The Harvard Crimson The Harvard Crimson The Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates. Any student who volunteers and completes a series of requirements known as the "comp" is elected an editor of the newspaper. Thus, all staff members of "The Crimson"—including writers, business staff, photographers, and graphic designers—are technically "editors". (If an editor makes news, he or she is referred to in the paper's news article as a ""Crimson" editor", which, though important for transparency, also leads to characterizations
Harvard University by the 19th century, Harvard had emerged as the central cultural establishment among Boston elites. Following the American Civil War, President Charles W. Eliot's long tenure (1869–1909) transformed the college and affiliated professional schools into a modern research university; Harvard was a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. A. Lawrence Lowell, who followed Eliot, further reformed the undergraduate curriculum and undertook aggressive expansion of Harvard's land holdings and physical plant. James Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war.