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Ship’s Bottle in the Archives
You never know what you are going to find in an archival collection. Pictured here is the bottle used to christen the U.S.S. Vulcan, a Navy repair ship, at its launch on December 14, 1940. The netting held the pieces of the bottle together when it was smashed during the ceremony. The ship was sponsored…
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Reunions, reunions, 1915-2009
Princeton’s reunions are almost as old as Princeton University itself, going back to the days when the university was still known as the "College of New Jersey." In today’s blog, posted during the Reunions weekend of 2011, we are showing you the oldest reunion footage in the University Archives: an annotated film of the Class of…
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Folk Art in the Archives
[Left] William Bowen by Stanislaus Korneski. Paint and etching on wood, AR1995.78. [Right] Photo of William Bowen by the Princeton Alumni Weekly. I would guess that every archives has material like this — objects created out of affection or respect in a non-official capacity. These two paintings on etched wood — recently re-discovered here at…
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Residential Colleges and Wu Hall
In this short video from around 1983, President Bowen discusses Wu Hall, the then-new dining facility for Butler College. The video highlights three elements that played increasingly significant roles in shaping Princeton over the following decades: the support of alumnus Gordon Wu, the residential colleges system, and the architecture of alumnus Robert Venturi. We don’t know…
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Being Jewish at Princeton: from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s days to the Center of Jewish Life
“The Princeton of today is not the Princeton of Scott Fitzgerald. And by that I mean you can feel comfortable being Jewish, you can feel comfortable being Asian, you can feel comfortable being African American. And while this might not always have been true (…) it is definitely true today.” The speaker is Erik Ruben…
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The ACLU Records: Tips for processing 2400 feet in two years
The following entry relates to our ongoing American Civil Liberties Union processing project previously described here and here. Processing, regardless of the size of the collection, has many common features: In almost all cases, you survey the boxes to see what is there, decide what to keep and how it will be organized, arrange the…
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New Public Policy Accessions: April 2011
As organizations grow and change through time, so do their archives.The Mudd Manuscript Library collects the records of the American Civil Liberties Union [ML.2011.011], the Association on American Indian Affairs [ML.2011.005], and Americans United for Separation of Church and State [ML.2011.003], among many other organizations. In the last few months, we’ve had the pleasure of…
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Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, An Overview
Since 1951, the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has conducted research aimed at developing controlled nuclear fusion as an energy alternative to fossil fuels. Founded by Lyman Spitzer *38, the PPPL is a joint project of Princeton University and the US Department of Energy, located on Princeton’s James Forrestal Campus. This 1989 publicity film highlights…
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Dean Fred Hargadon on Princeton admissions, circa 1990
Today’s post was written by Lisa Dunkley ’83, Project Analyst at the Office of Development, who worked under Fred Hargadon from 1988 to 1994. “Yes!” Those of us who knew, or knew of, Dean Fred Hargadon cannot hear that exclamation without thinking about the blunt, welcome way successful Princeton applicants (and Stanford students before them)…
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“Princeton Football, the Winning Way,” 1975
Today’s blog is written by Mark F. Bernstein ’83, author of Football: the Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession (2001). A previous entry from him about Princeton football can be found here. The title of this video notwithstanding, Princeton football fell on hard times after the decision to abandon the single wing offense in…
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