Tufts was chronically short of two things during its first few decades of existence: money and students. To entice more men to enroll in the school, the Board of Trustees expanded the available degree programs - the School of Engineering opened in 1865 and the School of Divinity in 1869. An increase in tuition payments, the trustees hoped, would put the school on a firm financial footing.
But expanding the student body also entailed an increase in the amount of funds necessary to provide room and board. By the mid-1870s, there were three dormitory buildings on campus: Middle Hall (now Packard), built in 1856, East Hall, built in 1860, and West Hall, built in 1872 to accommodate students enrolled in the new divinity school. While East and West were used exclusively for student housing, Middle Hall also housed the school’s only dining hall. As such, the building was often referred to as the “Boarding House.”
Maintaining the “Boarding House” was easily the most expensive part of the school’s infrastructure. In 1869, for example, the cost of maintenance for the Boarding House, adjacent farmland, and livestock necessary to house and feed the students was the school’s highest expenditure outside the salaries paid to the staff. In fact, it cost more to maintain the boarding house than the school received in annual tuition payments. (Minutes of the Trustees and Report of the Treasurer, May 25, 1869). With limited funds available to invest in maintaining students’ room and board to adequate standards, the quality of the meals served on campus declined dramatically.
The food was so lackluster (it was charitably described in a student publication as “a very plain bill of fare” largely composed of salted fish) that students began to subtly protest through minor acts of mischief and defiance. By 1870, the trustees worried that these “dark frowns and muttered discontents” were a direct result of the students’ diet: uninspired food “permanently seasoned with the contingency of increased charges.” (Tuftonian v. 1, November 1870)
To combat these issues, the students approached the trustees with a plan to assume responsibility for their food and housing. Happy to eliminate an increasingly expensive portion of the budget, the Board of Trustees agreed to allow the students to form a “College Boarding Club” in March 1870. Named after John Coleman Adams, A1871, who spearheaded its organization, the Adams Club offered students an opportunity to pay a fixed rate for boarding, which not only included the purchasing and preparation of meals but also access to wood, coal, and oil necessary to heat the dormitories and the cleaning and upkeep of their rooms.
The business of purchasing food for the club was the responsibility of the steward, who was annually elected from a senior member of the student body. The steward made weekly - sometimes daily - trips into Boston to inspect and purchase foodstuffs. The club primarily purchased its meats from purveyors located in Faneuil Hall market, including S.F. Woodbridge & Co., wholesale dealers in "beef, pork, lard, hams, & tallow;” Swan & Newton, purveyors of “Poultry and Wild Game;” and Simmons, Amsden & Company, who sold domestic fruits and vegetables.
The actual meals were prepared by a “head cook.” In 1874, the cook was Paul Brick, a recent immigrant from the city of Danzig. Brick later operated small restaurants in various locations throughout Boston, suggesting that he may have run what was known in the nineteenth-century as a “15 Cent House” - a small eating establishment with one or two rooms where patrons could get a quick, cheap meal with little fanfare. Surviving menus for some of these small diners offer a glimpse into the types of dishes that Brick may have prepared for the Tufts student body. (Boston City Directory, 1890)
Receipts for beans of all sorts suggest that baked beans may have been a typical breakfast offering, along with eggs, griddle cakes, and “oatmeal mush,” which was to be prepared “for any student wanting it.” Beverages included milk, tea, and coffee, as well as water, which was to be served with ice.
Despite complaints of earlier generations, the Adams Club continued to purchase salted fish, including cod, mackerel, and salmon. The Club also purchased relatively cheap cuts of meat: there are frequent references to sausages, mutton, corned beef, rump roasts, round cuts, and shin. Tripe, liver, and other types of offal were frequently served, and they purchased oysters by the barrelful - shellfish not yet being considered a delicacy.
Dinners, then, would have consisted of roasted and braised cuts of beef and pork, as well as different varieties of “hashed meat.” Fried foods - fried fish, fried oysters, fried tripe, fried liver - were also quite common and, in 1873, the Club voted to have “cold meat” available at dinner for any student who requested it. Roast chicken was only served every few weeks, poultry being a more expensive delicacy than meat in the late nineteenth century.
There were usually fresh fruits available, including apples bought by the bushel, oranges, pears, peaches, lemons and, after a vote by the student body in May 1875, strawberries, when in season. Vegetables were usually purchased in bulk but seem to have included turnips, parsnips, carrots, radishes, cabbage, and potatoes.
There is little reference to desserts, but ample purchases of flour, butter, sugar, and eggs – as well as vanilla – hint at the possibility that cakes, ice creams, and other sweets may have been offered in the dining hall.
The Adams Club employed a number of individuals to provide their room and board. The club’s records make frequent mention of maids and other women who cleaned the three dormitory buildings, and there were also “waiting maids” who were solely responsible for preparing and serving the students’ meals. They were supervised by a matron who roomed in Middle Hall. Most of the individuals who worked for the school during this period were young women, most likely recent immigrants from Ireland: Hannah McGinn, Nellie Collins, Maggie Welch, Mary Cullerton, and Katie Colman. For a few years, the Adams Club also employed a “chore boy,” until his services were deemed superfluous expenditure.
The Club’s meeting minutes make a few references to special occasions held in the dining hall. Tufts President Alonzo Ames Miner joined the Club for dinner several times during his term. In May 1876, the Club authorized the steward to provide food “for the Foot ball men” after a game against Harvard. In December, the Club usually authorized the steward to make preparations for a Christmas dinner. In 1874, this dinner included an expensive delicacy - roast turkey.
By 1880, Tufts had developed a more secure financial footing, and the services of the student boarding club were no longer necessary. The school reassumed responsibility for feeding and housing its students.