History
Harvard's stadium was constructed on 31 acres of land known as Soldiers Field donated to Harvard University by Henry Lee Higginson in 1890. The structure similar in shape to the Panathenaic Stadium, the site of the first modern Olympics in 1896, was completed in just four and a half months costing $310,000. Much of the funds raised came from a 25th Reunion gift by Harvard's Class of 1879. It is the home of the football team of Harvard, whose all-time record (at the end of the 2010 season) at the stadium is 427-222-34 (.650). The stadium also hosted the Crimson track and field teams until 1984 and was the home of the Boston Patriots during the 1970 season. It is also the host of music festivals like the Amandla Festival, where Jamaican reggae legend Bob Marley performed a historic concert in 1979. Janis Joplin performed her last show at the stadium in 1970, shortly before her death. During the 1984 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles, the stadium hosted several football preliminaries. In 2007, the Boston Cannons, a professional lacrosse team for Major League Lacrosse, moved their home site to the stadium. They previously played at Boston University's Nickerson Field.
In 2006, Harvard installed both FieldTurf and lights allowing it to become the home stadium of the Boston Cannons. On September 22, 2007, Harvard played its first night game at the stadium, against Brown University, winning 24–17.
Beginning on April 11, 2009, Harvard Stadium became the home field of the Boston Breakers of the Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) league when they beat Saint Louis Athletica 2-0.
Lewis Jerome Johnson, Prof. Civil Engineering, Harvard University, was a consultant to the design team for the Harvard Stadium. It is historically significant that this stadium represents the first vertical concrete structure to employ reinforced structural concrete. Prior to the erection of the stadium in 1902, reinforced structural concrete was used in horizontal, that is flooring, sidewalks, etc., design only. Prof. Johnson was the engineer of note responsible for incorporating the concept into the vertical structure of the stadium design. (There is a plaque dedicating the stadium to his honor on the east end wall outside the stadium.)
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—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
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—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)