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The Problem with “Firsts,” Part II: Archival Silence and Black Staff at Princeton University
This is the second in a two-part series about archival silence and the “first” African Americans at Princeton University. The first post in this series addressed the history of Black students. In last week’s post in this series, focused on Black students, I wrote about how questions of definition and gaps in the archival record…
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Restrictions Reduced on Princeton University Administrative Records
By Dan Linke The old architectural adage that sometimes “Less is more,” can also apply to archives in the right circumstances. In this case, less, or more precisely, shorter, restrictions on records means more documents are accessible, and that is the case with the Princeton University trustees and administrative records. After closely scrutinizing our current…
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“Just friends; friends, that’s what matters in life:” the President and the Secretary of State
By Daniel J. Linke Curator of Public Policy Papers The Mudd Manuscript Library notes the passing of former President George H. W. Bush, who, though a Yale alum, is represented within our collections via the papers of his long-time friend and political ally, James A. Baker III ’52. Baker, among other roles, served as…
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Two Historical Princeton Area Publications Now Freely Available Online
By Dan Linke An initiative undertaken jointly by the Historical Society of Princeton (HSP), the Princeton Public Library (PPL), and the Princeton University Library (PUL) has begun to unlock decades of the town and the university’s history by making the historical runs of two local publications full-text searchable and available online via a Princeton University…
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Lawrence Rauch *49 and Operation Crossroads: Atomic Testing at Bikini Atoll
By Rosalba Varallo Recchia This post is part of a series on education and war related to our current exhibition, “Learning to Fight, Fighting to Learn: Education in Times of War,” on display through June 2018. Please stop by to learn more. Lawrence Rauch *49, a mathematics graduate student and a research assistant in physics,…
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James A. Baker Papers Opening Soon
By Dan Linke James A. Baker III ’52, the distinguished public servant and five-time presidential campaign manager who served as the 61st U.S. Secretary of State, will open his papers that are held at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library at Princeton University on January 1, 2018. Donated in 2002, originally the papers were to…
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Papers of Granville Austin, noted scholar of Indian constitution, now available
This post was written by Phoebe Nobles, the archivist who processed the Granville Austin Papers. We are pleased to announce the addition of the Granville Austin Papers (MC287) to the Public Policy Papers at Mudd Manuscript Library. Austin (1927-2014) was an independent scholar and political historian who wrote two of the seminal works on the…
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The Right to Love: Loving v. Virginia and the American Civil Liberties Union
The film Loving, based on the Loving v. Virginia case, is now in expanded release in U.S. theaters. When Mildred and Richard Loving were married in June 1958, twenty-four states still had anti-miscegenation laws. For this reason, Mildred, a black woman who was also of Rappahannock and Cherokee Indian descent, and Richard, a white man, were…
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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 and “Meet Me in St. Louis”
By Madeline Lea ’16 In the opening scenes of the 1944 MGM motion picture Meet Me in St. Louis, Lon Smith receives his Princeton University Catalogue in the mail (view the clip here). Lon, the eldest child of the Smith family, has been accepted to Princeton in the fall, and his going away party is the…
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