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This Week in Princeton History for November 29-December 5
In this week’s installment of our recurring series, basketball tickets will get a new look, the press observes expansion of Princeton’s campus, and more. November 29, 1965—Princeton University’s Director of Athletics announces that tickets to Princeton basketball games will no longer feature a picture of Bill Bradley ’65.
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This Week in Princeton History for November 22-28
In this week’s installment of our recurring series, new admissions requirements are approved, a new church building frees local residents from an obligation to rent pews in Nassau Hall, and more. November 24, 1845—Two seniors are dismissed from Princeton “in consequence of a quarrel & from an apprehension that it might lead to a duel.”…
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This Week in Princeton History for November 15-21
In this week’s installment of our recurring series, Blair Hall gets a new electric clock, Noah Webster gives a Princetonian credit for an idea, and more. November 16, 1899—The Alumni Princetonian notes that a clock has been installed on the Blair Hall tower and will be powered by electricity. November 18, 1821—Noah Webster writes that…
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This Week in Princeton History for November 8-14
In this week’s installment of our recurring series, an alum resigns the U.S. Senate in anticipation of war, two undergraduates chase down a criminal suspect, and more. November 9, 1903—Controversy has erupted locally over the town’s first Black postman, A. B. Davis, who secured his appointment in competition with several white applicants. Kansas’s Wichita Searchlight…
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Secret Societies at Princeton in the 19th Century
by Iliyah Coles ’22 A couple of decades after The College of New Jersey (which became Princeton University in 1896) was first established, there were only two known social clubs in existence at the school. These were “the well-meaning club” and “the plain-dealing club,” which eventually evolved into the Whig and Cliosophic societies that we…
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This Week in Princeton History for November 1-7
In this week’s installment of our recurring series, some alumni are not pleased that students are cross-dressing for the theater, Abraham Lincoln is the most popular candidate for president on campus, and more. November 1, 1798—Using the “ride and tie” method and sharing one horse, Jacob Lindley and James Carnahan arrive in Princeton to begin…
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This Week in Princeton History for October 25-31
In this week’s installment of our recurring series, a visitor is shocked by students expressing political views, faculty deny a petition to begin a college newspaper, and more. October 25, 1797—In Newark’s Centinel of Freedom, an anonymous writer expresses shock and dismay at observed behavior of students in Princeton. “From students at college we expect…
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Early LGBTQIA+ Publishing and Civil Liberties During America’s “Lavender Scare”
Documentation of LGBTQIA+ communities prior to the Stonewall riots of 1969 can be sparse. During the immediate post-World War II period, all manifestations of non-heterosexuality were under deliberate government attack within the era’s overall attempt to find and root out all “un-American activities.” Through a series of measures—the U.S. State Department purging employees with “homosexual…
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This Week in Princeton History for October 18-24
In this week’s installment of our recurring series, students are taking a new kind of exam, a play written by a member of the Class of 1883 debuts on Broadway, and more. October 19, 1859—The Princeton Standard reports on a new innovation at Princeton College: Closed-note, written exams. October 21, 1896—As part of the Sequicentennial…
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This Week in Princeton History for October 11-17
In this week’s installment of our recurring series, an alum makes an influential argument in favor of segregation, a controversial article about Jimmy Stewart ’32 appears, and more. October 13, 1958—Carleton B. Putnam ’24 writes his infamous “Putnam Letter” to Dwight D. Eisenhower. He argues that segregation is so important that it must be preserved,…
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