The focus is Harvard and slavery
To tell the story of Harvard President Charles William Eliot, the American academic who transformed the School in the late 19th century from a regional college into the model of a modern research university, one need only consult Harvard’s archives, where rich and detailed material fully documents his lasting impact. But to tell the story of Harvard’s long-forgotten ties to slavery, one must dig much deeper. For several years, a number of Harvard historians, faculty, students, researchers, and archivists have been doing exactly that, scouring documents both at Harvard and beyond looking for clues that help paint a picture of the enslaved men and women whose lives were intimately tied to the University’s early years and to the broader slave-based economy that helped Harvard thrive. It’s painstaking work, as the new exhibit “Bound by History: Harvard, Slavery, and Archives,” which contains much of what researchers have uncovered so far, makes clear. “You really...