A Theft of Privilege: Harvard and the Buried History of a Notorious Secret Society

In the early hours of May 21, 1905, a wealthy and socially prominent Harvard senior named Benjamin Joy was arrested as an accomplice in the theft of a bronze plaque from the Philips Brooks House. The theft was one in a long history of "stunts" perpetrated by a Harvard Secret Society known as the Med. Fac., its members taken from the most prestigious of the Harvard clubs and representing the elite of New England Society. Amid an uproar with accusations of "social pull," a highly controversial bargain spared Joy from expulsion in exchange for the Society disbanding and surrendering all records and trophies to Harvard. Or so it seemed. Graduate members whose college misdeeds were at risk of exposure obstructed the delivery of the materials for thiry-five years, and then the records remained under seal and buried in the Harvard Archives for nearly another four decades. In this fascinating tale of social privilege and deceit, the secrets of the Med. Fac. are finally revealed!

About the Author :
L.M. Vincent is a Kansas City native and a former literary editor of the Harvard Lampoon. He has published both fiction and non-fiction, and his plays have been produced regionally and Off-off-Broadway. He and his wife have two grown daughters and live in Melbourne, Australia.

Review :
Like a latter-day Sherlock Holmes, L.M. Vincent traces the picaresque doings of an elite secret society, from its inception in 1818 to its exorcism in 1905. Over the decades, the Med. Fac.'s daring pranksters tormented the administrators of Harvard College, bedeviled the police forces of Cambridge and Boston, and even hoodwinked a Russian monarch, Tsar Alexander I. Meticulously researched and ably narrated, "A Theft of Privilege" is an important addition to the annals of collegiate rascality. --John T. Bethel, editor emeritus, Harvard Magazine A spirited and cheeky portrait of privilege and the 'smart set' at Harvard at the turn of the last century, complete with snot-nosed scamps and their old boy enablers in all their blue-blood glory. --Marty Kaplan, Founding Director, The USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center In L.M. Vincent's latest, he has dug deep into archives and contemporaneous accounts to assemble a compelling account of a Gilded Age crime. Over a hundred years after the fact, he reopens the door to an era when a felonious conspiracy at the nation's most ancient university could be overlooked as a youthful peccadillo--so long as the perpetrators were privileged by ancestry, wealth, and social status. Implicitly, Vincent holds up a mirror on the present day. Could an American born to riches and prestige wriggle their way out of such a crime today with no consequences? It's the twentieth century and we're past those times, right? --Keith Raffel, author of "A Fine and Dangerous Season." "A Theft of Privilege" offers unique insights into the class dimensions of higher education--and it reads like a detective story. --John L. Rury, Professor emeritus, School of Education, University of Kansas. The author succeeds in writing an entertaining and interesting story regarding a higher education piece of history easily presented for public consumption and scholarship alike. The narrative is meticulously researched, documented, and well-written. The author describes a rich history of privilege at one of America's oldest institutions of higher education. The book in enjoyable to read and provides a comprehensive account about the making and breaking of a centuries-old secret society, and it provides historical perspective regarding the role of power and prestige in elite higher education in the US. --History of Education Quarterly