By April C. Armstrong *14

In this week’s installment of our recurring series, a student reflects on experiences with food insecurity, a fledgling institution gets a new charter, and more.

September 8, 1969—Jan Robinson ’73 writes of her experiences as a new student at Princeton,

The food is terrible, so I stuff my gut with Coke, gaining two more pounds. We join some other Black students and leave commons complaining about the food. Suddenly we start to laugh because we realize that some of us are getting three meals a day for the first time in our lives.

Her reflections will later be published in Redbook.

September 10, 1880—Given a recent outbreak of typhoid in the area, students are forbidden to room and board in the vicinity of the Scientific School at Nassau Street and Washington Road. The area of town that seems least prone to illness, however, seems to be “Africa and Dublin,” where Irish immigrants and Black residents live, and no students are found.

September 13, 1861—At midnight, students seize a peer, Francis DuBois, Jr. of the Class of 1863, escort him from his dorm room, and force him under the college water pump. DuBois openly expressed sympathies with the Confederacy, though he is from New York, and has offended other students. A local report will say of what will be dubbed the “Pumping Incident” that “He took it quietly.”

September 14, 1748—Governor Jonathan Belcher grants a second charter to the College of New Jersey.

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Did you read the previous installment in this series?

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