Category Archives: Dear Mr. Mudd:

Princeton and the Olympics

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Dear Mr. Mudd,

What are the con­nec­tions between Prince­ton and the Olympics?

With the upcom­ing 2012 Olympics on the hori­zon, this is a pop­u­lar ques­tion. We have a blog entry from a few years ago con­cern­ing what Mudd has in its col­lec­tions relat­ing to the 1896 games.

Prince­ton University’s ties with the Olympics began at the revival of the Olympiad in 1896 when Dr. William Sloane, a Prince­ton pro­fes­sor, formed an Amer­i­can team for the games. On that team were four Prince­ton stu­dents. Robert Gar­rett, 1897 threw the dis­cus 96 feet to defeat a Greek cham­pion. Three other stu­dents par­tic­i­pated in the Athens games: Her­bert B. Jami­son ’97 (sec­ond in the 400 meters), Fran­cis A. Lane ’97 (sec­ond in the 100 meters), and Albert Clin­ton Tyler ’97 (sec­ond in pole-vault).

Photo cour­tesy: Prince­ton Alumni Weekly, Ricardo Barros

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1984 NBC-TV aired a minis­eries enti­tled The First Olympics: Athens 1896. The fol­low­ing clip shows the dis­cus throw of Garrett.

 

Also in the archives is a lau­rel branch that was awarded to Albert C. Tyler for his sec­ond in the pole vault a the 1896 games.

There are a num­ber of alumni that have won gold medals in the Olympics, as cat­a­loged by Prince­ton Alumni Weekly writer, Gregg Lange ’70.  Lange’s list and com­men­tary includes:

• Karl Fred­er­ick ‘1903 is the only Tiger to win three gold medals, all in 1920 in Antwerp. One of the better-shooting Prince­ton lawyers of the post-Burr era, he won an indi­vid­ual gold in the 50-meter pis­tol and team golds in the same event and the 30-meter, too. He later pulled off an unlikely dou­ble, as pres­i­dent in turn of the National Rifle Asso­ci­a­tion and the New York State Con­ser­va­tion Council.

• Her­man “Swede” Whiton ’26 is the only Prince­ton­ian to win in two sep­a­rate games and the first Amer­i­can yachts­man to win a race twice – the 6-meter sail­ing race at both the 1948 and 1952 Olympics in Lon­don and Helsinki with dif­fer­ent crews.

• Nel­son Diebel ’96 who was semi-rescued from weird­ness by his Ped­die swim­ming coach, then suf­fered chronic rotator-cuff inflam­ma­tion, but put together an annus mirabilis after his Prince­ton fresh­man year in 1992 to win both the Olympic 100-meter breast­stroke and the 4x100 med­ley relay gold in Barcelona.

• Four years after Garrett’s tri­umph in Athens, Frank Jarvis 1900 (a direct descen­dent of George Wash­ing­ton) won the 100-meter dash in 1900 in Paris. The first great Prince­ton sprinter, he already had won the national AAU title at 100 yards and two dif­fer­ent Inter­col­le­giate Asso­ci­a­tion of Ama­teur Ath­letes of Amer­ica (IC4A) titles.

• Bill Steven­son ’22, an Illi­nois cousin of his famed class­mate Adlai II ’22 and a Rhodes scholar, had won the national cham­pi­onship AAU title in the 440 yard race in 1921. He went to Paris for the 1924 games and ran on the U.S. gold-medal 4x400-meter relay team. He even­tu­ally became pres­i­dent of Ober­lin, then ambas­sador to the Philippines.

• Jed Graef ’64, whose high school didn’t have a swim­ming team, swam for the great Bob Clot­wor­thy in Dil­lon Pool and went on to win the 200-yard back­stroke at the NCAA and U.S. cham­pi­onships. Then he set a world record win­ning gold in the 200 meters at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, beat­ing two Amer­i­cans who ear­lier had defeated him. He was inducted into the Inter­na­tional Swim­ming Hall of Fame in 1988.

