Porcellian Club


The Porcellian Club is an all-male final club at Harvard University, colloquially known as the Porc or the P.C. Its founding is traditionally dated to either 1791, when a group began meeting under the name "the Argonauts," or 1794, the year of a roast pig dinner that formally established the club under its initial name, the "Pig Club." The club's Epicurean motto, Dum vivimus vivamus, and its emblem—a pig—reflect its origins. Members often wear golden pig motifs on watch chains or neckties adorned with pig-head symbols.
Regarded as Harvard’s "oldest and most prestigious" social club, the Porcellian has been described as the iconic "hotsy-totsy final club" and is frequently cited by the university as "the most final of them all."

History

The Porcellian Club traces its origins to 1791, though its formal establishment is often linked to a roast pig dinner in 1794. According to a February 23, 1887, article in The Harvard Crimson, the club emerged from a student prank involving a pig:
An 1891 article in the Cambridge Chronicle highlights key founding figures:

Symbols

The Porcellian Club's motto, Dum vivimus vivamus, reflects its Epicurean ethos. Its primary symbol is a golden pig, which also serves as the club's mascot. Members, colloquially referred to as "Porkies," often incorporate pig motifs into accessories such as neckties, watch chains, or blazers.

Clubhouse

The Porcellian Club's clubhouse is located at 1324 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts, above the former store of clothier J. August. Designed by architect and club member William York Peters, the building's entrance faces Harvard freshman dormitories and the Porcellian Gate, donated by the club in 1901. The gate, marking the entrance to Harvard Yard, features a limestone carving of a boar's head. Notably, Theodore Roosevelt brought his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt, to dine at the club during their undergraduate years.

Architecture and layout

An 1891 article in the Cambridge Chronicle described the newly constructed clubhouse:

The enlargement of the club's library, and the fact of its growing postgraduate or honorary membership roll, compelled it from time to time to enlarge its accommodations. Finally, in 1881, it determined to tear down the old house where it had so long met, on Harvard street and build a new structure its site. The new structure is of brick, handsomely trimmed in stone, and rises to the height of four stories, with about seventy or eighty feet of frontage on Harvard street. Two large stores claim a part of the ground floor, but they do not encroach on the broad and handsome entrance to the club's apartments.
The three upper floors are used exclusively by the club. The first of them contains a large hall which opens both into the front and rear reception rooms and parlors, which, in turn, communicate. From each of these rooms a door leads to the library, which extends through from the front to the rear. On the second floor, in addition to a room over the library, there is a billiard hall in the front and a breakfast room in the rear with the kitchen over the main hall of the floor beneath. Nearly the whole of the top floor is taken up by a large banquet hall, vaulted by handsome rafters.

Cultural perception

Despite its exclusivity, critics like Jeffrey Hart—a National Review columnist, Ronald Reagan speechwriter, and Dartmouth College professor—questioned the club's mystique. Hart remarked:

Notable features

A portrait titled The Steward by Joseph DeCamp hangs in the clubhouse, depicting longtime steward George Washington Lewis. A 1929 obituary in Time noted:

George Washington Lewis, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, for over 45 years the esteemed Negro steward of the Porcellian Club at Harvard College; in Cambridge, Massachusetts Ancient and most esoteric of Harvard clubs is Porcellian, founded in 1791.* An oil portrait of Steward Lewis hangs in the clubhouse. Steward Lewis had ten Porcellian pallbearers.

Historical significance

The Porcellian Club has played a notable role in Harvard's social history, particularly through its associations with prominent figures. Theodore Roosevelt and other members of the Roosevelt family were inducted, but his distant cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt—then a Harvard sophomore and later a U.S. President—was not invited to join. Franklin instead joined the rival Fly Club alongside his roommate; three of his sons later followed. According to relative Sheffield Cowles, Franklin reportedly described the rejection as "the greatest disappointment in his life," though this claim may be hyperbolic. Similarly, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., excluded from the club due to his Catholic background, reportedly held lingering resentment. Biographer David Nasaw noted Kennedy's fixation on the snub: "For years later, Joe Kennedy remembered the day he didn't make the Porcellian Club…realizing that none of the Catholics he knew at Harvard had been selected."

Cultural Influence

A British 1870 travel book highlighted the club's prestige:
A notice of Harvard would be as incomplete without a reference to the Porcellian Club as a notice of Oxford or Cambridge would be in which the Union Debating Society held no place. This and the Hasty Pudding Club… are the two lions of Harvard. The Porcellian Club is hardly a place of resort for those who cultivate the intellect at the expense of the body. The list of active members is small, owing in part to the largeness of the annual subscription. The great desire of every student is to become a member of it…the doings of the club are shrouded in secrecy…All that can be said by a stranger who has been privileged to step behind the scenes is that the mysteries are rites which can be practised without much labor and yield a pleasure which is fraught with no unpleasant consequences.

The club's influence extended into Boston's elite institutions. Historians note that architect H. H. Richardson's selection to design Trinity Church—a landmark of American architecture—was bolstered by his Porcellian membership. As one historian observed:
The thirty-four-year-old possessed one great advantage over the other candidates: as a popular Harvard undergraduate he had been a member of several clubs, including the prestigious Porcellian; thus he needed no introduction to the rector, Phillips Brooks, or five of the eleven-man building committee—they were all fellow Porcellian members.

Membership

The Porcellian Club historically maintained exclusionary membership practices. A biography of Norman Mailer notes that during his time at Harvard, "It would have been unthinkable... for a Jew to be invited to join one of the so-called final clubs like Porcellian, A.D. Club, Fly, or Spee".

Demographic shifts

By the late 20th century, the influence of Boston Brahmins at Harvard had waned. A 1986 survey noted that while other final clubs diversified—electing Jewish and Black presidents—the Porcellian admitted only occasional Jewish members and, in 1983, its first African American member, who had attended St. Paul's. This decision reportedly alarmed some alumni.
A 1994 Harvard Crimson article by Joseph Mathews observed evolving trends:
Prep school background, region and legacy status do not appear to be the sole determinants of membership they may once have been, but... they remain factors.

As of 2016, the club remained all-male, defending "the value of single-gender institutions for men and women as a supplement and option to coeducational institutions."

Joseph McKean Gate

In 1901, the Joseph McKean Gate—a portal to Harvard Yard—was erected directly opposite the Porcellian Clubhouse. A March 20, 1909, notice in The Harvard Crimson announced:

A gate is to be erected at the entrance to the Yard between Wadsworth House and Boylston Hall. It is to be erected by members of the Porcellian Club in memory of Joseph McKean 1794, S.T.D., LL.D. Boylston Professor of Rhetoric, Oratory and Elocution, and also the founder of the Porcellian Club.

The gate prominently displays the Porcellian's symbol, a boar's head, carved in limestone above the central arch. It remains a prominent Harvard landmark, marking the boundary between Harvard Yard and Massachusetts Avenue.

Notable members

The Porcellian Club’s alumni include prominent figures in politics, literature, and academia. A 1929 Time obituary noted its roster featured "Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt Jr., Poet Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Nicholas Longworth, Poet James Russell Lowell, Richard Henry Dana Jr., Novelist Owen Wister, John Jay Chapman." A 1940 Time article added:

The Pork...is very much a family affair. Upon its roster, generation after generation, appear the same proud Boston names—Adams, Ames, Amory, Cabot, Cushing, etc.

Selected notable members include: