papers, First Series, 1650-1825 UAI 5.131 (on microfilm)
College Papers, First Series, Supplements, 1636-1815 UAI 5.131.5 (on microfilm)
College Papers, Supplements, 1636-1785 UAI 5.131.5 (on microfilm)
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Board of Overseers Records
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Minutes of meetings (Use the Tolman card index in the Archives' reading room to identify specific topics within these volumes.)
1744-1768 UAII 5.5.2 Volume II
1768-1788 UAII 5.5.2 Volume III
Visiting Committee reports (Use the Tolman card index in the Archives' reading room to identify specific topics within these volumes.)
Volume 1: 1761-1825 UAII 10.5
Volume 1 supplement: 1765-1825 UAII 10.5
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Presidents' Papers
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The papers of Harvard presidents include correspondence and other records pertaining to official Harvard business, as well as personal papers.
Papers of Edward Holyoke: an inventory UAI 15.870
Edward Holyoke (1689-1769) served as president of Harvard from 1737 to 1769.
Papers of Samuel Locke: an inventory UAI 15.872
Samuel Locke (1731-1777) served as president of Harvard from 1770 to 1773.
Papers of Samuel Langdon: an inventory UAI 15.874
Samuel Langdon served as president of Harvard from 1774 to 1780.
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Treasurers' Records and other financial documents
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Treasurers' collected papers, 1736-1809. (Some fragile documents in this collection may not be available for research use.) UAI 50.6 Box 2
Papers of John Hancock, primarily pertaining to his tenure as Treasurer of Harvard (1773-1777). Inventory available in the Archives' reading room. UAI 50.27.73
Stewards' records, 1764-1809. UAI 70.6
College commons book, 1772-1820. Includes correspondence, bills, receipts, and other papers pertaining to dining services. UAI 15.250
Donations book, 1636-1839. Descriptive account of grants, bequests, and other donations to Harvard. Volume 1 (1636-1784); Volume 2 (1776-1839). UAI 15.420
Account of damages done to the College by the Army after April 19the 1775, submitted to the General Court of Massachusetts on April 25, 1778. See HOLLIS record for links to digitized version.
The Continental Army was stationed in Harvard buildings during the Revolutionary War. This document lists damages to the buildings, caused by the troops, for which the College sought reparation. The document includes the text of the resolution voted by the Massachusetts legislature approving compensation. UAI 5.120
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Faculty Records
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Minutes of meetings of the College faculty (Use the Tolman card index in the Archives' reading room to identify specific topics within these volumes.)
1752-1766 UAIII 5.5.2 Volume I
1766-1775 UAIII 5.5.2 Volume III
1775-1781 UAIII 5.5.2 Volume III
Disorders papers (administrative records of disturbances by students), 1768-1788 UAIII 15.21.6 Folder 1
District reports (reports on the condition of student rooms and other property; not comprehensive), 1727-1813 UAIII 15.22 and UAIII 15.22.5
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Faculty Papers
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John Winthrop (1714-1779; Harvard A.B. 1732, A.M. 1735) taught science, astronomy and mathematics at Harvard. He was the second Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. Winthrop's papers include diaries (1739-1779) and a meteorological journal (1742-1779). See HOLLIS record for more information.
HUG 1879.2xx
Stephen Sewall (1734-1804; Harvard A.B. 1761) taught Oriental languages and Hebrew at Harvard from 1761 to 1785. He held the following positions: Instructor in Hebrew (1761-1764), Librarian (1762-1763), and Hancock Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental Languages (1764-1785). Sewall's papers contain a compilation of his lectures delivered at Harvard between 1765 and 1785, and a copy of a letter from his mother, 1768. See HOLLIS record for more information.
HUG 1782.2 and HUG 1782.5
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Library records
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Library catalogues
1773 HUF 523.6.73
circa 1775 (perhaps of the books taken to Concord; probably in the hand of President Langdon) UAIII 50.15.35
1790 (lists volumes acquired between 1764 and 1790) HUF 523.90.x
Facsimiles of the 1773 and 1790 catalogues are included in The Printed Catalogues of the Harvard College Library, 1723-1790, edited by W.H. Bond and Hugh Amory, published by the Colonial Society of Massachusetts in 1996. See HOLLIS record for more information and locations at Harvard libraries.
Library charging records: books circulated to individual students, faculty, and administrators, 1766-1778. UAIII 50.15.60
Fire of 1764
Nearly all of Harvard's library holdings were lost in the fire that destroyed Old Harvard Hall in 1764. For an account of the fire and subsequent efforts to rebuild the collection, see Josiah Quincy's History of Harvard, pages 479 to 496. Included in these pages are transcriptions of the account of the fire that appeared in the Massachusetts Gazette on February 2, 1764 and detailed reports of the committee charged with the procurement of money, books, and scientific apparatus after the fire.
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Buildings
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Buildings in use at Harvard at the time of the American Revolution include:
Harvard Hall (built 1766)
Holden Chapel (built 1744)
Hollis Hall (built 1763)
Massachusetts Hall (built 1720)
Wadsworth House (built 1726)
Search the following online resources for information about and images of these buildings:
Clark, Henry. The Harvard Book: A Series of Historical, Biographical, and Descriptive Sketches...Cambridge: Welch, Bigelow and Company, 1875.
