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Princeton’s Class of 1880 v. the Class of 1881
By Carter Mulroe ’20 The freshman vs. sophomore rivalry is one of Princeton’s oldest customs, dating at least as far back to 1760 when a code of unofficial laws stated that “every freshman sent on an errand shall go and do it quickly and faithfully and return.” This was what Princeton once called “horsing,” now…
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This Week in Princeton History for September 7-13
In this week’s installment of our recurring series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, Mudd Library opens, Virginia sends the college a map, and more. September 7, 1976—Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library opens for research.
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George Morgan White Eyes, Racial Theory at Princeton, and Student Financial Aid in the Eighteenth Century
In 1779, a group of Delaware set up camp on Prospect Farm, owned by George Morgan, along a dirt walkway that separated them from the campus of the College of New Jersey, as Princeton University was named until 1896. They brought a boy with them who was about eight or nine years old. His father…
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This Week in Princeton History for August 31-September 6
In this week’s installment of our recurring series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, alumnae celebrate the completion of a cross-country fundraising bike ride with a dip in the Fountain of Freedom, an invoice is paid for Nassau Hall’s weather vane, and more. August 31, 1989—A champagne reception…
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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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The Problem with “Firsts,” Part I: Archival Silence and Black Students at Princeton University
This is the first in a two-part series about archival silence and the “first” Black Princetonians. The second post in this series will consider Black staff. People often ask us about the “first” person to do something in a given demographic. I previously wrote about the difficulty with determining who the “first” Jewish student was—and…
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This Week in Princeton History for August 17-23
In this week’s installment of our recurring series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, three professors miss an eclipse, four juniors secure an apartment in Plainsboro to avoid eating tofu, and more. August 17, 1788—At a meeting of the faculty, Henry Purcell, a minister’s son, is “found guilty…
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This Week in Princeton History for August 10-16
In this week’s installment of our recurring series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, Alfred A. Woodhull enters the Class of 1856, the Princetonian asks town residents to stop looking at undergraduates, and more. August 10, 1854—Having successfully passed the entrance exam, Alfred A. Woodhull enters the Class of…
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Marriage and Undergraduate Life at Princeton University in the 1970s
By Iliyah Coles ’22 Married undergraduates have been at Princeton for decades, even though they might appear to be relatively scarce at the University now. In fact, students who got married before attending college weren’t even allowed to be admitted until around 1970, most likely in part due to the difficulty in finding adequate housing…
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