Memorial Hall, Harvard University

History

Memorial Hall, immediately north of Harvard Yard on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a High Victorian Gothic building honoring Harvard University alumni's sacrifices in defending 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, the structure was intended to be imposing.

It was described by Henry James as having

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's "three divisions" are 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.

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