Harvard University. Education, Bricks and Mortar: Harvard Buildings and Their Contribution to the Advancement of Learning. Cambridge: The University, 1949.
Harvard University. Harvard University Handbook: An official guide to the grounds, buildings, libraries, museums, and laboratories, with notes on the history, development, and activities of all departments of the University.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936.
Visual Information Access (VIA), Harvard's union catalog of visual resources.
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Commencement
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Commencement broadsides, listing graduates' names and announcing the topics for formal debate or presentation (theses and quaestiones). See HOLLIS record for more information. HUC 6642.1
Scrapbook of newsclippings, mostly about Harvard Commencements, 1770-1803. HUC 6770.100
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Laws and statutes
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Laws of 1767
Manuscript copies. UAI 15.809
Transcription. In Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume 31, (1935): 347-383. See HOLLIS record for locations at Harvard libraries.
Laws of 1790
The laws of Harvard College. Boston: Printed by Samuel Hall, at no. 53, Cornhill, [1790]. See HOLLIS record for link to online version; Harvard ID and PIN required.
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Student life
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Appleton, Nathaniel (Harvard College Class of 1773). Letters of Nathaniel Walker Appleton to his classmate, Eliphalet Pearson, 1773-1784, edited by William Coolidge Lane, reprinted from the Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume VIII. Cambridge, Mass.: Wilson, 1906.
Chandler, Samuel S. (Harvard College Class of 1775). Diary and account book, 1773-1774. Photostat copy. HUD 773.13
Freeman, James (Harvard College Class of 1777). Concerning the parts of arithmetick. Manuscript textbook/student notes, 1774. HUC 8774.353
Lane, William Coolidge. "The Rebellion of 1766 in Harvard College." Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume 10 (1907): 33-59. Includes transcriptions of "The Book of Harvard" and other documents pertaining to the Butter Rebellion of 1766, during which students protested the quality of the food served in the College dining hall.
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Secondary sources/Background reading
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Ayres, Linda. Harvard divided: an exhibition held at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 3 through October 10, 1976. Cambridge, Mass.: Fogg Art Museum, c1976. HUF 401.176.36
Batchelder, Samuel F. "Barracks on Cambridge Common." Harvard Graduates' Magazine 28 (1920): 598-605.
Blake, Henry N. "Harvard Soldiers and Sailors in the American Revolution." Harvard Graduates' Magazine 28 (1919): 243-259.
Brown, Percy W. "The Sojourn of Harvard College in Concord." Harvard Graduates' Magazine 27 (June 1919): 497-509.
Caughey, John Lyon. A study of the Harvard men who were loyal to Great Britain in the American Revolution. Harvard College undergraduate honors thesis, 1925. HU 92.25.263
Cohen, Sheldon. "Harvard College on the eve of the American Revolution." 1982. Offprint from Sibley's Heir, a Volume in Memory of Clifford Kenyon Shipton. Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume 59, 1982. HUA 982.14
Daughters of the American Revolution. An historic guide to Cambridge... 2nd edition. Cambridge, 1907. Includes maps.
Davis, Andrew McFarland. "The Investments of Harvard College, 1776-1790: An Episode in the Finances of the Revolution." The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 20, No. 3 (May, 1906), pp. 399-41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1882856 (May require Harvard ID and PIN.)
Lillie, Rupert. "Cambridge in 1775." Booklet. Salem, Mass.: Newcomb & Gauss, printers, 1949. HUA 775.50
Lillie, Rupert. Pictorial map of Cambridge, 1760-1770. Bird's-eye view, created 1939.
Metcalf, Keyes D. "The Undergraduate and the Harvard Library, 1765-1877." Harvard Library Bulletin Volume I Number 1 (Winter 1947): 29-51.
Moore, H.G. "Our colonial colleges: 5 -- Harvard University." Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine (October 1948). HUA 948.56
Morison, Samuel Eliot. Three centuries of Harvard. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936. HUA 936.59 See HOLLIS for more locations.
Olsen, Mark and Harvey, Louis-Georges. "Reading in the Revolutionary Times: Book Borrowing from the Harvard College Library, 1773-1782." Harvard Library Bulletin New Series Volume 4 Number 3 (Fall 1993): 57-72.
Peirce, Benjamin. A history of Harvard University from its foundation, in the year 1636, to the period of the American Revolution. Cambridge: Brown, Shattuck, and Company, 1833.
Price, J. Lucien. "The Revolutionary Drama in the College Records." The Harvard Monthly Volume XLIV Number 1 (March 1907): 31-38.
Quincy, Josiah. The history of Harvard University. Cambridge: J. Owen, 1840.
Rising, E.A. Harvard College in the Revolution, 1775. Map. See HOLLIS record for more information.
Vose, Edward Neville. "The Hancock episode, 1773-1793; John Hancock's side in the story of his treasureship of Harvard College." June 4, 1894. HUM 22
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Further research at Harvard and beyond
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Sources for the study of the American Revolution can be found in other archives and special collections at Harvard.
List of archives and special collections repositories at Harvard
Search HOLLIS using the phrase subjects:"United States History Revolution, 1775-1783" to identify material at some of these collections.
Other local repositories include:
Cambridge Historical Society
Massachusetts Archives
Massachusetts Historical Society
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