Harvard University is a private Ivy League research college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, set up in 1636. Its history, impact and riches have made it a standout amongst the most prestigious colleges in the world.Established initially by the Massachusetts governing body and before long named for John Harvard (its first advocate), Harvard is the United States' most seasoned organization of higher learning, and the Harvard Corporation (formally, the President and Fellows of Harvard College) is its initially contracted company. Albeit never formally associated with any division, the early College basically prepared Congregationalist and Unitarian pastorate. Its educational modules and understudy body were bit by bit secularized amid the eighteenth century, and by the nineteenth century Harvard had developed as the focal social foundation among Boston elites. Taking after the American Civil War, President Charles W. Eliot's long residency (1869–1909) changed the school and subsidiary expert schools into a present day research college; Harvard was an establishing individual from the Association of American Universities in 1900. James Bryant Conant drove the college through the Great Depression and World War II and started to change the educational programs and change confirmations after the war. The undergrad school got to be coeducational after its 1977 merger with Radcliffe College. The University is composed into eleven separate scholastic units—ten resources and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study—with grounds all through the Boston metropolitan range: its 209-section of land (85 ha) primary grounds is fixated on Harvard Yard in Cambridge, roughly 3 miles (5 km) northwest of Boston; the business college and sports offices, including Harvard Stadium, are situated over the Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston and the therapeutic, dental, and general wellbeing schools are in the Longwood Medical Area. Harvard has the biggest money related gift of any scholastic foundation on the planet, remaining at $32.3 billion as of June 2013.