The Fox Club is a private all-male

final club Harvard College has several types of social clubs. These are split between coeducational clubs recognized by the college, and unrecognized single-sex clubs which were subject to College sanctions in the past. The Hasty Pudding Club holds claim ...

of Harvard undergraduate students founded in 1898. The Fox Club is not officially affiliated with

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. It is located on John F. Kennedy Street in

Harvard Square Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue (Boston), Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, C ...

History

The Fox Club was founded in 1898 by six undergraduate students at Harvard University. It is an all-male final club. Originally known as the Digamma Club, the name Fox and the club's symbol, a fox carrying the letter "F", grew from the similarity between the letter "F" and the archaic Greek character for "

digamma Digamma or wau (uppercase: Ϝ, lowercase: ϝ, numeral: ϛ) is an Archaic Greek alphabets, archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It originally stood for the sound but it has remained in use principally as a Greek numeral for 6 (number), 6. Whe ...

", which primarily signifies the number 6. Harvard attempted to impose sanctions against members of single-gender final clubs, preventing members from holding student group leadership positions, serving as varsity athletic team captains, and from having fellowships endorsed by the college. However, after acknowledging that this policy against final clubs violated federal law, Harvard rescinded all sanctions in 2019. In 2015, the Fox Club was one of the first of Harvard's final clubs to contemplate admitting women, but only on a provisional basis by the club's

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

board. In an August 2015 vote by the club's undergraduate members, nine women were given provisional membership. This vote was taken without input from the club's graduate members who revoked the nine women's provisional membership. In May 2019, ''

The Harvard Crimson ''The Harvard Crimson'' is the student newspaper at Harvard University, an Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The newspaper was founded in 1873, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduate students. His ...

'' reported that a vote of all Fox Club graduate members had failed to reach the two-thirds affirmative majority necessary to change membership policies.

Symbols

The club's nickname is the Fox. Its symbol is an upright fox carrying the letter "F".

Club house

The Fox Club house is located on 44 John F. Kennedy Street in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

. It was built in 1902 and designed by

Guy Lowell Guy Lowell (August 6, 1870 – February 4, 1927), was an American architect and landscape architect. Biography Born in Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, Lowell was the son of Mary Walcott (Goodrich) and Edward Jackson Lowell, and a member of B ...

, a prominent American architect who also designed the Museum of Fine Arts in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. The Fox Club house is a contributing structure in the Harvard Square National Historic District and in the local Harvard Square Conservation District.

Notable members

* J. Sinclair Armstrong, chairman of the

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street crash of 1929. Its primary purpose is to enforce laws against market m ...

Steve Ballmer Steven Anthony Ballmer (; March 24, 1956) is an American businessman and investor who served as chief executive officer of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. He is the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He i ...

, former chief executive officer of Microsoft *

Birendra of Nepal Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev (; 29 December 1945 – 1 June 2001) was King of Nepal from 1972 until Nepalese royal massacre, his assassination in 2001. Early life and education Birendra was born at the Narayanhiti Palace, Narayanhiti Royal ...

, King of Nepal from 1972 to 2001 *

Van Wyck Brooks Van Wyck Brooks (February 16, 1886 – May 2, 1963) was an American literary critic, biographer, and historian. Biography Brooks was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, in 1886 and graduated from Harvard University in 1908. As a student he publi ...

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

-winning historian, literary critic, and biographer *

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic *

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist. A pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, he co-founded the software company Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend ...

, co-founder of

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

and co-chair of the

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation The Gates Foundation is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was launched in 2000 and is reported to be the third largest charitable foundation in the world, holding $ ...

* Hermann Hagedorn, American author, poet, and biographer *

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (July 5, 1902 – February 27, 1985) was an American diplomat and politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate and served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations in the administration of Pre ...

U.S. Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the ...

and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, South Vietnam, West Germany, and the Holy See *

John Davis Lodge John Davis Lodge (October 20, 1903 – October 29, 1985) was an American film actor, lawyer, politician, and diplomat. He was the 79th governor of Connecticut from 1951 to 1955, and later served as U.S. ambassador to Spain, Argentina, and Swit ...

, 79th governor of Connecticut,

U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

, and U.S. ambassador to Spain, Argentina, and Switzerland *

Maxwell Perkins William Maxwell Evarts "Max" Perkins (September 20, 1884 – June 17, 1947) was an American book editor, best remembered for discovering authors Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and Thomas Wolfe. Early life and ...

, literary editor and publisher who gave writers

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...

and F. Scott Fitzgerald their start. *

Sinclair Weeks Charles Sinclair Weeks (June 15, 1893February 7, 1972), better known as Sinclair Weeks, was an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Massachusetts in 1944 and as United States Secretary of Commerce from 1953 until 1958 ...

, U.S. Senator and 13th

U.S. Secretary of Commerce The United States secretary of commerce (SecCom) is the head of the United States Department of Commerce. The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all matters relating to commerce. The secretary rep ...

* Paul Withington, college football coach *

Paul Wylie Paul Stanton Wylie (born October 28, 1964) is an American figure skater, and the 1992 Olympic silver medalist in men's singles skating. Personal life Wylie was born on October 24, 1964, in Dallas, Texas, to Bob Wylie (a geophysicist) and B.L. ...

, figure skater *

Fernando Zóbel de Ayala y Montojo Fernando Zóbel de Ayala y Montojo Torrontegui (August 27, 1924 – June 2, 1984), also known as Fernando M. Zóbel, was a Spanish Filipino painter, businessman, art collector and museum founder. Early life Zóbel was born in Ermita, Manila i ...

, painter

References

Notes Bibliography
"Fox Club Undergraduate Association, Inc., Summary Screen"
The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts, William Francis Galvin, Secretary Of The Commonwealth, Corporations Division

External links