Harvard Club of Boston

The Harvard Club of Boston is an organization of Harvard alumni living in and around Boston, Massachusetts. Its membership is open to alumni and associates of Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University, and Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. The Back Bay Clubhouse is located in Boston's historic Back Bay neighborhood, at 374 Commonwealth Avenue.

The Club was founded on March 19, 1908, more than fifty years after the first Boston-based Harvard club was established (see the Records of the Harvard Club, Harvard University Archives call number: HUD 3226). The original aim of the Harvard Club of Boston, summarized by its first five officers, was to "give effective expression to the Harvard spirit" through such activities as annual dinners and other social meetings. By the time the first meeting was held on June 23, 1908, there were more than 450 members. By its second year, the Club had almost 1,200 members, and by 1915, membership was over 4,000.

As membership continued to grow, the Club began to search for a permanent clubhouse. Land at the corner of Massachusetts and Commonwealth Avenues was purchased in May 1912, and the clubhouse was dedicated on November 12, 1913. Due to the higher than expected construction costs, the Club incorporated itself itself in January 1913 to facilitate funding.

In its early year, the Club began several long-standing traditions. These included attending the Harvard-Yale football game and crew races (the Club provided trains to New Haven in odd years), feting victorious Harvard athletic teams, and providing scholarships for local high school students to attend Harvard College. Annual meetings were held in late winter, and various recitals, concerts, talks, and lectures were sponsored by the Club throughout the year. The new clubhouse included eight squash courts, which were open to members' sons, as well as to wives and daughters in 1927. In 1971, women, once limited to dining in the women's annex while the men dined in Harvard Hall, were welcomed as full and active members for the first time in the Club's history.

The Harvard Club of Boston Foundation was established on July 10, 1950 to facilitate fund-raising for the scholarships offered by the Club. In 1954, a downtown "Harvard Banquet" room was opened at Purcell's Restaurant on School Street in order to give members a convenient place to gather for lunch. This facility moved in 1967, but a permanent Downtown Harvard Club was opened at One Milk Street in November 1976.

In 2016, after 108 years, the Club welcomed its first female President, Karen Van Winkle, a Harvard College alumna and native of Cambridge, Massachusetts.