Cruft Laboratory
Address19, Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, United States of America, 02138
Previous Address15, Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, United States of America, 02138
Site Number316
Alternate Names
High Tension Laboratory
Previous Building Number
150
Building Root Number 03760
Building Root Number 03760
Architect (Original)
Warren & Smith Architects
Architect (Original)
H. A. Duquesne
Land Acquired
1871
Constructed 1915
Building Acquired 1915
Constructed 1915
Building Acquired 1915
StatusActive
Site Name HistoryThe Cruft Laboratory was named for Harvard graduates Edward Cruft, Jr., William Smith Cruft, Samuel Breck Cruft, and James Jackson Cruft, all brothers of Harriet Otis Cruft of Boston, the Harvard benefactor whose gift of $50,000 funded construction of the building. Harriet Otis Cruft was also a major contributor to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Cruft had inherited more than $1 million from her father, a prominent Boston merchant. The elder Cruft was listed as a director of the Middlesex Canal Corporation in 1814.Historical NotesCruft Laboratory was designed for Harvard by Herbert Langford Warren of Boston-based Warren and Smith and opened in 1915 as the Cruft High Tension Electrical Laboratory. The building originally had two large radio antennae affixed to the roof and was equipped with the largest storage batteries in the world at the time. During World War I the building housed the United States Naval Radio School. During World War II, Cruft housed the Harvard Mark I computer, which was used in calculations for the US Navy and for the Manhattan Project. Physicist Howard Aiken, mathematician John von Neumann, and pioneering computer programmer Grace Hopper were involved with the Mark I during this time.Additional Information
Weber, Paul J. Photographs of Harvard University Buildings and Grounds Taken by Paul J. Weber, Ca. 1929-1931 and 1939. Harvard University Archives call number HUV 2329
Records of the Cruft Memorial Laboratory, 1915-1955, Harvard University Archives call number UAV 299.
Harvard University. Graduate School of Engineering. The Cruft Laboratory of Physics and Communication Engineering. Cambridge, Mass., 1939. Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments call number Q183.C782 C78 1939x.
"Naval Radio Station at Harvard Has 2,700 Students in Training." Cambridge Tribune. December 22, 1917.
"Bronze Tablet Erected in Cruft Memorial Laboratory." The Harvard Crimson, 10 Mar. 1916, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1916/3/10/bronze-tablet-erected-in-cruft-memorial/.
"Cruft Addition Will Be Ready in February." The Harvard Crimson, 28 Oct. 1930, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1930/10/28/cruft-addition-will-be-ready-in/.
"Cruft Building at Harvard Soon to Be Put in Use." The Christian Science Monitor, The Christian Science Publishing Society (d/b/a "The Christian Science Monitor"), trusteeship under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 4 Jan. 1915, p. 9.
"Cruft Laboratory Complete." The Harvard Crimson, 4 Jan. 1915, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1915/1/4/cruft-laboratory-complete-pthe-new-cruft/.
Harvard University Department of Physics. Records of the Harvard University Department of Physics, 1879-1983 (Textual Records) and 2007- (Web Archive). 1879. Harvard University Archives call number UAV 691
"Inter-Lab Bridge Nears Completion." The Harvard Crimson, 15 Nov. 1952, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1952/11/15/inter-lab-bridge-nears-completion-pconstruction-on/.
"Marked Progress in Building." The Harvard Crimson, 22 June 1915, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1915/6/22/marked-progress-in-building-pprogress-in/.
"New Physics Laboratory At Harvard: Building Equipped With Latest Apparatus for Scientific Measurements Library in the New Research Laboratory at Harvard." New York Herald Tribune, 13 Mar. 1932, p. G5.
[Radio Towers on the Roof of Cruft Laboratory at Harvard, Photograph]. 1940. Harvard University Library Hollis number olvwork723677