Mason Street Building

Mason Street Building

Harvard Medical School

Engravings (prints)

The Harvard Corporation, at the instigation of the Medical Faculty, petitioned the Massachusetts state legislature for funds to build an adequate home for the Medical School. The Faculty received a grant of $18,000 to obtain land and erect the first structure specifically for its needs, a brick building on Mason Street, near Boston Common. The new facility opened in 1816, and while the Medical School prospectus described it as "large and handsome…. Its apartments are spacious and convenient," the structure measured only 83 feet long and 43 feet wide. The Mason Street building did include two amphitheater-style lecture halls, an anatomical theater, chemical laboratory, dissecting rooms, and a 3,000 volume library, and its interior was illuminated by a skylight. Because of the state funding for its construction, the building was often referred to as the "Massachusetts Medical College." Harvard would occupy the Mason Street building for the next twenty years.

Engraving of the Mason Street Building

Unknown

1824

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Harvard Medical School Buildings and Grounds, Early Locations. Images, ca. 1824-1975. Image: 00097.181. Location: S003.01

image

1 engraving

English

still image

From the Collections of the Harvard Medical Library