Crow’s Feet and Crimson: Academic Dress at Harvard

Abstract

The corded crow’s-feet, and the collar square, The change and chance of earthly lot must share. — Class Poem at Harvard College, 1835 1 Harvard University, the oldest and perhaps most celebrated and prestigious university in the United States, has been a fixture of the Boston area for almost four hun dred years. Founded a scant fourteen years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, Harvard has grown from a small colonial school to one of the world’s foremost private research universities. 2 Much has been written about Harvard’s history, but this article explores one small aspect of this vast subject: the history and practice of academic dress at this (by New World standards) ancient institution. Harvard dress as it now stands owes a good deal to academic dress in English universities and therefore to the academic dress of medieval Oxford and Cambridge.