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This Week in Princeton History for March 24-30

By April C. Armstrong *14

In this week’s installment in our recurring series, housing capacity is strained, silent movies are on their way out, and more.

March 24, 1870—James McCosh tells alumni, “Princeton…is something like ‘the old woman who lived in a shoe and had so many children she did not know what to do.’ She has four hundred students, with room only for two hundred.” A new dormitory is scheduled to be built to address the capacity problems.

Postcard depicting Reunion Hall
The cornerstone for Reunion Hall was laid in May 1870. It had 70 dorm rooms and stood five stories tall. Image from Historical Postcard Collection (AC045), Box 1.

March 27, 1929—Courtland Smith, General Manager of Fox Movietone News, tells a student journalist that there will someday soon be no more silent movies, because people now have radios and are accustomed to recorded dialogue. Smith predicts that soon every home will have a television, and therefore an appetite for “sound pictures” will increase.

Advertisement for Atwater Kent radio
This radio advertisement was one of many that competed for locals’ attention in the January 4, 1929 issue of the Princeton Herald. Although radios were becoming more widely available and more popular, they were relatively expensive. This radio was priced at $117, which would be nearly $2,200 in 2025 dollars. Another radio advertised locally on the same day had a price of $375. For most people, a radio would have been a luxury item.

March 28, 1919—Franklin Delano Roosevelt is among the speakers at the Princeton Victory Dinner in Philadelphia.

"The Hour Draws Near for that Princeton Victory Dinner" with the keynote speaker listed as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Flyer advertising the “Princeton Victory Dinner” in Philadelphia, March 28, 1919. Historical Subject Files (AC109), Box 407, Folder 4.

March 30, 1972—A group of women respond to a petition circulating the campus calling for a referendum to end coeducation by suggesting that Princeton become a women’s college instead.

LETTERS TO THE PRINCETONIAN A modest proposal To the Chairman: After reading the article in The Princetonian of Monday, March 27, regarding Messrs. Stringer and Schmelling's request for a referendum to end coeducation "with all its works and pomps," we, the undersigned, would like to add our full support and approval, contingent upon a small addendum to their proposal. Our small addendum would specify that those excluded from this "ivory tower," rendering Princeton once more a single sex institution in the image of its glorious past, be the men — after all, you guys had exclusive rights to Old Nassau for 220-odd years and it's only fair that we get equal time. Lallie B. Lloyd '74 Lyn A. Sedwick '74 Elizabeth A. Friskey '74 Suzanne R. Perles '75
Clipping from Daily Princetonian.

Did you read the previous installment in this series?

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April C. Armstrong *14

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