CORRECTION APPENDED

Despite the intense media coverage surrounding the current search for Harvard’s 28th president, much of the internal intrigue will remain a secret until 2087.

Because the University seals access to presidential search papers for 80 years, the most recent records available date from a very different era: the 1908 quest to replace retiring University President Charles W. Eliot. In that search, the Corporation—the University’s top governing body—selected A. Lawrence Lowell, a member of the Class of 1877 and a popular Government professor.

Unlike the current search—in which search committee members have traveled coast-to-coast to solicit alumni opinion, consulted with student and faculty advisory committees, and cast a wide net for candidates—the process of appointing Lowell “was just a formality,” according to Plummer Professor of Christian Morals Peter J. Gomes, who teaches Religion 1513, “History of Harvard and Its Presidents.”

“This [was] probably the only election of a president within relatively modern time where the consensus was very clear from the start,” Gomes says. “They went through the motions as they were obliged to do.”

‘IT TOOK ABOUT ONE LOOK’

The search process for Eliot’s successor concluded after just one meeting, according to a 1932 letter sent to the Harvard College Library from Jerome D. Greene, who then served as secretary of the Corporation.

Greene wrote that at a meeting held “early in 1909,” each member of the Corporation was asked to mention “a name he had heard advocated, or which he cared to mention.” That request elicited 24 names, which Greene wrote down in pencil on three small sheets on paper. Greene included these papers—which he called “memorandum”—in his letter to the library.

“It took about one look at the list to make it clear that the only real candidate was A. Lawrence Lowell,” Greene wrote. “There was no subsequent urging of the merits of any other candidate as against Mr. Lowell.”

Although the press often mentioned Theodore Roosevelt, a Class of 1880 graduate who was about to complete his second term as U.S. president—as a candidate, he failed to make the Corporation’s shortlist.

“No one took the suggestion seriously enough to put it even in this miscellaneous list,” Greene wrote about Roosevelt.

At that meeting or the next, the formal election took place at concurrent sessions of the Corporation and Board of Overseers, according to the letter.

AN INSIDE MAN

Eliot, a member of the Class of 1853, announced that he would step down as president after nearly 40 years of service at a meeting of the Corporation on Oct. 26, 1908, according to Corporation records. His retirement would take effect no later than May 19, 1909.

Eliot, Greene, and the five other Corporation fellows were charged with choosing a successor. And even though Lowell was the acknowledged frontrunner, Eliot did not support his candidacy.

“The last man that [Eliot] wanted to be president to follow him was A. Lawrence Lowell,” says Andrew B. Schlesinger ’70, author of “Veritas: Harvard College and the American Experience.”

But despite Eliot’s reservations, Lowell remained the leading candidate for the job. “Lowell was assumed to be the president in waiting for almost 10 years,” Schlesinger says.

An active faculty member, Lowell chaired a number of committees and made his views on undergraduate education known, strongly criticizing Eliot’s unrestricted elective system, which he believed isolated students by not requiring them to focus on one area of study.

While Harvard’s most recent presidents—Lawrence H. Summers, Neil L. Rudenstine, and Derek C. Bok—did not earn their undergraduate degrees at Harvard, it was not debatable in 1908 whether an individual without a Harvard College degree could be chosen, Gomes says.

“I cannot imagine any man’s accepting the presidency of any University but his own,” Lowell frequently said, according to Schlesinger.

In the current search, two leading candidates—Stanford Provost John W. Etchemendy and University of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Alison F. Richard—have no Harvard degree and have never served on Harvard’s faculty.

But Lowell’s connections to the University extended far beyond his own undergraduate degree.

Several of his family members had served on the Corporation; in fact, his relative Francis Cabot Lowell was a member of the Corporation that selected Lowell.

“Since 1784, members of the [Lowell] family have served, collectively, eighty-five years on the Harvard Corporation,” The Nation magazine reported in 1909.

Lowell himself donated generously to the University, and Lowell Lecture Hall was named in his honor even before he assumed the presidency, according to Schlesinger. [SEE CORRECTION BELOW]

While Lowell’s ties to the University made him an obvious choice for president, he was also forthright in his interest in the position. It was “clear that he wanted the job,” Gomes says.

NATIONAL NEWS

Despite the lack of suspense surrounding Lowell’s selection, the search and appointment attracted national interest.

A century ago, “the election of a Harvard president had serious theological and political impacts,” Gomes says, noting that interest in the current search pales in comparison.

“What’s interesting today is that there seems to be hardly any talk,” he adds.

Even President Roosevelt weighed in on the decision, telling the Boston Evening Herald that he was “pleased as punch” with Lowell’s selection. A successful tenure in office would “confer an immense benefit on American intellectual life,” The Nation wrote.

The Boston Journal’s headline, though, took a more urbane interest in Lowell: “Harvard’s New ‘Prexy’ Loves His Wife, His Home, His Family, And He Loves Harvard And Her Traditions.”

—Staff writer Stephanie S. Garlow can be reached at sgarlow@fas.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Brittney L. Moraski can be reached at bmoraski@fas.harvard.edu.

CORRECTION

While A. Lawrence Lowell, Class of 1877, donated the funds for Lowell Lecture Hall before he became Harvard's 22nd president, the initial gift was anonymous and the building was not named in his honor until after his 1943 death, according to historian Andrew B. Schlesinger ’70. The Jan. 10 story "A Presidency Unsealed" incorrectly reported that the naming of the lecture hall preceded Lowell's rise to Harvard's top post.