Harvard's 'Frankenstein': The 70s Controversy Over Mixing DNA

In the 1970s, two inhuman creatures—one hairy and tall, another with orange eyes—were spotted in New England. The mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts, blamed these monsters not on unreliable testimonies, but recombinant DNA technology, then a new and promising laboratory technique.This outrageous claim was leveled by one Alfred Vellucci, a Cambridge mayor who reserved a unique animosity for academia, and Harvard, especially. He was fond of threatening, for example, to pave the university's grassy quad over for a parking lot—obviously the best solution to Cambridge's parking woes.

In the 1970s, two inhuman creatures—one hairy and tall, another with orange eyes—were spotted in New England. The mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts, blamed these monsters not on unreliable testimonies, but recombinant DNA technology, then a new and promising laboratory technique.

This outrageous claim was leveled by one Alfred Vellucci, a Cambridge mayor who reserved a unique animosity for academia, and Harvard, especially. He was fond of threatening, for example, to pave the university's grassy quad over for a parking lot—obviously the best solution to Cambridge's parking woes.

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