“She Flourishes:” Chapters in the History of Princeton Women

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The See­ley G. Mudd Man­u­script Library at Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity invites vis­i­tors to view the new exhibit, “She Flour­ishes: Chap­ters in the His­tory of Prince­ton Women,” which doc­u­ments the strug­gles and accom­plish­ments of women schol­ars, stu­dents, staff and other women asso­ci­ated with the insti­tu­tion. The exhibit is open now through the end of August, 2012.

The exhibit title is derived from the University’s offi­cial motto, Dei Sub Numine Viget, which trans­lates to “Under God’s Power, She Flour­ishes.” Draw­ing from the library’s rich hold­ings, the exhibit show­cases var­i­ous accounts of women through­out Princeton’s his­tory and explores the ways in which these women have rede­fined what was once con­sid­ered an “old-boys’ school.”

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From the “dan­ger­ous exper­i­ment” of Eve­lyn Col­lege (Princeton’s local all-women’s col­lege, 1887–97), to the imple­men­ta­tion of under­grad­u­ate coed­u­ca­tion (1969), and the inau­gu­ra­tion of Pres­i­dent Shirley M. Tilgh­man (2001), women have his­tor­i­cally con­tributed sig­nif­i­cantly to the func­tion and edu­ca­tional mis­sion of Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity, though not always with­out oppo­si­tion. Exhi­bi­tion items from the Uni­ver­sity Archives at the Mudd Man­u­script Library spot­light chap­ters in the lives of a hand­ful of par­tic­u­larly notable Prince­ton women, while demon­strat­ing their chang­ing roles and their abil­ity to influ­ence their environment.
Women high­lighted in the exhibit include: Beat­rix Far­rand, who was respon­si­ble for craft­ing Princeton’s highly regarded land­scape envi­ron­ment; Katharine Fuller­ton Ger­ould, a noted scholar and fac­ulty wife barred from intel­lec­tual pur­suits, skew­ered the parochial, hyper-masculine envi­ron­ment at Prince­ton in 1924; Josephine Thom­son Swann who was inte­gral in the found­ing of the Ivy Club in 1887; and Sally Frank, who more than one hun­dred years later, chal­lenged male-oriented cul­tural tra­di­tions, result­ing in the full inte­gra­tion of women into the eat­ing clubs.
Woman Enters Admissions
This exhibit does not and can­not tell the whole story of women at Prince­ton. It does, how­ever, pro­vide a glimpse into the mate­ri­als gen­er­a­tions of Prince­ton women left behind includ­ing let­ters, mem­o­randa, pho­tographs, pub­li­ca­tions and other records of schol­ar­ship and cam­pus work. The exhibit also includes a video com­pi­la­tion of archival footage relat­ing to women at Prince­ton, avail­able online through the Reel Mudd Blog. For more infor­ma­tion related to the his­tory of women at Prince­ton, see the Mudd Library’s page devoted to this topic.
“She Flour­ishes” is open to the pub­lic free of charge from 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Mon­day through Fri­day until August 31, 2012. The Mudd Library will also be open Sat­ur­day morn­ing, June 2, 2012, for Reunions. Begin­ning in June, exhibit hours will be 8:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. Mon­day through Friday.