In 1898, the same year that Galsworthy wrote his first book, and Harvard shut out Yale 17 to 0 in football, and Gertrude Lawrence and Stephen Vincent Benet were born, and Gladstone and Bismark died, the first issue of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin came off the presses.

It was a very modest start; a group of graduates, including Clarence C. Mann '99, Fred W. Moore '93, Augustus P. Gardner '86, and Jerome D. Greene '96, gathered around a Boston dinner table and decided that something must be done to let graduates know about University affairs and athletic teams.

Previously, the Athletic Department had sporadically published a few small bulletins, and a periodical, the Harvard Graduates' Magazine, was issued quarterly by another group of alumni; but these publications were not issued often enough to keep up with news as it happened.

The group appointed Greene as editor of the new magazine, which was to be called the Harvard Bulletin. Since most of the founders were extremely interested in athletics, the group decided to call itself the Athletic Association of Harvard Graduates.

Greene stated the new weekly's objectives on the front cover of the first issue, of November 7, 1898: "first, to give selected and summarized Harvard news to graduates who want it, secondly to serve as a medium for publishing promptly all notices and announcements of interest to graduates, thirdly to unite graduate and undergraduate interest in all the athletic sports. The Bulletin will not be an athletic paper, however, in any exclusive sense."

The first year was a lucky one for the members of the Bulletin. Harvard made sweeping victories over Yale in almost every sport and contest, including bridge and debate, and there was a fuming battle to determine where a dam should be constructed across the Charles River. Reader interest was high, and people were active in voicing their opinions.

Even at this time, when it was still in its infancy, the Bulletin remained formally apart from the University. It was created as an independent corporation by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the editors wished it to remain that way.

The Administration did try to publish a quarterly magazine, the University Bulletin, in 1881. The University Librarian, Justin Windsor 1853, was appointed editor, and perhaps this was its main trouble; the magazine was too much like a library journal.

The first issue included a formal printed record of the proceedings of the Corporation and the Board of Overseers; a list of Russian sources on nihilism; and some topics for senior forensic themes. Its contribution to science was a paper on the incidence of dizziness in deaf-mutes. The remainder was given over to announcing new library acquisitions and listing bibliographies.

Partially because of its contents, the magazine lasted a relatively short time, folding in 1897, the year its editor died. These were the final efforts by the University in that direction.

The new Harvard Bulletin and its eventual successor, the Harvard Alumni Bulletin, were to remain apart from the University through the years ahead, although many members of the administration were to spend time working on their editorial boards.

In fact, in some instances, the magazine worked against the administration. In the spring of 1916, for example, Louis D. Brandeis was nominated for the United States Supreme Court. President Lowell was against the appointment, and signed a Suffolk County Bar Association petition demanding that it not be confirmed. Harvard law professors, however, were overwhelmingly for Brandeis.

The Bulletin chose to support the professors, and, in a strong editorial, criticized the President for trying to represent the whole University. Lowell remained unruffled, and answered the charges in the next issue.

A more recent split between the University and the Bulletin occurred in the spring of 1950, when the University proposed the construction of a new Varsity Club with part of the funds left by Allston Burr '89. The May 27 issue of the periodical contained a sharp editorial against the plan: "Should the University build a new Varsity Club with part of the unrestricted legacy of the late Allston Burr? The Bulletin feels it should not. There are few matters which the Bulletin takes issue with the administration, but this is one of them. The project should be abondoned."

Opposition grew too strong against building the new Club, and the University was forced to discontinue the project, even though the design had already been chosen. Instead the money went into the organization of the Allston Burr Senior Tutor plan now existing in the Houses.