The Porcellian Club is a men-only final club at Harvard University, sometimes called the Porc or the P.C. The year of founding is usually given as 1791, when a group began meeting under the name "the Argonauts," or as 1794, the year of the roast pig dinner at which the club, known first as "the Pig Club" was formally founded. The club's motto, Dum vivimus vivamus (while we live, let us live) is literally Epicurean. The club emblem is the pig and some members sport golden pigs on watch-chains or neckties bearing pig's-head emblems. The club was originally started by a group of 30 students from Massachusetts who wanted to avoid the dining halls and their food by roasting pigs.
The Porcellian is the iconic "hotsy-totsy final club," often bracketed with Yale's Skull and Bones, Princeton's Ivy Club and Cornell's Quill and Dagger. A history of Harvard calls the Porcellian "the most final of them all." Also, an urban legends website mentions a belief that "if members of the Porcellian do not earn their first million before they turn 40, the club will give it to them."
Read more about Porcellian Club: Founding, Clubhouse, Historical Significance, Membership Criteria, Joseph McKean Gate, Notable Members
Famous quotes containing the word club:
“I spoke at a woman’s club in Philadelphia yesterday and a young lady said to me afterwards, “Well, that sounds very nice, but don’t you think it is better to be the power behind the throne?” I answered that I had not had much experience with thrones, but a woman who has been on a throne, and who is now behind it, seems to prefer to be on the throne.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)