The Farnsworth Room

Henry Weston Farnsworth attended Harvard College as an undergraduate at the start of the 20th Century. As well as being a noted adventure-seeker he was also an avid reader during and after his time at the University. Upon completion of his undergraduate degree in 1912, Henry became a newspaper correspondent in Mexico where he could fulfill his love for adventure, traveling the world and chasing stories. While abroad, Henry decided to join the French Foreign Legion in January of 1915. Later that year, in September 1915, he was killed in action at Bois Sabot, just outside Navarin Farm, in France.

On December 5, 1916, Henry’s parents, William and Lucy Farnsworth, established a room at Harvard University dedicated to the loving memory of their son to encourage extracurricular reading among undergraduate students, known simply as “The Farnsworth Room.” This is one of the nation’s earliest memorials to an American soldier who lost his life in World War I as the room was dedicated four months before the United states officially entered the war.

This room is special, however, for more than one reason. As well as being one of the first memorials to a fallen American during the Great War, it is also the first established collegiate extracurricular reading room in a library, created to encourage students’ love of reading and to provide a relaxing place in which they could pursue this love. The room was donated and funded by the parents of Henry Farnsworth and placed in a prominent position in the newly built Widener Library. It was a beautiful, expansive room in library, decorated with candelabras, crimson hangings, and, on the mantel, a panel commemorating sacrifice in war. Lamp-lit tables and chairs provided adequate space for dozens of students to use the room at once, and leather couches and armchairs were available for those looking for extra comfort.  Archibald Cary Coolidge, director of the library, hired a retired teacher named Florence Milner to specially oversee the room.