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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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“Womanhood on Tiger Territory”: The First Women to Live in Princeton University Dormitories
We have previously written about the first women to take a class at Princeton University, unseating nearly two centuries of tradition. Today, we’re highlighting what our collections tell us about another group of women who changed Princeton’s established patterns as the first to live in campus dorms, another result of World War II’s radical changes…
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The Bank Holiday of 1933 at Princeton University
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated President of the United States on Saturday, March 4, 1933. Immediately following his inauguration weekend, at 1:00 AM on March 6, Roosevelt issued Proclamation 2039. This action ordered all banks in the United States to close. No one would be able to withdraw, transfer, or deposit money between Monday, March…
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A Hope and A Hypothesis: The Curious Case of the Sonia Sotomayor ’76 Interview
Briana Christophers ‘17, a rising senior at Princeton University, made a discovery in the University Archives that solved a mystery we archivists didn’t know existed. In March, Briana visited us at the Mudd Manuscript Library, a visit arranged by Mudd’s Assistant University Archivist for Technical Services, Alexis Antracoli, in response to a petition Briana helped…
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Princeton University during the Korean War
By Spencer Shen ’16 Beginning in the summer of 1950, reserve officers and those enrolled in the Selective Service System were called up for service in the Korean War, including personnel at Princeton. J. Douglas Brown, then Dean of the Faculty, initially requested information to better cooperate with the government, but later opposed the universal…
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The Temples of Cloacina
Today, behind Nassau Hall just beyond Cannon Green, visitors to the Princeton University campus will see stairs between two large tiger sculptures installed in 1969. This sharp incline had different scenery prior to the twentieth century, however. Students sometimes called it “South Campus,” “The Temples of Cloacina,” or “Cloaca Maxima.” Less euphemistically or poetically, it served…
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Woodrow Wilson and the Graduate College
Written by Anna Rubin ’15 This is the second installment in a two-part series examining two aspects of Woodrow Wilson’s Princeton University presidency, featuring sources in our recently-digitized selections from the Office of the President Records. In the first, we looked at his attitude towards Princeton’s eating clubs. Here, we turn to his conflict over…
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“Even Princeton”: Vietnam and a Culture of Student Activism, 1967-1972
by Kyla Morgan Young GS College campuses in the 1960s and early ’70s were bastions of social and political activism. Students across the nation began to discover a renewed sense of political duty that came in the form of critique. Activism swelled around a myriad of issues including civil rights, gender equality, Apartheid, and most…
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William Taylor’s “Doggie Wagon”
Searching for materials in archival collections means, at times, trying to figure out how the people of the past would have labeled their photos, named their articles, or categorized their artifacts. They didn’t always use the same terms we would now. For this Black History Month, we examine William Taylor and how he illustrates the…
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