The 14-foot Eliot Table was moved in one piece by crane from the first floor of Baker Library to Stamps Reading Room on the third floor. Charles W. Eliot commissioned the table while an assistant to Harvard University president James Walker (1853-1860). When Eliot became University president (1869-1909), he chaired faculty meetings in University Hall at this same table. In one of his last major acts as Harvard’s president, Eliot persuaded the university to found a graduate school of business administration (Harvard Business School). Edwin F. Gay (1908-1919), the first dean of HBS, inherited the Eliot Table – and many decisions that shaped the newly created school were made while sitting at this very table.
