Framed Photograph of Delphic Club, 1922 by William Notman, Framed Dimensions: 18.5″W x 15.5″H

The Delphic Club is an all-male social group at Harvard University founded in 1846.

The club was founded in 1846 as an all-male chapter of the Delta Phi fraternity, known as the “Alpha of Massachusetts.” Twenty members were elected during the Chapter’s two years of life. Then faculty forced it to disband. In 1885, the Grand Council of the Delta Phi fraternity decided to re-establish a fraternity at Harvard known as the Zeta Chapter, which evolved into the current club. The membership voted to become a Final Club in 1900 and in 1902 severed ties with the national fraternity to which it had maintained only loose ties. A famous, possibly apocryphal, story has it that J.P. Morgan, Jr., class of 1889, joined The Gas when he didn’t get into his club of choice. According to The Harvard Crimson, he then financed the creation of his own club, the Delphic, from the fraternity.

William Notman a noted photgrapher of the time, chiefly took photos depicting the Harvard community and its environment, chiefly groups of people or places they inhabit.