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Justice Holmes • Inflammation • Harry Widener MAY-JUNE 2019 • $4.95 Compassion 1969 and Care Physician-Poet Rafael Campo Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 May 2019 Dear Reader, In 1898, an association of Harvard graduates established the Harvard Alumni Bulletin, “to give selected and summarized Harvard news to graduates who want it” and “to serve as a medium for publishing promptly all notices and announcements of interest to graduates.” members and students extend the limits of discovery and human understanding—in service to an ever more far- ung, diverse group of alumni around the globe. Today, nearly a century and a quarter later, the name has changed, to Harvard Magazine (as have the look and contents), but the founding Your Harvard Magazine can capture alumni voices (see the letters responding to the March-April principles have not: feature on the events of April 1969, beginning on page 4 of this issue), dive deep into critical research (read the feature on the scientists exploring in ammation, and how their work contributes • e magazine exists to serve the interests of its readers (now including all University to understanding disease, on page 46), and keep you current on the critical issues facing higher alumni, faculty, and sta )—not any other agenda. education on campus and around the world (see John Harvard’s Journal, beginning on page 18). • Readers’ support is the most important underpinning of this commitment to high- Your contribution underwrites the journalism you are reading now, the expanded coverage quality, editorially independent journalism on readers’ behalf. available online at harvardmagazine.com (an important resource for alumni and people who care • We and our colleagues hold as our highest responsibility maintaining that mission, about Harvard’s mission and work worldwide), and coming attractions—like our podcast debuting created at the magazine’s founding and enhanced by our outstanding predecessors in the new academic year. who saw to its publication during the decades that followed. Please support the magazine securely online at harvardmagazine.com/donate, or use the reply e Bulletin was supported by subscription. e business model that sustains today’s Harvard envelope in this issue. Magazine—and allows us to deliver it to 260,000 alumni for free—is a three-legged stool: ank you for sustaining the Harvard Magazine tradition of high-quality, independent journalism— • Contributions from readers, in lieu of a subscription charge. in service to you, your fellow readers, and the Harvard community writ large. It’s an honor to do this work on your behalf. • Advertising, including readers’ classi ed notices. • A “subvention” from the President’s o ce, which has made it possible to reach Sincerely, alumni of all the University’s schools for the past quarter-century—an early step toward the “One Harvard” community worldwide. We ask for your support now, at the end of the scal year, so we can Irina Kuksin continue to grow and stretch to cover the University itself—as its faculty Publisher harvardmagazine.com/donate Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 2019_PubLet_v7.indd 2-3 3/27/19 3:25 PM May 2019 Dear Reader, In 1898, an association of Harvard graduates established the Harvard Alumni Bulletin, “to give selected and summarized Harvard news to graduates who want it” and “to serve as a medium for publishing promptly all notices and announcements of interest to graduates.” members and students extend the limits of discovery and human understanding—in service to an ever more far- ung, diverse group of alumni around the globe. Today, nearly a century and a quarter later, the name has changed, to Harvard Magazine (as have the look and contents), but the founding Your Harvard Magazine can capture alumni voices (see the letters responding to the March-April principles have not: feature on the events of April 1969, beginning on page 4 of this issue), dive deep into critical research (read the feature on the scientists exploring in ammation, and how their work contributes • e magazine exists to serve the interests of its readers (now including all University to understanding disease, on page 46), and keep you current on the critical issues facing higher alumni, faculty, and sta )—not any other agenda. education on campus and around the world (see John Harvard’s Journal, beginning on page 18). • Readers’ support is the most important underpinning of this commitment to high- Your contribution underwrites the journalism you are reading now, the expanded coverage quality, editorially independent journalism on readers’ behalf. available online at harvardmagazine.com (an important resource for alumni and people who care • We and our colleagues hold as our highest responsibility maintaining that mission, about Harvard’s mission and work worldwide), and coming attractions—like our podcast debuting created at the magazine’s founding and enhanced by our