The 2012 historical fiction novel "The Technologists", by Matthew Pearl, is set in the MIT of 1868, during its first decade of existence. The protagonists are some of the first students to enroll in the fledgling college, and include both fictional composite characters and real-life historical figures, such as Ellen Swallow Richards and Daniel Chester French. In response to a high-tech terrorist attack on the City of Boston, the students form a secret research laboratory to discover the perpetrator and to forestall further attacks. They interact closely with prominent historical figures, such as William Barton Rogers (the founder of MIT), Harvard professor Louis Agassiz (pioneer of modern geology and paleontology), and Charles William Eliot (then an MIT professor, and soon to become the longest-serving president of Harvard University). The author spent many hours doing background research in the MIT Archives while writing the novel, and weaves many historical details into his narrative of mystery and adventure.