Harvard’s patronage catapulted Agassiz into Boston’s highest elite circles

Evidence

In 1847, Everett offered Agassiz the newly created Lawrence Scientific School on a silver platter. Naturally, Agassiz accepted. Almost overnight, Agassiz was catapulted to the highest echelons of Boston high society. Agassiz married Elizabeth Cabot Cary, a daughter of a Boston Brahmin family, who would later cofound Radcliffe College. His standing in the famous Boston “Saturday Club,” a literary dining and conversation society that included Hawthorne and Emerson among its ranks, was such that the gathering was popularly referred to as “Agassiz’s Club.” — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 1055