The GOLD Coast

"Harvard has always offered its own ordeal, its own version of 'reality,' its own way of giving form to freedom--the contests in the classroom and elsewhere, where children of wealth compete to prove their excellence. Nobody who's 'got it made' has to strive for A's at Harvard, or go out for the varsity, or try for the lead in undergraduate plays, or 'comp' for the Crimson, or do much of anything except get by and get into the Porcellian Club. Everything is optional, as most things always will be for these children of the rich." Nelson W. Aldrich, Jr., author of Old Money: the Mythology of America's Upper Class.

Another typical evening. A group of perfectly groomed young gentlemen in dinner jackets stroll to their club for a brief bourbon. Tonight, the glittering ballroom of the cotillion is theirs for the taking. Silk gowns sway and champagne flows. The band thrills and the playboys survey the scene. The party swells. In the early morning hours, the gala subsides and the young men return to their lush apartments on Mount Auburn Street.

"It was the Gold Coast. The visible plumbing was solid gold. The doorknobs were pigeon-blood rubies. We were Gilded Youths who needed to have some of the gilt removed."

For these young men, four years at Harvard did not symbolize an opportunity to advance intellect. Rather, college was an extravagant joyride. At the turn of the century, one member of the Gold Coast, Donald Clark Henderson, reveled in this world of fabulous superfluity:

"I had a suite of three rooms: two bedrooms, study with fireplace, and bath, second floor front in Westmorely Court in Mt. Auburn Street. In the basement was the only swimming pool in Cambridge in those days. Boston newspapers referred to this neighborhood as the Gold Coast. The study proved to be an ideal spot for poker. The pool was a handy bit of moisture into which to dunk unsuspecting and slightly alcoholized guests, without bothering to remove their clothing--often white tie and tails and a two-quart hat. This seemed to have a sobering effect."

On the Gold Coast, students lived in the lap of luxury surrounded by all that money could buy. Local realtors jumped at the chance to rent exclusive apartment houses on Mt. Auburn Street catered to the needs of the extremely wealthy. Claverly Hall, Apley Court and Randolph Hall and Westmorely Court (today, part of Adams House) housed the College's rich kids. These students were the members of the social clubs, the clientele of the mirrored bars and marbled restaurants of downtown Boston and the owners the flashy Mercedes and Renaults parked along Mt. Auburn.

Harvard playboys were fascinating creatures. Living in opulent Claverly Hall or Westmorely Court, these young men led lives of constant gayety--and all of America watched them.

The boys of the Gold Coast were members of the elite--well-dressed, well-bred and well-endowed. Their world was classic yet cosmopolitan, restrained yet debaucherous. Henderson writes:

"I again was conscious of the brilliant and thrilling spectacle--the lovely young girls in furs with flowers, undergraduates in bearskin and coonskin greatcoats, graduates, many with wives, many with bright-eyed sons and daughters and grandchildren, all wearing crimson, most of them waving banners, giving forth the unforgettable scents of a great Eastern football classic-odor of healthy flesh nipped by late November chill, perfume of flowers, perfume of perfume, perfume of feminine hair, sharp tang of Egyptian cigarette fumes, clean breath of bourbon, smell of furs--chanting roar of cheers, of thousands of male voices raised in enthralled song, shrill feminine screams of sheer ecstasy."

Meanwhile, Henderson's cohort, the Prince of India, enshrouded in silks and jewels, lounged in his rooms in Westmorely Court.

The social throng of the Gold Coast would go from spot to spot in Boston--to the best and most expensive locales to meet other young persons of quality. When in the luxurious atmosphere of their rooms, boys parted with exorbitant amounts of money to continue their high stakes reveling far into the night. Many Golden Youth kept scrapbooks of their social lives during the turn of the century--records of parties and club dinners and inordinate activities. They saved: scrolled Hasty Pudding invitations, silk-tasseled dance cards for exclusive parties, gold engraved menus for Porcellian dinners boasting aged port as an aperitif, festooned playbills, thick opera programs and multitudinous cotillion invitations with summons to some of the most prestigious and exclusive clubs and hotels in Boston. William Gibbons Morse, Class of 1899:

"Boston is near and while the custom of Boston Society of inviting an unknown list of sophomores to meet their daughters at their debutante dances is not an unmixed blessing for boys engrossed in studies, neither is it an unmixed evil. This training does not make for good manners, tending to make a snob of an impressionable boy, who learns to think that he has been sought after by a social Boston of which he does not altogether approve, of which he may even be a bit contemptuous. Yet it does open a door for a needed contact with girls; it is possible for the not-too-shy man to call and make friends."

