Harvard University, Cambridge
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Harvard University was founded in 1636, making it one of the oldest universities in the United States. The school was named after John Harvard, a Charlestown pastor who donated money and books to the fledgling institution. It began as a center of religious training for young Puritan men.Today Harvard has professional schools in Medicine, Divinity, Law, Dentistry, and Arts and Sciences, with over 2,000 faculty members and enrollment of over 20,000 students annually. It is widely considered one of the world's leading academic institutions.Visitors can take a free guided historical walking tour of the campus to see and learn more about the institution. Tours begin at the Harvard Information Center. There is also an audio tour available for download.
Harvard University Map
Important Information:
Official site:
www.harvard.edu
Address:
1350 Massachusetts Avenue, United States
Guides: Interpretive sessions sometimes available.
Facilities: Gift shop, Restaurant or food service
Transit: T: Harvard
Related Attractions
Harvard Museum of Natural History
The Harvard Museums of Natural History in Cambridge consists of four different museums under one roof. Harvard's massive research collection is presented at the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, the Mineralogical and Geological Museum, the Museum of Comparative Zoology and the Botanical Museum.The galleries include the Glass Flowers collection, the historic Hall of Mammals and comprehensive displays of minerals, rocks, ores and meteorites.
Museum of Comparative Zoology
Swiss zoologist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) founded the Museum of Comparative Zoology in 1859. There are 12 different departments which cover the variety and comparative nature of animal life: Biological Oceanography, Entomology, Herpetology, Ichthyology, Invertebrate Paleontology, Invertebrate Zoology, Mammalogy, Marine Biology, Mollusks, Ornithology, Population Genetics, and Vertebrate Paleontology. The museum contains an extensive collection of fossils including the 25,000-year-old Harvard mastodon unearthed in New Jersey.
Mineralogical Museum
The Mineralogical Museum was founded in 1891 after receiving a large donation from A. F. Holden (class of 1888). The museum is still located in the same building and is noted for having some of the finest exhibits including rough and cut gemstones, a world-renowned meteorite collection, rocks, ores and minerals from around the world.The Geological Museum was merged with the Mineralogical Museum in 1977 but is now part of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS).
Harvard Botanical Museum
Now part of the Harvard Museum of Natural History.The Botanical Museum was founded in 1858 as the Museum of Vegetable Products and it concentrates on commercial plants, or economic botany. However, it is perhaps best known for its unique collection of glass flowers. Around 3000 models representing more than 800 species were created between 1887 through 1936 by artisans Leopold and Rudolf Baschka.
Fogg Art Museum
The Fogg Art Museum is Harvard's oldest art museum, it opened in 1895. The museum was endowed by Elizabeth Fogg in memory of her husband. Fogg Art Museum moved to its Italian Renaissance-style building on the Harvard University campus in 1927.The collection at the museum is composed of European and American sculpture, painting, drawings, photographs and decorative arts from the Middle Ages to the present. The Wertheim Collection is housed on the second floor of the Fogg Museum. It contacins Impressionist and post-Impressionist work, with many famous masterworks.The Fogg Art Museum is also home to the Straus Center for Conservation, the oldest research center for the scientific study of works of art in the United States.
Busch-Reisinger Museum
The Busch-Reisinger Museum is devoted to Central and Northern European art highlighting artists from German speaking countries. German literature professor Kuno Francke founded it as the Germanic Museum in 1901 but the named was changed in 1950 in honor of its major benefactors. The collection contains examples of Austrian Secession art, German expressionism, 1920s abstraction, Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque sculpture, 16th-century painting, 18th-century porcelain, and an ever-expanding series of post-war and contemporary art from German-speaking Europe.
Arthur M Sackler Museum
The Arthur M Sackler Museum houses a collection of Ancient, Asian, Islamic, and Later Indian art. Items within the permanent collection include precious Chinese jades, Samanid pottery, Ottoman textiles, Korean Buddhist sculptures, Japanese woodblock prints and more. In order to display different parts of the large and diverse collection, exhibits change regularly. On the first floor, the museum hosts temporary, or traveling exhibits.
Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology
The Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology contains objects and artifacts brought back from Harvard sponsored research trips by its founder, George Peabody. There are curios, relics, ceremonial objects and more from North America, Latin America and the Pacific Rim.
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