Sanders Theater
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Memorial Hall, Harvard University
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View from southwest showing Annenberg Hall (foreground) and Memorial Transept (right). Sanders Theatre is out of view beyond Memorial Transept.
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| Location | Cambridge, Massachusetts |
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| Coordinates | 42°22′33.2″N 71°6′53.7″W / 42.375889°N 71.114917°WCoordinates: 42°22′33.2″N 71°6′53.7″W / 42.375889°N 71.114917°W |
| Built | 1870–1877 |
| Architect |
William Robert Ware, Henry Van Brunt |
| Architectural style | Neo-Gothic |
| NRHP Reference # | 70000685 |
Memorial Hall, immediately north of Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is an imposingHigh Victorian Gothic building honoring the sacrifices made by Harvard men in defense of the Union during the American Civil War—"a symbol of Boston's commitment to the Unionist cause and the abolitionist movement in America."
Built on a former playing field known as the Delta, it was described by Henry James as consisting of
three main divisions: one of them a theater, for academic ceremonies; another a vast refectory, covered with a timbered roof, hung about with portraits and lighted by stained windows, like the halls of the colleges of Oxford; and the third, the most interesting, a chamber high, dim and severe, consecrated to the sons of the university who fell in the long Civil War.
James' "three divisions" are known today as (respectively) Sanders Theatre; Annenberg Hall (formerly Alumni Hall or the Great Hall); and Memorial Transept. Beneath Annenberg Hall, Loker Commons offers a number of student facilities.
This happy commemorative creation of the Union ... the great bristling brick Valhalla of the early "seventies," that house of honor and of hospitality which [dispenses] laurels to the dead and dinners to the living.
... a huge Victorian Gothic barn ...
Between 1865 and 1868 an alumni "Committee of Fifty" raised $370,000 (equal to one-twelfth of Harvard's entire endowment at the time) toward a new building in memory of Harvard men who had fought for the Union in the American Civil War, particularly the 136 dead—a "Hall of Alumni in which students and graduates might be inspired by the pictured and sculpted presence of her founders, benefactors, faculty, presidents, and most distinguished sons." When, about the same time, a $40,000 bequest was received from Charles Sanders (class of 1802) for "a hall or theatre to be used on [any] public occasion connected with the College, whether literary or festive", a vision was formed of a single building containing a large theater as well as a large open hall, and thus meeting both goals.
A site was found on the "Delta", the triangle bounded by Cambridge, Kirkland, and Quincy Streets. The project was formally named Memorial Hall in September 1870, and on October 6 the cornerstone was laid,Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. composing a hymn for the occasion.
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