Archives exhibit: 1916 alumni/ae event, “The Telephone Banquet”

Cover of Telephone Banquet program

On June 14, 1916, approximately 1,500 alumni/ae along with special guests, including Alexander Graham Bell and Orville Wright, gathered at Symphony Hall in Boston to celebrate the new MIT campus in Cambridge and to raise funds. The speeches presented that night were broadcast via telephone to 34 alumni gatherings all over the country. The June Object of the Month exhibit on the web site of the Institute Archives and Special Collections includes photographs, the banquet program and menu, and links to other events surrounding MIT’s move from Boston to Cambridge. Visit the Archives in 14N-118 to learn more about this momentous milestone in the history of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Drawing on cover of program by Isaac B. Hazelton, MIT class of 1894.