Delphic Club

The Delphic Club
U.S. Historic district Contributing property
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Location	9 Linden Street Cambridge, MA
Coordinates	42°22′20.6″N 71°07′03.1″W / 42.372389°N 71.117528°W / 42.372389; -71.117528Coordinates: 42°22′20.6″N 71°07′03.1″W / 42.372389°N 71.117528°W / 42.372389; -71.117528
Built	1903
Architect	James Purdon H'1895
Architectural style	neo-Georgian style
Part of	Harvard Square Historic District (#86003654)

The Delphic Club is an all-male Final Club at Harvard University. It was founded in 1885 when the Grand Council of the Delta Phi fraternity decided to re-establish a fraternity at Harvard known as the Zeta Chapter. (Fraternities had been banned at Harvard in the 1850s.) The membership voted to become a Final Club in 1900 and in 1902 severed ties with the national fraternity to which it had maintained only loose ties. After its creation, there were only a few members, so the club would burn gas lights at all hours to suggest that the club was busy day and night. As a result, the club earned the nickname of "The Gas." A famous, possibly apocryphal, story has it that J.P. Morgan, Jr., class of 1889, joined The Gas when he didn’t get into his club of choice. According to The Harvard Crimson, he then financed the creation of his own club, the Delphic, from the frat.^[1]

The club was initially located at 52 and 59 Brattle St. before moving to 72 Mt. Auburn St. where it was housed from 1887 to 1903. The current home of the club is at 9 Linden St., steps from Harvard Yard and a few blocks from Harvard Square. It was designed by James Purdon H'1895 in the neo-Georgian style and occupied in 1902-03. The design features the red brick and cornices typical of Harvard Yard. The interior contains numerous large common spaces and an oversize formal dining room on the 2nd floor for large events, no living quarters, and a regulation squash court.^[2] In the basement is a panelled living room for entertaining visitors.

As with the other Final Clubs, the Delphic is not officially affiliated with Harvard University and is not recognized by the University. The Delphic is governed by a Trust with a Board of Directors composed of alumni. The Final Clubs all operate independently of the University since their founding following the expulsion of fraternities from the campus in the 1850s. However, whatever tenuous association there had been with Harvard was officially severed in 1984 as a consequence of the Title IX provision of the U.S. Education Amendments of 1972, which arguably would have required a sex-neutral admissions policy and result. The emergence of all-female Final Clubs since the 1990s has followed the same model, with the new clubs also operating independently of the University.^[3] The break was largely symbolic as the clubs already operated independently, but they lost access to the Harvard phone exchange and the ability to buy steam heat from the University.^[4]

Renovations

The clubhouse was renovated in 1974-75, which included the walls, interiors and roofs to deal with leaks and general conditions. A more comprehensive renovation was undertaken in 2013-14, it included updating the club's plumbing and electrical systems and also revealed pooled water beneath the club's floor and back yard occasioned by the destruction of the club's drainage system during the construction of Farkas Hall (aka the Hasty Pudding Clubhouse). This has resulted in litigation between the Delphic Club and Harvard University.^[5]

Name

The club was founded as the Zeta Chapter of the Delta Phi fraternity. With the opening of the new clubhouse in 1903, after the break from Delta Phi, the undergraduates began calling the club "The Gas," after the club's nickname. This was adopted as the official name in 1908 but soon thereafter was changed to "The Delphic Club" presumably after cooler heads prevailed. The name of the club is a portmanteau of "Delta Phi Club" which in turn is derived from the name of a by-then defunct fraternity at Harvard, Alpha Delta Phi and the later Delta Phi fraternity. The Alpha Delta Phi name was borrowed by three Harvard Final Clubs - the A.D. Club (Alpha Delta), the Delphic and the Fly Club(alPHa deLta phI).^[2]

Insignia and Emblems

The club's emblem is three torches on a blue-green field. The slogan for the club is "Three times three, long life to thee." The club's tie(s) consist of the "Three Torches" logo on a black field in a diagonal pattern, the standard tie is sky blue and black diagonal stripes, while the club's "summer" tie is blue and white stripes on the diagonal. The club's traditions include formal, black tie dinners with alumni and undergraduates and a ban on non-members in the club aside from female guests and family on the weekends. There is no hazing or "Rush" in the sense of traditional fraternities elsewhere. Instead, the clubs recruit members through a series of invited dinners and formal dances in a process known as "The Punch."

In Literature

Tales of "The Gas House" are recounted by several authors including Delphic alum Charles Macomb Flandrau (1895) who tells many stories in his celebrated book Harvard Episodes (1897)^[6] and also in Diary of A Freshman (1901).^[7] In Harvard Episodes Flandrau (writing in 1897) depicts the multi-generational aspects of the club in describing an old graduate, "If they didn't actually know him, they knew of him. Even this crust is sweet to the returned graduate whose age is just far enough removed from either end of life's measure to make it intrinsically unimportant."^[6] George de la Ruiz Santayana (1886) was made an honorary member in 1890 and spent a great deal of time at the Delphic as recounted in Joel Porte's (Ph.D.'62) book, Santayana at the 'Gas (1964). Santayana included the club in several works, including "The Judgement of Paris, or, How the First-ten Man Chooses a Club," which concludes with:

Whatever follows: nor, until he die
Will Paris grieve he chose the Delta Phi^[8]

At the opening of the new clubhouse in 1903, Santayana wrote a dedicatory poem that ends:

And though we go, for change is Nature's plan,
To loves and labours that approve the man,
Half the soul clutches what the world can give,
And half remains where youth and friendship live.^[9]

Footnotes