National ROTC Coverage: 1916 - 1949

• Harvard Archive material relating to the Deans of Harvard College.  Comment:  This general archive listing contains much authoritative information about the history of ROTC at Harvard.  It documents how Harvard terminated some of the required elements of an ROTC program specified under the ROTC Vitalization Act of 1964 (Part 1  Part 2), thus terminating the ROTC program.
• January 1916: Harvard formed the first Army ROTC unit.
• 3 January 1916 Harvard Crimson article "Captain Cordier in command: first drill will be held this week and lecture given tomorrow".  
• 5 January 1916 Harvard Crimson article "Regiment commander gave detailed plans".
• 1 June 1916 Harvard Crimson article "New appeals from graduates".  Note:  Discussion of preparations for implementing the Reserve Officers' Act. 
• 5 June 1916 Harvard Crimson article "624 enrolments at end of preparedness week".  Note: An army captain describes the purpose of ROTC and summarizes with "It seems only appropriate that the oldest university in the country should have a due proportion of its graduates enrolled in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps."  
• 23 September 1916 Harvard Crimson article "Reserve force proposed".  Note:  Army Captain Constant Cordier is designated by the Secretary of War as professor of military science and tactics and a regular member of the faculty, as well as commandant of the reserve officers' training corps at Harvard.
• 28 September 1917 Harvard Crimson article "Military men begin study".  Note:  The article describes how "Military Science and Tactics 1" will be the nucleus for the ROTC program at Harvard, and mentions the ongoing program at MIT.
• 29 September 1917 Harvard Crimson article "New course lacks students".  Note:  Enough students turn up to form an ROTC program but the article suggests that more would be better. 
• 6 February 1917 Harvard Crimson article "Enrollment in Yale Reserve Officer' Corps completed"
• 29 March 1917 Harvard Crimson article "Students urged to train for service as officers".  Note: The professor heading Harvard University's Committee on Military Affairs writes to all students urging them to use their special abilities in case of war by qualifying as officers rather than enlisting as privates.  
• 9 April 1917 Harvard Crimson article "Praises spirit of R.O.T.C.".  Note:  This article describes the founding of Harvard Army ROTC.
• 19 May 1917 Harvard Crimson article "R.O.T.C. will hike July 16 to August 15".  Note: This describes early ROTC training at Harvard.
• 20 December 1917 Harvard Crimson unsigned opinion piece "Officers from the ranks".  Note: It is observed that the "duty of R. O. T. C.'s is to provide not merely candidates for special camps, but soldiers with sufficient bearing and knowledge to mark them out at once as leaders."
• 26 April 1919 Harvard Crimson article "Government plans call for 14 coast artillery units".  Note: The US government concluded that "The war has demonstrated conclusively that our colleges and universities furnish the best material for officers from civil life."
• 15 October 1923 Harvard Crimson article "Military science has two fold duty".  Note: Head of Army ROTC at Harvard discusses the "duties to discharge both to the War Department and to Harvard University".

Please contact us if you have more links to add.

Last updated 18 August 2007