Culver joins Kennedy in the Senate and Rep. David R. Bowen (D-Miss.) is in the Congress with Beilenson. Updike and Lasch (freshman year roommates) are successful authors. In the academic world, there is Steiner, and George D. Langdon Jr. '54, president of Colgate University, as well as 74 professors, including three at Harvard: Shapiro at the Law School, Walter J. Kaiser, professor of English and Comparative Literature, and Phillip A. Kuhn, professor of History and East Asian Languages and Civilizations.
William O. Taylor is publisher of the Boston Globe, and Richard Eder is theater critic of The New York Times.
One of the four blacks in the class was Thomas B. Wilson Jr., a recording executive who founded Transition Records with colleagues from WHRB and went on to produce three Bob Dylan albums and discover several groups, including the Mothers of Invention. He died in Studio City, Calif., on September 6, 1978. Another black member of the class, Frederick L. Brown, is a judge on the Massachusetts Court of Appeals.
There are executives like the chairman of the executive committee of Alexander's department stores, the president of Exxon Venezuela, the chairman of the Merrill Lynch International Banking group, and even the general counsel to the United States Treasury. According to a recent survey which 687 members answered, there are 100 lawyers, almost all partners in firms; 92 doctors; 76 bankers or investors, and 14 writer or editors, with nine in the clergy and nine more unemployed or retired.
Of course, success has not followed every member of the class. One died in 1965 while fighting in South Vietnam. Another had a heart seizure in 1974 and went into a coma until mid-1976. When he awoke, his wife had divorced him, and his business had collapsed. A member of the DuPont family in the Class of '54 filed the largest personal bankruptcy claim in United States history in 1971 and is now in the joke-writing business.
Nevertheless, they come about as close as possible to collective fulfillment of the American dream. More than half report incomes exceeding $50,000 annually, 13.8 per cent earn more than $100,000. The class reflects current trends in upper middle class living. Jogging, tennis and squash are the favorite sports, but apparently they are not favored with quite enough dedication: 41 per cent said they were overweight by more than five pounds. The class clearly believes in hard work, with 57 per cent putting in more than 50 hours per week--nearly 40 per cent never wish to retire.
As reunion week approaches, Harvard officials are pleased to note that 95.5 per cent said they were glad they were alumni. The fundraising goal for the 25th reunion is $1.6 million, for which an average contribution of $2300 from every living alumnus is needed. Yale's class of 1954 currently holds the record for any single class at any college with $1,636,000 donated. (1636 is the year of Harvard's founding and some officials suggested that Yale might have fudged the total a little to gall its ancient rival.) The Harvard Class of '54 had more than $1.3 million in the till in May, and fund-raising officials are confident that both the goal and Yale's record are within reach.
More than half of the original members of the Class of '54 will stride into Cambridge this week. Too young to suffer during the Depression or World War II, in college during the Korean War, too old to be young in the sixties, yet not old enough to have children caught up in that decade, they have made much of their position in American chronology. They left Harvard 25 years ago, like many other classes, confident that the future offered nearly unlimited possibilities. For the Class of '54, the future kept that promise.