But for some students at the turn of the century, most doors were closed.

The Gold Coast was an exclusive club, and the Harvard administration had other priorities. In fact, rather than try and combat the social chasm between the rich and the poor, Harvard magnified the disparity by relegating the poorer students to the Yard. Living in the Yard meant many things: no heat, no running water and a strong feeling of social inferiority. This rooming system created a caste system within the student population.

In 1897, Scribner's Magazine recognized the overwhelming elitism felt among the fraction of Gilded Youth:

"In this great collection of young men, there are lads who are used, when at home, to dine in a dresscoat, and very many others who never possessed a dresscoat and do not see the need for one...lads who are used to society and lads that are not."

The article illustrated Gold Coast living with sketches of young men lounging in their rooms, smoking cigars and generally enjoying the fruits of leisure.

Struggling with tiny grates and dusty fireplaces, the boys in the Yard lived in cold and uncomfortable conditions. Their creature comforts were not Venetian mirrors and chaise lounges, but broken-down furniture and a Harvard pennant.

"Fastidious youths who wanted plumbing had to room in private houses," writes historian Samuel Eliot Morison. There was no heat in any of the Yard buildings, and students bought their own coal and stored it in the basement of Grays Hall. An editorial in an 1895 Crimson vehemently protested the lack of bathing facilities and lamented that the only water to be found was in the basement of each building or from the pump outside of Hollis. Today, the pump rests as a bizarre monument in the Yard, but to the boys banished for lack of money, the pump was their sole source of plumbing.

Morison felt that nothing could change the social strata so strongly felt at Harvard.

"Boston has been a social leech of Harvard College...when the supply of eligible young men in Boston was decreased by the westward movement, the Boston mammas suddenly became aware that Harvard contained many appetizing young gentlemen from New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere...In vain are freshmen tossed onto the same heap; freshman fellowship, brisk enough in the opening days of College and the first elections of committees, blows away in a whiff of invitations to dances and week-end house parties. The social cleaver widened the chasm that a mistaken laissez-faire created between Yard and Gold Coast; and not even the houses or the Depression have bridged that gap."

Throughout its history, Harvard College has suffered the effects of a "social cleaver." In the mid-eighteenth century the college president personally listed students, when they enrolled, in order of their social rank or, to be precise, "to the Dignity of the Familie whereto the students severally belonged." The social list was printed in the college catalogue for all to see. The creme de la creme were placed at the top, followed by the social outcasts who attended Harvard because of academic merit. The social list determined precedence in table seating and service during meals, position in academic processionals and even class recitation. Without ancestral mansions in Newport or proof of a Mayflower voyage, the boys at the end of the list really did come last.

This institutionalized method of social rank was soon terminated, not because it was deemed undemocratic, but because too many angry parents harrassed the president for not rating their sons high enough. Nevertheless, new lists emerged and even without the "official list" the Gold Coast was still shining in the distance, a glowing reminder of the best things in life.

Living in the Yard was not the only punishment for poverty and social shortcomings. Subsequent presidents maintained an unofficial roster of the elite students and lists were used in many of the University clubs--especially the exclusive final clubs: the dictators of social success at Harvard. The Institute of 1770, which joined with the Hasty Pudding Club in 1926, began the social filtering at the beginning of sophomore year. The Institute chose the college's 100 most socially promising students and then ranked them in groups of 10, from the ultraprivileged to the "barely-elite." Local newspapers would publish the precise lists so all of the city could see "everybody who was anybody." Woe to those young men in the Yard far away from Gold Coast leisure and social success.

Enrique Hank Lopez, author of The Harvard Mystique, argues that the existing dichotomy between the Yard and the Gold Coast encouraged a rank-conscious Harvard population.

