The Delphic Club is an all-male social group at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

founded in 1846. It began the process of merging with the all-female Bee Club in August 2017, and the Delphic & Bee became one of fifteen Harvard-recognized social organizations in September 2018. Subsequently, the two clubs reached an agreement to separate in September 2020.

History

The club was founded in 1846 as an all-male chapter of the Delta Phi fraternity, known as the "Alpha of Massachusetts." Twenty members were elected during the Chapter's two years of life. Then faculty forced it to disband. In 1885, the Grand Council of the Delta Phi fraternity decided to re-establish a fraternity at Harvard known as the Zeta Chapter, which evolved into the current club. 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. 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 ''The Harvard Crimson'' is the student newspaper of Harvard University and was founded in 1873. Run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates, it served for many years as the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Beginning in the f ...

'', he then financed the creation of his own club, the Delphic, from the fraternity."The Men's Final Clubs" James K. McCauley ''The Harvard Crimson'' October 5, 2010
/ref> 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. In the 1890s it "was officially called the Delta Phi, or more familiarly "The Gashouse", because all its windows would be lighted at once by the electricity that was then a novelty; so that it was called "The Gashouse" because of the absence of gas."George Santayana, Persons and Places, Fragments of Autobiography, ed. William G. Holzberger, et al, (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1986) The current home of the club is at 9 Linden St., steps from

Harvard Yard Harvard Yard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the oldest part of the Harvard University campus, its historic center and modern crossroads. It contains most of the freshman dormitories, Harvard's most important libraries, Memorial Church, sever ...

and a few blocks from

Harvard Square Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The term "Harvard Square" is also used to delineate the busin ...

. It was designed by James Purd