Hasty Pudding Club

The Hasty Pudding Club, often referred to simply as the Pudding, is a social club at Harvard University, and one of three sub-organizations that comprise the Hasty Pudding - Institute of 1770. The club's motto, Concordia Discors (discordant harmony), derives from the epistles of the Latin poet Horace. The year of founding for the club is usually given as 1795, when a group of undergraduates came together "to cherish feelings of friendship and patriotism," or as 1770, the founding year for the Institute of 1770, an organization that the Pudding absorbed in 1924. By way of this amalgamation, the Pudding claims to be the oldest collegiate social club in the United States. Historically, the club has been noted for its "prestigious" reputation and viewed as "the first step towards final club membership." An 1870 travel book listed the Hasty Pudding Club and the Porcellian Club as "the two lions of Harvard." History The society was founded on September 1, 1795, by a 15-year-old Harvard College student, Horace Binney, who called together a meeting of 21 juniors in the room of Nymphas Hatch. The club is named for hasty pudding, a traditional English dish popular at that time in America that the founding members ate at their first meeting. Each week two members, chosen in alphabetical order, had to provide a pot of hasty pudding for the club to enjoy.