Harvard University News Office photographs, 1940-1956

Harvard was profoundly affected by the Second World War, de-mobilization, and the Cold War era. These photographs taken by the Harvard University News Office provides a visual record of the era and its transformative impact. These black-and-white images taken primarily by staff photographers depict academic life, facilities, and events at Harvard.

These photographs document the College, graduate schools, Summer School, scientific research, student life, buildings and facilities, ceremonies, and events at Harvard University during World War II and the following decade.

People portrayed include Harvard presidents James B. Conant and Nathan M. Pusey, administrators, faculty, librarians, staff, alumni, and visitors, along with students engaged in various activities in the classroom, around campus, and related to military service. Notable guests and visitors include prominent World War II figures, such as General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, General George S. Patton, and Winston Churchill; the Duke of Windsor, Éamon De Valera, Jawaharlal Nehru, Crown Prince Akihito, and other heads of state; film producer Walt Disney, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, architect Walter Gropius, poet Stephen Spender, jazz composer and pianist Duke Ellington, and composer Aaron Copland; and various local and state politicians.

Campus views show Harvard Yard and the John Harvard statue, Memorial Chapel and Memorial Hall, dormitories, libraries, graduate schools, Harvard College Observatory, laboratory and hospital facilities, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard Stadium, and temporary housing for student veterans and their families. Other views include Radcliffe's campus, Harvard Square, the Charles River, Weld Boathouse, and downtown Boston.

Some of the many newsworthy events recorded include commencement ceremonies and activities from the first graduating class after the war, Edwin Cohn's blood fractionation project, presentation ceremonies for the Harvard Mark I computer devised by Howard Aiken, construction of Lamont Library, a radio broadcast of America's Town Meeting of the Air, a U.S. tour of United Nations war heroes in 1942, a rally outside Memorial Hall for 1948 Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry A. Wallace, filming of MGM's Mystery Street directed by John Sturgis, and conservation by Fogg Art Museum Conservation Department Head Rutherford J. Gettens of Dead Sea Scrolls owned by Assyrian Archbishop Athanasius Yeshue Samuel.

The collection contains 19,701 black-and-white photographs, including 7,118 film negatives, 7,902 contact prints, and 4,681 work prints. The negatives are mostly acetate, interspersed with some nitrate, 4 x 5 in. or smaller. All prints are gelatin silver. For the most part, they correspond to the negatives. The bulk of the contact prints, 4 x 5 in. or smaller, are mounted on paper binder pages, with three or more prints to a page. Most of the pages include handwritten or typewritten image numbers, dates, and brief captions. Many of the work prints, chiefly 8 x 10 in., were retouched, cropped, or otherwise marked for publication.

The Harvard University News Office photographs, 1940-1956 were previously classified as UAV 605.270.1.1, UAV 605.270.1.2, UAV 605.270.1.3, and UAV 605.270.1.4. The collection was consolidated into a single call number, UAV 605.270.1, when described in 2012.