History of Harvard University "official philosophy" of the more empirical and more deistic Scottish school. Between 1830 and 1870, Harvard became "privatized". While the Federalists controlled state government, Harvard had prospered and the 1824 defeat of the Federalist Party in Massachusetts allowed the renascent Democratic-Republicans to block state funding of private universities. By 1870, the politicians and ministers that heretofore had made up the university's board of overseers had been replaced by Harvard alumni drawn from Boston's upper-class business and professional community and funded by private endowment. During this period, Harvard experienced unparalleled growth that securely placed it financially in a league of its
Harvard University has been responsible for essentially all aspects of admission, instruction, and undergraduate life for women, and Radcliffe was formally merged into Harvard in 1999. Drew Gilpin Faust, previously the dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, became Harvard's president on July 1, 2007. In February 2018, Lawrence Seldon Bacow was designated to take office as its 29th president on July 1, 2018. Harvard's main campus is centered on Harvard Yard in Cambridge, about west-northwest of downtown Boston, and extends into the surrounding Harvard Square neighborhood. Harvard Yard itself contains the central administrative offices and main libraries of the university,