The lectures were to take place at Harvard University on the subject of "the immortality of man".
[1] The lectures were initiated by Harvard president Charles W. Eliot in 1896.
They are now generally known as The Ingersoll Lectures on Human Immortality.
On May 21, 1979, the Ingersoll Lecture Fund was transferred to the endowment of Harvard Divinity School, which continues to organize and host the lectures.
From 1896 to 1912 they were issued by the Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston and New York.