The Long Hard Job Of Feeding Harvard Students: The History of Harvard Dining Services

In 1896 the men of Harvard College banded together in protest. Their complaint was not the academic program, University facilities or the state of world affairs, but Irish Stew.

"The stew is disagreeable in taste, and to many men who simply cannot eat it, is an item of expense, since it requires the ordering of extras," wrote the undergraduates in a letter to the editors of The Crimson.

"We appreciate the wish of the Directors to give as great a variety of food as possible, but dislike this particular variety. Finally, we believe that food which is, as the first petition showed, objectionable to nearly two hundred men, should be no longer served in Memorial Hall," the men wrote.

A century later, in the interminable search for a palatable meal in the dining halls, College students empathize with these Harvard students of yesteryear.

But terms like "extras", "Directors" and "petition" have disappeared from dining hall parlance.

Even if food quality has remained much the same over the past century (some students may argue that it is literally the same food), the administration of Harvard's Dining Services has evolved from a student-run entrepreneurial system to the University-wide organization that it is today.

Originally known as the Harvard Dining Association (HDA), the organization that controlled meals at Memorial and Randall Halls at the turn of the century was a board of directors composed of six elected undergraduate representatives and three appointed by the Harvard Corporation. It was to this body that the Irish Stew protest was aimed.

Randall Hall stood in the current location of William James Hall. Students and faculty members could purchase membership in the HDA for five dollars per year. Membership entitled students to vote for the Directors. Elections were prestigious and competitive contests.

All University students and affiliates could purchase individual meals or weekly coupon booklets to eat at the dining facilities. There was no semester-long meal plan.

To keep student costs down, HDA offered the "American Plan" as the basic meal option. The plan served students cereals, bread, cake, soups and a selection of vegetables.

In 1911, students could purchase a weekly meal plan for $5.25. Breakfast, lunch and dinner could be purchased individually for 30, 35 and 50 cents respectively.

At any meal, students could also purchase "extras", including meats, fish, eggs, salads, fruit, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, milk, lemonade and desserts. According to the letter to The Crimson, extras were popular on days when Irish Stew was served as part of the American Plan.

The HDA maintained services responsive to student needs. For example, those who purchased meal coupons by the week could receive reimbursements if they left campus for the weekend.

"The plan partakes of the nature of a co-operative society run for the benefit of its members," according to an HDA brochure from 1907.

At the beginning of each semester, students registered for club tables where they would eat for the year. The designated head of each table acted as a liaison between members of the table and the management.

A picture in the 1907 brochure shows the former Memorial Hall dining room, now Annenberg Hall, with tablecloths, silverware and serving trays between each table.

According to the brochure, members could bring in guests, including "ladies," who were "admitted only to the Southeast Room." Smoking was permitted in the Hall.

In 1893, Robert W. Greenleaf, M.D., of Boston, published The Diet of Harvard Students, a comprehensive review of where and what Harvard students were eating. His poll indicated a variety of places at which University students and affiliates took their meals. Many students ate at Cambridge restaurants or in their places of residence (at the time, many students lived in local boarding houses which were not University-sponsored).

Thus, University dining halls, which served about 1100 students, faced stiff competition in their attempt to attract students, and, in fact, operated "at a heavy loss to the University" in 1909, according to University President A. Lawrence Lowell, class of 1878 in a letter to an HDA director.

Spring of 1924 was HDA's last season running the Harvard dining halls. They reopened in the fall under University management.

According to an article that appeared in The Crimson on Saturday, September 20, 1924, Memorial Hall reopened with "many striking innovations." Along with lower prices, changed seating arrangements and the ability to term-bill meal coupons, "white waitresses replaced negresses."

"The hall has been provided with entirely new service and new equipment which are expected to improve the quality of the dining hall. White waitresses have been substituted for negro waiters, and a complete stock of new tables and easy armchairs has been put in," The Crimson reported. "Not only will the menu be more varied in the future, but white table clothes, out of use for over a dozen years, will be restored."

"And for the first time in its half century of existence, Memorial Hall will extend its privileges to ladies, with escorts," the article said.

Obviously, Memorial Hall has undergone many changes since the '20s. The centralization of Dining Services began under Lowell.

"One of the most valuable things in college life is the close contact among students, with the lasting friendships formed thereby; and this is promoted by nothing so much as dining together," Lowell wrote to the director of HDA in 1909.

Eventually, the University would expand and operate all of Harvard's new dining halls, including the Freshman Union, the houses and the graduate dining halls.

According to Michael P. Berry, former director of Harvard Dining Services (HDS), each hall served the same menu.

"That was the low-point," Berry said. "That was when they tried to sell the same plan to everyone," he said.

In the mid-1960s, however, the graduate schools began to contract separate food services because they felt they were "getting undergraduate food," according to Berry.

Today, all of the University's food services are centralized under HDS. However, there is more variation within each dining hall.

Berry himself learned a lesson from the grad-school defection--his own strategy focused giving the director of each dining hall as much autonomy as possible.

"We had to find some way to have the managers meet the specific needs of the particular houses," Berry said. "They were slightly different but meeting the needs of the students."

During Berry's six-year tenure as Director, dining services made other advances.

"We came in 1976," said Hanna M. Hastings, former co-master of what was then North House. "The food was pretty bad at that time and there was seldom a protein-rich vegetarian alternative."

According to Hastings, in one year there were such budgetary constraints that some houses could not even offer a hot breakfast. For example, all students in the Quad had to go to Cabot if they wished to eat bacon and eggs.

Such inconveniences are no longer the case since Berry has been Director. More variety (including vegetarian grill options) and a responsiveness to student concern has made HDS a more respectable University body.

However, students say that HDS still has a long way to go. Although Irish Stew is no longer served in Harvard's dining halls, students are still very concerned about the quality and variety of their meals.

Ted Mayer, Berry's successor, will inherit an organization that has greatly evolved over the years. However, its mission has changed little.

According to the HDA brochure from 1907, "The aim will be not to make a profit but to provide a greater variety of food prepared under the best possible conditions, and pleasanter associations to its members and their guests than could be otherwise obtained."