outstanding predecessors in the new academic year. who saw to its publication during the decades that followed. Please support the magazine securely online at harvardmagazine.com/donate, or use the reply e Bulletin was supported by subscription. e business model that sustains today’s Harvard envelope in this issue. Magazine—and allows us to deliver it to 260,000 alumni for free—is a three-legged stool: ank you for sustaining the Harvard Magazine tradition of high-quality, independent journalism— • Contributions from readers, in lieu of a subscription charge. in service to you, your fellow readers, and the Harvard community writ large. It’s an honor to do this work on your behalf. • Advertising, including readers’ classi ed notices. • A “subvention” from the President’s o ce, which has made it possible to reach Sincerely, alumni of all the University’s schools for the past quarter-century—an early step toward the “One Harvard” community worldwide. We ask for your support now, at the end of the scal year, so we can Irina Kuksin continue to grow and stretch to cover the University itself—as its faculty Publisher harvardmagazine.com/donate Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 2019_PubLet_v7.indd 2-3 3/27/19 3:25 PM Seeking great leaders. The Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative off ers a calendar year of rigorous education and refl ection for highly accomplished leaders in business, government, law, medicine, and other sectors who are transitioning from their primary careers to their next years of service. Led by award-winning faculty members from across Harvard, the program aims to deploy a new leadership force tackling the world’s most challenging social and environmental problems. be inspired at +1-617-496-5479 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 190308_AdvLeadership_Ivy.indd19.1.16IIvd.indd 1 1 1/16/1911619 12:181154 PMM MAY-JUNE 2019, VOLUME 121, NUMBER 5 FEATURES 39 The Physician-Poet | by Lydialyle Gibson Rafael Campo models compassionate care 44 Vita: Harry Elkins Widener | by Daniel Blank Brief life of a theater-loving bibliophile: 1885-1912 46 Raw and Red-Hot | by Jonathan Shaw Emerging discoveries unveil the surprising connections between inflammation and myriad chronic diseases p. 46 54 America’s Great Modern Justice | by Lincoln Caplan What Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. means for the Supreme Court today JOHN HARVARD’S JOURNAL 18 Renovating Houghton Library, twenty-fifth reunion for Commencement’s setup man, defending affirmative action in admissions, sexual harassment concerns, demonstrating for equality, diversifying the faculties, general counsels old and new, the ART heads to Allston, dual degrees, two new Corporation members, surprising insights into campus cultures, a second- baseman turned swift center-fielder, track star’s barefoot bravery, and an unwanted end to the basketball season p. 15 DEPARTMENTS 4 Cambridge 02138 | Letters from our readers—and a comment on making p. 18 the University more academic 5 The View from Mass Hall 11 Right Now | High schools that work—and why, what investors overlook in companies’ financial fine print, cities too “smart” for their own good 2 16A Harvard | Spring events, exploring Apollo 11, Japanese block prints, Garden in the Woods, rock climbing, abuzz about bees, Commencement calendar, favorite restaurants, and more 66 Montage | Sibling rock musicians, the unknown Harper Lee, comic-book author, “eight-brokens” art, women’s suffrage, psychiatry’s biomedical detour, and more 75 Alumni | A naturalist with derring-do, Overseer and Director slates, and the Alumni Association’s director on e-balloting, interest groups, and face-to-face engagement in an online age 80 The College Pump | Digital-era odes to paper, diehard Latinists, wanderlust, and the young-at-heart Stanley Hoffmann 88 Treasure | African art, molded in clay FROM TOP:T. GREENHOUGHFROM TOP:T. & A. SHRIVE/WELLCOME IMAGES; COURTESY OF ANN BEHA ARCHITECTS; COURTESY OF AMY CHU; PLUNKERT DAVID 81 Crimson Classifieds p. 68 On the cover: Photograph by Stu Rosner www.harvardmagazine.com Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 LETTERS EDITOR: John S. Rosenberg SENIOR EDITOR: Jean Martin Cambridge MANAGING EDITOR: Jonathan S. Shaw ART DIRECTOR: Jennifer Carling Opioids, the Bauhaus, legacy admissions ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Marina N. Bolotnikova, Lydialyle Gibson STAFF WRITER/EDITOR: Jacob J. Sweet 1969, ECHOING dent who promises to ASSISTANT EDITOR/SPECIAL SECTIONS As an activist in the block all Muslims from MANAGER: Nell Porter Brown Harvard Strike of 1969 entering the country, and BERTA GREENWALD LEDECKY and the SDS speaker at to erect a 2,000-mile wall UNDERGRADUATE FELLOWS the 1969 Commence- across our southern bor- Isa Flores-Jones, Catherine Zhang ment ceremony, I wel- der. The fight for a just, come the retrospective inclusive, and democrat- CONTRIBUTING EDITORS in the March-April issue ic society must continue.