William J. Bingham diaries and scrapbooks

This collection documents the personal life, Harvard education, and career of William J. Bingham, who graduated from Harvard in 1916 and served as the University’s first athletic director from 1926 to 1951. The bulk of the collection consists of five scrapbooks, dating from 1908 to 1951, which document Bingham’s education and athletic achievements as a student at Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard University, his continued association with the Harvard College Class of 1916, especially with the 25th reunion, and his appointment and service as Harvard’s first athletic director from 1926 to 1951. Additionally, the scrapbooks highlight Bingham’s long association with the American Olympic Association; he served as a member of the United States Olympic Executive Committee from 1929 to 1940 and was chairman of the track and field committee at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin. The scrapbooks also contain many pages of captioned photographs from Bingham’s military service in France during World War I as a member of a Harvard ambulance unit; a photograph of the start of the marathon race at Windsor Castle during the 1908 Olympics; summer vacations, including a trip to a western ranch, with photographs of a rodeo and Native Americans riding in a parade; photographs of Bingham’s initiation into Harvard’s Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity; photograph of a parade to the field for the Harvard-Yale football game, 1915; published photographs of the opening ceremony for the 1932 Olympic Games; documentation of the athletic break between Princeton and Harvard in 1926 following a Harvard Lampoon prank; and the 1939 Royal Henley Regatta. In addition to photographs, the scrapbooks include news clippings, menus, ephemera, tickets, grades, bills, correspondence, pennants, and pieces of athletic jerseys.

The collection also includes five volumes of Bingham’s diary, from April 1937 to November 1948 in which Bingham wrote regular and lengthy entries documenting his personal and family life, Harvard athletics, and current events, including politics. Specific events mentioned include President Roosevelt’s efforts to pack the Supreme Court, the coronation of King George VI, and World War II. Bingham frequently describes athletic events at Harvard, including the crew’s 1939 trip to the Henley Royal Regatta and the decision not to allow African American lacrosse player Lucien Alexis (AB 1941) to play against the United States Naval Academy, and discusses relationships with and hiring of coaches. Many of his entries look back at past athletic events and practices at Harvard dating back to his earliest years as Athletic Director.

The collection also includes memoranda and notes compiled as Bingham in his role as Director of Athletics from 1926 to 1951. The bulk of these items date from 1926 to 1935 and 1950 to 1951, and document Bingham’s meetings with the Athletic Committee, coaches, Harvard Clubs, and Harvard presidents and administrators, as well as coaches and administrators at other institutions; specific athletic events and student athletes; the hiring of coaches; and the events leading up to Bingham’s resignation in 1951.