"It was the immediacy of peace," James H.Powell '49. "Social programs hadn't really startedup yet."

Just before the class entered, the UnitedStates dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima andNagasaki. At the same time, the Cold War wasbeginning to unfold, and Americans did not yetknow if the world would be a safe place.

From Battlefields to Football Fields

They worked hard and they played hard. The'49ers were a group that cared deeply about theiracademics, their politics-and their sports.

Social life revolved around the playing field.And for the Class of '49, the Crimson did notoften disappoint.

The basketball team made it to the NCAAchampionship in 1946 for the first time, and thefootball team did not lose a single game in thefirst year after the war.

Winning the Harvard-Yale game in 1948 was ahighlight of the class's experience at Harvard.The Game, which was one of the major social eventsof the year, invariably sold out, slowing trafficto a standstill for blocks around the Stadium.

One graduate, remembering the excitement of TheGame in the late 1940s, says he was "shocked andamazed" to see that there were empty seats in theStadium at the 1998 game.

For a class of such disparate ages, athleticswas one of the few things that brought them alltogether.

Intramural sports were also extremelycompetitive with high rates of participation andfan turnout.

Kirkland House ended the 1948-49 school yearwith the best intramural sports record and wasawarded the Straus cup.

All for One and One for All

In a class with so many divisive factors,members say that there was no real sense of classspirit. Yet there were not really any tensionseither. "The group mixed well," Read says.

"We perhaps didn't have some of the unity thatbegan in the class of '50," Richard recalls. "Theywere more homogenous, they didn't have quite thesame diversity in their origins."

Yet, if that unity did not exist for the Class,its members were able to experience Harvard spiritthrough their Houses. There, members of the Classformed their closest friendships-some of whichhave lasted until the present day.