In this week’s installment of our ongoing series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, the debate team takes up women’s suffrage, a letter defends Russell Crowe’s behavior on campus, and more.

March 26, 1957—Thanks to a local law prohibiting coin-operated games not requiring skill, the last of Princeton’s pinball machines is removed, saddening undergraduates.

March 27, 1914—Princeton debates Harvard on whether women should have the right to vote in the United States. M. Gates of Princeton’s Class of 1916 argues that women, “because they are non-partisan and unprejudiced, possess the greatest power possible for benefiting the state” without having the franchise.

March 30, 2001—In a letter to the editor of the Daily Princetonian, Ben Shopsin defends Russell Crowe against charges of behaving like a diva while filming A Beautiful Mind on campus, saying, “Crowe seems to have been really nice to people around Princeton so far…”

April 1, 1862—The Nassau Literary Magazine reports that minister “of a sable hue” (probably Alexander Crummell, rather than “Crumwell,” as the Lit spells it) has recently lectured to students on the “Civilization of Africa.” “Two years ago, a black man lecturing to the learned dignitaries of this place would have been the occasion of effigies and rows; now, anomalous as it is, it must be marked by the observant world as a step in our college history… So rich an intellectual treat is rarely served us, and had it not, to many, lost much from the force of prejudice, would have beggared the admiration of all.”

For last week’s installment in this series, click here.

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