"The majority who remained in the Yard, in addition to their physical discomfort, suffered the psychological stigma of being unfashionable. And when the new private dormitories [on the Gold Coast] increased the growth of elite private clubs, [President Charles] Eliot's critics accused him of erecting an aristocratic society on the ruins of the supposedly democratic community he had inherited."

But times changed. The Housing system was initiated. In theory, the Houses were a democratic advance for Harvard. President A. Lawrence Lowell, Class of 1877, wanted democracy to reign and usurp the aristocracy. The Gold Coast would be a thing of the past and the socially elite would mix with the common man. In the General Information for the Class of 1935, Lowell proclaimed his philosophy of the houses on the first page of the book:

"The Houses are designed to help substitute for the schoolboy attitude of mind...Now contacts, good talk, wide range of friendships, flourish when men live in a community, and take their meals in the same dining room, not only with other undergraduates of different classes, types and early associations, but also with tutors...That is the meaning of the houses; but unfortunately some men do not appreciate these things and fail to take the full advantage of them until after the chance has gone."

By design, this change would entail some discomfort for the Gold Coasters. But this new system of democracy was not a reality. To join a House, the master would interview an undergraduate to see if his attitude was an acceptable addition to the microcosm within the Harvard community. Soon the Houses gained reputations of their own.

According to Dwight D. Miller, admissions officer and tutor in Eliot House for 30 years, "Master Finley [of Eliot House] and Master Perkins [of Lowell House] were famous for their interviews. They were the antithesis of randomization." Eliot and Lowell rapidly became the homes of the elite with a few "commoners" sprinkled in. In those days, students could pick their freshman roommates and many prep-school students and New York upper-crust chose to live together. They flocked to Eliot and Lowell in groups which were, says Miller, "pretty exclusively St. Grottlesex."

This system passively supported the continuation of the Harvard caste system. Even though the Houses were somewhat diverse, the intense social polarization of the Gold Coast remained.

While the House system became the so-called forum for socialization, Harvard students still felt that their social standing and careers depended on admission and success in a final club. Not every young gent made the cut--many were left outside in the cold, staring through the windows of the Pudding, watching the swirling gowns and flowing champagne--the legacy of the Gold Coast.

Boston society was stongly invested in the fate of the student-gentry and their new haunt--the social clubs--as they had been with the Gold Coast. One article found in the scrapbook of a 1903 graduate, George Stillman, proclaimed in the headline, "Student Stunts at Harvard!-Tests Required of Candidates for Secret Societies." The Boston Globe often announced the Hasty Pudding Annual Dance with detailed explanations of ball gowns and the appearance of the women as well as lists of the social elite at the party.

Among the elite, there were students who chose not to participate in this exclusive social world. Walter C. Paine '49, grandson of President Eliot, slogged through the massacres of World War Two before beginning Harvard College. "Many of us looked down on the kids sliding by and getting C grades and having a hell of a time."

Today, the Gold Coast glitters no longer. But even with current randomization policies, the question of elitism at Harvard remains. The College is accused of admitting students based on money and social standing rather than academic achievement. Miller claims that times have certainly changed.

"Since the late 1960s, Harvard has been much more diverse. It started from a swing to public school acceptances post-World War Two. The country exploded demographically and so admissions changed."

However, author Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., maintains that the strength of aristocracy in Harvard affairs still holds strong:

"For admissions officers, it's all a question of balance: between children of the 'high' social composition of each entering class--and children of 'talent.' The actual Harvard has usually fixed that balance at around 20 percent of alumni children. They are called, fittingly enough, 'legacies.'"

Wide social chasms, though not as pronounced as the separation between Coast and Yard, continue and flourish. Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 states:

"As far as where you live and what courses you take, Harvard has tried to eliminate differences based on personal resources, though of course it cannot wipe out all effects of personal differences in family means."

There is no longer the flurry of cotillion invitations and the constant sight of young men bedecked in top hats and tails strolling to their apartments on the Gold Coast to smoke a cigar under the light of a glowing chandelier. Nor the spectacle of languishing youths, waited on hand and foot by a faithful valet. However, the legacy of the Coast has not disappeared. Present-day inequity takes a subtler form.