| Adams House (harvard University) |
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Information AboutAdams House (harvard University) |
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Most of the buildings of Adams House were originally private "Gold Coast" dormitories built around 1900 to provide luxurious accommodation for rich Harvard undergraduates. They, along with Apthorp House (now the Master's residence, originally a Colonial era mansion) predate the rest of Harvard's Houses. The current main entrance hall, which contains the common rooms, library, kitchen and dining areas, as well as the C-entry suites, was added to link the various disparate structures together when the house system was initiated in the 1930s. Although officially inaugurated in 1931, Adams was not completed until 1932. Surprisingly, given the House’s current appeal, Adams was not popular initially; the Victorian era rooms of the Gold Coast buildings seemed dark and "Germanic" to 1930's taste, and many students preferred the entirely new structures of strict nightly curfews and fraternization rules came to greatly value Adams multiple and unguarded entries – so unlike the central, monitored portals of the newer undergraduate residences. Today of course, such stringencies are long gone, and the various buildings comprising Adams House are considered some of the most interesting and architecturally significant structures in the House system. Before Harvard opted to use a random system to assign housing to upperclassmen in the 1990s, students chose their houses based on many factors, including house personality. Adams was considered the artistic and literary house. Vestiges of that reputation still remain today, embodied in the House's two theaters (one a converted swimming pool, a change much lamented by alumni mourning the many late night trists and illicit pool parties that used to occur there) as well as its Bow and Arrow Printing Press. Adams has continued to uphold its most beloved traditions, including Halloween's Drag Night and Masquerade, a Winter Feast that features a black tie reading of Winnie-the-Pooh, the Spring Waltz, and Friday afternoon Master's Teas that are considered the best in the University. Effusive house spirit, architectural beauty, and convenient location continue to make Adams a highly desirable residence for undergraduates and fortunate tutors. Like all the other Houses at Harvard, Adams possesses its own coat of arms: Adams' is derived from an 1838 seal ring of John Quincy Adams . James Finney Baxter, the House's first master, changed the background to gold to symbolize the Gold Coast, and added four additional oak sprigs to the original to represent the five buildings of Adams House. Its official heraldic designaton is: "Or, five sprigs of oak acorned in saltire, Gules." The House motto, "''Alteri Saeculo''," is taken from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations: "He who plants trees labors for the benefit of future generations." (In the original Latin: "''Serit arbores quae alteri saeculo prosint.''") To this day, House athletic teams are called "Gold Coasters." The current masters of Adams House are Dr. Judith Palfrey and her husband Dr. Sean Palfrey EXTERNAL LINK |
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