History of Harvard University History of Harvard University Harvard College, around which Harvard University eventually grew, was founded in 1636 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, making it the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. For centuries, its graduates dominated Massachusetts' clerical and civil ranks and beginning in the 19th century its stature became national, then international, as a dozen graduate and professional schools were formed alongside the nucleus undergraduate College. Historically influential in national roles are the schools of medicine (1782), law (1817) and business (1908) as well as the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1890). Since the late 19th century
The Harvard Advocate and artists beyond the Harvard community. When the "Advocate" was founded, it adopted the motto "Dulce est Periculum" (Danger is Sweet) which had been used by an earlier Harvard newspaper, the "Collegian". The magazine originally avoided controversial topics, lest it be shut down by university authorities; by the time the editors were making the then-radical demand for coeducation at Harvard, the magazine had attracted the support of James Russell Lowell and Oliver Wendell Holmes, and its life was less precarious. The founding in 1873 of "The Harvard Crimson" newspaper (originally the "Magenta"), and in 1876, of the "Harvard Lampoon" humor