Eliot House is one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

. It is one of the seven original houses at the college. Opened in 1931, the house was named after Charles William Eliot, who served as president of the university for forty years (1869–1909).

Traditions

Before Harvard opted to use a lottery system to assign residences to upperclassmen (beginning with the class of 1999), Eliot was known as a 'prep' house, providing accommodation to the university's social elite, and being known as "more Harvard than Harvard". Describing Eliot House in the late 1950s and early 1960s, author Alston Chase wrote, " though most Harvard houses in those days reflected the values of

Boston Brahmin The Boston Brahmins or Boston elite are members of Boston's traditional upper class. They are often associated with Harvard University; Anglicanism; and traditional Anglo-American customs and clothing. Descendants of the earliest English coloni ...

society ... Eliot was more extreme". The motto 'Floreat Domus de Eliot' and 'Domus' are traditional chants and greetings, particularly on Housing Day, when freshman find out their housing assignments. Some traditions of Eliot House are the charity event An Evening with Champions, the Eliot Boat Club (an intramural crew team), formal dinners such as the Charles Eliot Dinner, a strong sense of house pride, and the annual Spring Fete.

Movie appearances

Eliot's prominent belltower is featured in many films, including '' Old School''; ''

Legally Blonde ''Legally Blonde'' is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Robert Luketic in his feature-length directorial debut, and scripted by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith from Amanda Brown's 2001 novel of the same name. It stars Reese Wit ...

''; ''

Chasing Liberty ''Chasing Liberty'' is a 2004 romantic comedy film directed by Andy Cadiff and starring Mandy Moore and Matthew Goode. Written by Derek Guiley and David Schneiderman, the film is about the 18-year-old daughter of the President of the United Stat ...

''; and '' Euro Trip'', which features the tower at the end of the film, incorrectly identifying it as Oberlin College. Eliot House is also featured prominently in ''

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'' and '' The Social Network''.

Notable alumni

Notable former residents of the house include: *

James Agee James Rufus Agee ( ; November 27, 1909 – May 16, 1955) was an American novelist, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, writing for ''Time Magazine'', he was one of the most influential film critics in the United States. ...

Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...

Benazir Bhutto Benazir Bhutto ( ur, بینظیر بُھٹو; sd, بينظير ڀُٽو; Urdu ; 21 June 1953 – 27 December 2007) was a Pakistani politician who served as the 11th and 13th prime minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 t ...

* Ben Bradlee *

Archibald Cox Archibald Cox Jr. (May 17, 1912 – May 29, 2004) was an American lawyer and law professor who served as U.S. Solicitor General under President John F. Kennedy and as a special prosecutor during the Watergate scandal. During his career, he was ...

* T.S. Eliot (as Charles Eliot Norton Chair of Poetry) *

Patrick X. Gallagher Patrick Ximenes Gallagher (January 2, 1935 – March 30, 2019) was an American mathematician who pioneered large sieve theory and invented the larger sieve. Biography Early life Patrick Ximenes Gallagher was born on January 2, 1935, in Elizab ...

* John Harbison * Rashida Jones * Eduardo Saverin *

Ted Kaczynski Theodore John Kaczynski ( ; born May 22, 1942), also known as the Unabomber (), is an American domestic terrorist and former mathematics professor. Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski killed three people and injured 23 others in a nationwide ...

Jack Lemmon John Uhler Lemmon III (February 8, 1925 – June 27, 2001) was an American actor. Considered equally proficient in both dramatic and comic roles, Lemmon was known for his anxious, middle-class everyman screen persona in dramedy pictures, leadi ...

* Thomas Oliphant * George Plimpton * Jay Rockefeller

References

External links

Eliot House official site
{{Harvard , state=expanded Harvard University Harvard Houses University and college dormitories in the United States