End of War Brought Return of Daily Crimson

With the end of World War II in 1945, the Harvard campus slowly returned to civilian status, and The Crimson also began the process of "reconversion," picking up its old masthead after publishing as The Harvard Service News for about three years.

The Crimson suspended publication in 1943 because of a lack of time to put out a newspaper and the "small place for it in a College of uniforms," according to The Crimson of May 21, 1943. The decision to publish The Service News was made by the members of the Crimson's Graduate Board, who were worried that there would not be enough editors to put out a full-time newspaper and who wanted to conserve paper for the war effort.

The Service News, which had a more military slant than the regular Crimson, was published twice a week by students.

However, as the uniforms disappeared and editors returned from the war, The Crimson reclaimed its name and daily publishing schedule on April 9, 1946.

Not everything was back to peacetime norms, however. The newspaper's executive board was unusually diverse in class years, ranging from Paul Southwick '43, head of photography, to J. Anthony Lewis '48, who held the position of executive editor.

"There were a lot of older people returning from the war who were dominant, and rightly so," says Lewis, now a New York Times columnist. "For those of us obsessed with The Crimson, they were names from history--and suddenly, there they were."

Stories about the rescinding of the mandatory athletics policy and Coop refunds (12 percent) replaced stories about war bond drives and the military sign-up sessions. The only morning reveille in the news was Harvard's prank on the Princeton Tigers on the morning of the football game between the two schools, which the Crimson won 13-12.

The Service News advertisements for the best deal on military uniforms and Bell Telephone's contributions to the war effort yielded to ads offering to fill the book orders of veterans or teach Harvard students to dance the rhumba.

In celebration of their return, Crimson editors published a picture of the Lampoon Ibis covered in "mourning rags the very same night it heard that the Crimson--of whom it has an unfounded fear--was back."

The Lampoon, a semi-secret Bow Street social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine, also returned to peacetime after the wartime effort. During the war years, the 'Poon kept its publication up with a barebones staff and reprints of material, managing to send one issue to every Harvard student serving in the military.

Other Extracurriculars

Phillips Brooks House, which devoted itself to selling war bonds, sponsoring blood drives and serving as a combination day care and center for Navy wives, slowly began to return to peacetime functions. The speakers committee, undergraduate faculty tutors, social service committee and textbook loan library all returned.

The Advocate, which had disappeared during the war years to be replaced by a magazine titled The Wake, slowly began its return. The Harvard Dramatic Club struggled through a few wartime productions, as did many of the College's musical groups.

The Glee Club, unable to travel during the fuel-rationed war days, took its first spring trip in 1946 and continued the full schedule of local concerts and yearly appearances with the Boston symphony that had begun during the mid-1940s.

The debate team built on its win of the Coolidge prize in competitions against Yale and Princeton during war years to attract an excited group of new participants.

The war also led to new extracurriculars that lasted beyond the period of hostilities. The Harvard Forum, a "wartime organization with peacetime objectives," continued to meet and attempted to "stimulate student opinion" well into the peacetime era.

Formal football games sprung up again, and the Crimson faced the University of Connecticut in its first official game since 1942, winning 7-0. The band and the big drum also appeared after a long period of dormancy, and the cheerleaders were on the field again. The crowds were still at wartime levels, though, when informal play was the only option for diehard football fans.

The undergraduates on campus were a very different group from the usual population: Since many students were already well into their adult lives, they tended to be "more mature and motivated," Lewis says.

Daily Life

In the University Theatre, Walt Disney's "Pinocchio" and the "Ziegfeld Follies" were playing. A yearlong subscription to The Crimson was $1.50, and a versatile men's suit was $40. Life after the war was prosperous for many.

The first contact lenses, called "invisible eyeglasses" were introduced. New magazines and banks offered special deals for student veterans.

Workers from the Whiting dairy hand-delivered milk to the new housing for married veterans. The janitor of Claverly Hall wore a jaunty bowler hat.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press was reporting the U.S. loan of millions of dollars to Poland, the battles between guards and Alcatraz prisoners and the expiration of the draft act.

The Rhodes Scholarship was offered again; and as a courtesy to veterans, the selection committee relaxed its rules by allowing married students and those up to 32 years of age to apply.

The reading room of Widener became all-male once again, as Radcliffe students were moved to a room in Memorial Church.

Classes returned, at least for a brief time, to an all-male makeup. Radcliffe students, who had taken classes with Harvard students during the war, were again excluded during the summer term of 1946, as enrollments skyrocketed and professors struggled to accommodate the overwhelming numbers.

Science classes, easily the most popular during wartime, were replaced by the introductory social science classes of Economics A and Government 1. History 5 jumped 125 percent in enrollment in one year alone.

The higher-than-expected enrollment in the social sciences led students to crowd through Boylston and Widener Libraries looking for course books.