| Porcellian Club | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1791 Harvard University |
| Type | Final club |
| Affiliation | Independent |
| Status | Active |
| Scope | Local |
| Motto | Dum vivimus vivamus (while we live, let us live) |
| Symbol | Golden Pig |
| Mascot | Pig |
| Chapters | 1 |
| Nickname | Porc, P.C. |
| Headquarters | 1324 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 United States |
Porcellian Club | |
 | |
| Location | 1320-24 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, Massachusetts |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 42°22′22.55″N 71°07′04.10″W / 42.3729306°N 71.1178056°W |
| Part of | Harvard Square Historic District (ID86003654) |
| MPS | Cambridge MRA |
| NRHP reference No. | 83000824 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | June 30, 1983 |
| Designated CP | July 28, 1988 |
The Porcellian Club is an all-male final club at Harvard University, sometimes called the Porc or the P.C. The year of founding is usually given as 1791, when a group began meeting under the name "the Argonauts",[1] or as 1794, the year of the roast pig dinner at which the club, known first as "the Pig Club"[2] was formally founded. The club's motto, Dum vivimus vivamus (while we live, let us live) is Epicurean. The club emblem is the pig and some members sport golden pigs on watch-chains or neckties bearing pig's-head emblems.[3][4]
The Porcellian is the iconic "hotsy-totsy final club",[5] with a history of Harvard calling the Porcellian "the most final of them all."[6]
- ^ Sheldon, Henry Davidson (1901). Student Life and Customs. D. Appleton., p. 171: source for 1791 origins as the "Argonauts" later named "The Pig Club", "The Gentlemen's Club" and finally "The Porcellian". "Small as the membership has been, the roll of graduates shows many of the most famous of the Sons of Harvard, including Wendell Phillips, Channing, [Joseph] Story, [Edward] Everett, Prescott, Adams, Palfrey, Charles Sumner, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell and John Lothrop Motley". Online at the Internet Archive
- ^ Shand-Tucci, Douglas (2001). Harvard University. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 1-56898-280-1. p. 89: "...Harvard's still-extant Porcellian Club, which arose out of a legendary dinner of roast pig (hence the club's name) in 1794 at Moore's Tavern. Unlike [Phi Beta Kappa], the Porcellian's motto, Dum Vivimus Vivamus, indicates that they were not beguiled by concerns academical or even literary, but, rather by pure conviviality.
- ^ Sedgwick, John, "Brotherhood of the Pig", GQ: Gentlemen's Quarterly 58 (November 1988), p. 30, as quoted by Horwitz, Richard P. (1998). Hog Ties : Pigs, Manure and Mortality in American Culture. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 0-312-21443-X. pp. 27-28: "My father was generally oblivious to the animal world, but he did have an unusual affection for pigs. Around our house…he had porcelain pigs, ceramic pigs, carved pigs, embroidered pigs, painted pigs.…They overran our living-room mantelpiece, swept over the tabletops, covered his bureau, popped up on his cuff links, watch chain and ties and even appeared on our drinking glasses and saltcellar.…Why all these pigs? Because my father was a Brother Porcellian…the pig is the club's emblem".
- ^ Schlesinger, Arthur Meier (2003) [1958]. The Coming of the New Deal. Houghton Mifflin. p. 461. ISBN 0-618-34086-6. [NYSE president] Richard Whitney "had attended Groton and Harvard.…his clubs were the Links, the Turf, the Field, the Racquet and the Knickerbocker; from his watch chain there dangled the gold pig of Harvard's Porcellian".
- ^ Myrer, Anton (2002). The Last Convertible. HarperCollins. p. 130. ISBN 0-06-093405-0. "I…pulled up in front of the Porcellian or Sphinx or Onyx or whichever hotsy-totsy final club it was"
- ^ Keller, Morton; Phyllis Keller (2001). Making Harvard Modern: The Rise of America's University. Oxford University Press U.S. p. 472. ISBN 0-19-514457-0.