The cry of Rinehart! (more fully Oh, R-i-i-i-n-e-HART!) was a part of Harvard University student and alumni culture in the early decades of the 20th Century.
The cry references an unknown undergraduate's call, from ground to dormitory window, for James Rinehart (Harvard class of 1900). His cry of "Oh, R-i-i-i-n-e-HART!" drifting across Harvard Yard was inexplicably and spontaneously taken up by hundreds of students and echoed from the open windows of dormitories surrounding the quadrangle.
For the next forty years or so, cries of "Oh, R-i-i-i-n-e-HART!" could be heard at random times wherever Harvard men traveled or congregated, reportedly being heard at locations as far from Harvard as Cairo.
The call was included by journalist George Frazier in his 1932 song "Harvard Blues" (music by Tab Smith), recorded in 1941 by Count Basie and included on the compilation The Count Basie Story, Disc 3 - Harvard Blues (2001, Proper Records).
| “ | Rinehart, Rinehart / I'm a most indiff'rent guy / Rinehart, Rinehart / I'm a most indiff'rent guy / But I love my Vincent Baby / And that's no Harvard lie. - chorus of Harvard Blues |
” |
Currently, a descendent of Rinehart, Nicholas T. Rinehart, is a member of Harvard's class of 2014.[1]
One version of the origin of the chant is explained in an undated newspaper clipping (presumably from the Harvard Crimson of either June 1899 or 1900) contained in the Harvard University Archives scrapbook of R. R. Kent, '00. (Harvard Archives HUD 900.44 F).
John Gordon Brice Rinehart of Waynesburg Penn, a senior at Harvard College, has sprung into notoriety the past few days, due to no action of his own. Rinehart, who is an earnest student, has been in great demand as a tutor to other men in his courses. As he lives at the top of Grays hall his friends have sought to find out whether he was in or not by directing plaintive cries of “Rinehart, O Rinehart” at his windows. This made the studiously inclined who swell in the neighboring dormitories very tired and they determined to quell Rinehart, so promptly at dark for the past three nights the college yard has resounded with the cries of “Rinehart, O Rinehart.”
First one end of the yard and then other would send up the plaintive cry, and then all the buildings would swell as if in chorus with the same old plaint.
Last night the college police tried to stop the racket, but the boys by a little teamwork kept them running from one dormitory to the other.
One man with a megaphone was particularly offensive, but despite the police vigil of three hours the megaphonist was still summoning Rinehart in tearful tones.
As to Rinehart? Well, he took it philosophically, even good-humouredly. He was born in the Pennsylvania coal region, he said, and was used to the noise. It was a good advertisement for him in his business as a tutor, also. And he said he had no kick coming.""
(This version is disputed, as other versions of the origin exist, see external reference material.)