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John Forbes Nash’s Princeton University Academic File Available Online
A lot of interest has been focused on John Forbes Nash *50 in the past several years. We’ve routinely seen high levels of traffic on our web page detailing our archival resources available on the famous mathematician. Astute readers have noted that the restrictions on Nash’s graduate school records would no longer apply following his…
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Our Dear Old Barracks: Life in the Butler Tract
When one thinks of Princeton, the phrases “cattle-car style barracks” and “semi-slums” are rarely the first that come to mind. But these are the words people have used to describe the Butler Apartments, which have provided housing for generations of graduate students for nearly 70 years. The apartment complex, located off Harrison Street, was originally…
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Archiving Email at the Princeton University Archives
Changes in leadership, especially at universities, give archivists an opportunity to transfer records into the archives. Such was the case when the current Dean of the College, Valerie Smith, accepted a position as the new president of Swarthmore College, a post she will assume in just over a month. Dan Linke, the University Archivist, and…
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African Americans and Princeton University
Dear Mr. Mudd: Q. What information do you have about African Americans and Princeton University? A. Until the twentieth century, Princeton’s history has mostly been dominated by white men, typically from prosperous backgrounds. Though decidedly pro-Union during the Civil War, the campus had strong Southern influences, and its reputation as the “northernmost university town of the…
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“Dear Mother … with Heaps of Love”
This Mother’s Day, we thought we’d give a shout out to all the Princeton moms. Though Princeton has changed a lot over the years, one thing has remained pretty constant: many students want to share their academic triumphs, heartbreaks, and other local news with their mothers, who once received letters like this one and today…
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“This Ceremony Was Not Sanctioned”: Gay Marriage at Princeton
With the policy that young lovers of the same sex may no longer sign the marriage register and that Michael Beer and Jason Rudy will have a retractory asterisk placed by their entry, neither side of the aisle gets what it wants. … No one who has attended ours, the most pragmatic of all universities,…
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Princeton Mourns Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. exactly 150 years ago. As Americans did throughout the country, Princetonians immediately went into mourning. The loss was more profound given that the nation had emerged from a devastating Civil War less than a week before. Princeton’s ties to Lincoln are reflected in various collections…
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Acquiring Digital Archives in the Field at Princeton
As a digital archivist on Mudd’s Technical Services team, I spend a fair amount of my time looking at screens like the one pictured here. I briefly panicked when I came across this screen while processing a restricted University Archives collection last year. The information was the output of the software ClamTK, the default virus…
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Alan Turing’s Princeton University File Available Online
With the American premiere of The Imitation Game this Friday, many will be interested in its subject, Alan Mathison Turing, who received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton University in 1938. With the “Turing Machine,” he laid the theoretical foundations that make it possible for the device you are using to read this blog post…
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“The Wa” as it was.
On August 27th, 1974, Princeton University’s then News Bureau, announced that Princeton’s First Wawa had opened at 140 University Place at the old Doten Garage and Studebaker dealership. Following the closing of the garage the space was used as a warehouse for the University dorm and food services. Renovations were made to adapt the space…
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