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“We Envision a World Where the Night Belongs to No One”: Intersectionality and Take Back the Night
By Mario Garcia ’18 “I’m white, I’m male, I’m middle class,” he said. “This isn’t supposed to happen to me.” On the evening of April 26, 1989, hundreds of students listened to their peer’s testimony as a part of Princeton University’s third annual Take Back the Night march. As one of many speakers throughout the…
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“The Future Princeton Is Whatever Emerges from the Battle Now Joined”: The Concerned Alumni of Princeton, 1972-1986
By Mario Garcia ’18 In the aftermath of various social movements that transformed the United States throughout the 1960s, the late 1960s and early 1970s served as its own transformative era for Princeton University: with the introduction of undergraduate coeducation, increased enrollment of racial minorities, and formation of the first recognized student group for gay…
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Do You Speak Princetonian?: The Language of Princeton
By Zachary Bampton ’20 with April C. Armstrong *14 Princetonians past and present have enjoyed the creation and use of language to refer to Princeton-specific places, acts, and things. Here at the Mudd Library, we have combed the archives to put forth some notable and, we think, fun words and phrases to capture what life…
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The Tigress
In 1969, after several years of experiments integrating women into the classroom, Princeton University announced that it would become fully coeducational, admitting women to all of its degree programs. Female undergraduates brought many changes to Princeton traditions with them, but not all of these are present on the 21st-century campus. One new tradition from the 1970s…
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Integrating Princeton University: Robert Joseph Rivers ’53
As we have previously pointed out, Princeton’s first African American undergraduates were not purposefully admitted: they were instead brought as part of a Navy training program during World War II. In 1945, Trustee Laurence G. Payson wrote to fellow member of the Class of 1916 John McFerran Barr to explain the presence of black students…
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“A Haven for Radicalism, Intolerance, and Lesbianism”: The Ongoing Struggle for an LGBTQ+-Inclusive Princeton
Mudd Library’s University Administrative Fellow for the fall 2016-2017 semester curated an online HistoryPin exhibit to document the history of minority sexualities at Princeton University. In this post, she provides broader context for the materials she chose to highlight. By Ariana Natalie Myers GS For much of its history, Princeton University students who experienced attraction toward…
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Ask Mr. Mudd: “Levee Song” and Princeton’s Minstrel Shows
Q. Dear Mr. Mudd, Is it true that the University of Texas school song, “The Eyes of Texas,” has a Princeton University connection? Where did the song come from, and why don’t Princeton students sing it anymore? A. “The Eyes of Texas” is set to a tune best known today as “I’ve Been Working on…
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Bob Dylan’s Honorary Princeton University Degree
When news of Bob Dylan being honored with a Nobel Prize in Literature broke a few months ago, the Swedish Academy responsible for the award acknowledged that it might appear to be an inappropriate choice. Dylan, as a musician, might not be thought of as an author so much as a composer. “If you look…
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#Princethen 2016 Announcement and Rules for Participation
Today is the first day of classes at Princeton University, so it’s time to talk about #Princethen! Last year, we all had fun with the first #Princethen game on Twitter. You sent us on quite the scavenger hunt through Mudd’s collections! This year, we are trying a new version of the game. Instead of us…
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Howard Edwards Gansworth and the “Indian Problem” at Princeton
For people of European descent carving out space for themselves in the present borders of the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, there was a major barrier: people already lived there. The nation did not regard this as an insurmountable hurdle, however. America tried a variety of things as it expanded westward: driving Native…
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