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This Week in Princeton History for November 14-20
In this week’s installment of our recurring series, students are setting fashion trends in nearby New York, alumni are memorialized, and more. November 16, 1928—Lynn Carrick, Class of 1920, observes that current students are now setting fashion trends in New York. Suffice it to point to such obvious departures from tradition as that black socks…
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This Week in Princeton History for April 12-18
In this week’s installment of our recurring series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, women’s tennis plays its first game, violence breaks out over fashion, and more. April 12, 1971—Women’s tennis plays its first game, defeating Penn 5-to-1. April 14, 1947—As the New Jersey telephone workers strike enters…
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This Week in Princeton History for June 10-16
In this week’s installment of our recurring series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, a delayed cookie shipment arrives, Commencement moves to a new home, and more. June 12, 1996—Cookies mailed to Princeton-in-Asia intern Laura Burt on November 1, 1995 finally arrive unopened in Wuhan, China. June 13,…
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This Week in Princeton History for February 18-24
In this week’s installment of our recurring series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, hazing makes national headlines, McCarter Theater opens, and more. February 18, 1878—During a particularly severe outbreak of hazing, a gunfight breaks out on Nassau Street between freshmen and sophomores, with one student being shot…
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Celebrating Christmas and New Year’s Day in the “Chinese” Way
By Xinxian Cynthia Zheng GS Recently, I found a file of 72 “Chinese New Year cards” in the Princeton University Library Records (AC 123). Looking through them, I saw that they were a syncretic fusion of Chinese and Western elements, rather than the kind of Chinese New Year cards I usually receive from friends now. Dated…
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Marines and Chinese armies in Peking
(This is our fifth post about the films of diplomat John Van Antwerp MacMurray. See the first post for more background.) When watching MacMurray’s peaceful films of China, it is easy to forget that the country was torn by civil war for most of the time he served as minister. The films labeled “Peking Misc(ellaneous)…
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Renting a temple in the Western Hills
(This is our fourth post about the films of diplomat John Van Antwerp MacMurray. See the first post for more background.) Detail of MacMurray’s German map of the Peking surroundings. The Pa Ta Ch’u valley, with Ta Pei Ssu, the temple rented by MacMurray (no. 41) is shown at the left of the center above…
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A diplomat’s trip along the Yangtze River, 1928
(This is our third post about the films of diplomat John Van Antwerp MacMurray. See the first post for more background.) On February 24, 1928, MacMuray, his Chinese secretary, and a naval attaché started a six-week trip along the Yangtze (Yangzi) river to inspect consulates and ports between Tsingtao (Qingdao) and Chungking. MacMurray, who took…
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Trip to attend the reinterment of Sun Yat-sen, 1929
(This is our second post about the films of diplomat John Van Antwerp MacMurray. See the first post for more background.) On June 1, 1929, the body of Sun Yat-sen, leader of the Nationalist Party, who died and was buried in Peking (Beijing) in 1925, was reinterred in a new mausoleum in Nanking (Nanjing). The…
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MacMurray’s films of China, 1925-1929
American diplomat John Van Antwerp MacMurray (1881-1960) began filming in 1925, two years after Kodak introduced the Cine-Kodak Motion Picture camera, which made production and display of motion pictures possible for amateurs. The John Van Antwerp MacMurray Papers at Mudd Manuscript Library contain twenty-eight silent 16mm films, which MacMurray shot while serving as Minister to…
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