Examining Whitehead’s ‘First Lecture: September, 1924’

A quick comparison of Whitehead’s manuscript for his first Harvard lecture and the notes of his Harvard and Radcliffe students reveals that the manuscript does not exactly reflect the lecture that he actually delivered at Harvard on September 25, 1924. Paul Bogaard, the editor of the first year of Whitehead’s Harvard lectures during the academic year 1924-1925, undertakes a thorough examination of the manuscript and the notes of Winthrop Bell and Louise Heath and draws some conclusions which help explain the differences between these different sources. The manuscript was likely a little long to be delivered within the allotted time on the day, and it seems that Whitehead made some adjustments of the fly, including the removal of British anecdotes with which Americans would have been less familiar.