• Then came the row­ers, prod­ucts of the ever-burgeoning pro­gram down on Lake Carnegie. The first cham­pion was Mike Evans ’81, whose gold medal in the 1984 Los Ange­les Olympics came, iron­i­cally, for Canada by 0.42 sec­onds over the United States, the first Prince­ton gold won for another coun­try. It also was Canada’s first win in the fea­tured men’s heavy­weight eights, estab­lish­ing a global stature that Cana­di­ans retain to this day. [Evans is now vice chair­man of The Gold­man Sachs Group, Inc.]

• Chris Ahrens ’98 waited six years after stroking the Prince­ton heavy­weight eight to national cham­pi­onships in 1996 and 1998 to win his gold in 2004 in the men’s eights in Athens, com­ing out of retire­ment in 2003 after a wrench­ing fifth-place fin­ish in Syd­ney in 2000.

AP Images

 

Car­o­line Lind ’06, stroke and heart of the mag­nif­i­cent 2006 women’s unde­feated – and prac­ti­cally unchal­lenged – national cham­pion open crew, rowed the No. 7 oar for the gold-medal-winning women’s eight in Bei­jing, their first Olympic cham­pi­onship in 24 years. She’s the first alumna to grab gold for the Tigers.

 

 

A search of our Senior The­sis Data­base shows there are 16 the­ses that have been focused on the Olympics. All the­ses can be viewed in our read­ing room.

In 1935 a travel agency adver­tised tours in the Daily Prince­ton­ian: “The steamship agency “Adri­atic Exchange Travel Bureau,” at 226 East 86th Street, New York City, spe­cial­ists in Ger­man travel since 1918, announces a num­ber of “Thrift Tours” for next year’s Olympics to be held in Berlin, Ger­many. These tours are rea­son­ably priced and are orga­nized to appeal to all stu­dents who are inter­ested in athletics.” 

The Olympic Flame trav­eled through the Prince­ton cam­pus in 1980 as a part of the Prince­ton Relays. Ali­son Carl­son ’77 held the honor of hold­ing the flame high.

The Prince­ton Alumni Weekly has put together a list of the Prince­to­ni­ans in the 2012 Olympics.

And from Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Com­mu­ni­ca­tions: 16 past and cur­rent Prince­ton stu­dents ready to com­pete for gold at Olympics in London

Most used Princeton theses

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Dear Mr. Mudd, I was won­der­ing what is the most popular/most requested senior the­sis in the Uni­ver­sity Archives collection?

This is a peren­nial ques­tion and the short answer is that with the excep­tion of celebrity alumni the­ses, there are few the­ses that are pulled with any reg­u­lar­ity, yet the col­lec­tion as a whole (total­ing over 60,000 the­ses) is our most used col­lec­tion within the Uni­ver­sity Archives. Last year over 1,000 the­ses were viewed by visitors–mostly Prince­ton undergraduates–to the Mudd Library, which accounted for about 1/4 of all Archives mate­ri­als circulated.

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Wendy Kopp’s the­sis is always among those requested by remote researchers–that is, those who do not visit the library in per­son, and when­ever a Prince­ton­ian makes news or is on a hit show, their the­sis is often requested.

In the past, this included Went­worth Miller III (when Prison Break was a hit), David Duchovny (for the X Files) and Dean Cain (Adven­tures of Lois and Clark), as well as all three now sit­ting Supreme Court Jus­tices: Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor.

The entire the­ses col­lec­tion can be searched via this data­base, and Archives staff are work­ing to make future senior the­ses avail­able online to the Prince­ton com­mu­nity start­ing in 2013.

Johnny Sylvester ’37 and Babe Ruth

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Base­ball in Octo­ber is often marked by pre­mier teams, clutch plays, and mem­o­rable moments. One such moment came dur­ing Game Four of the 1926 World Series. In that game on Wednes­day, Octo­ber 6th, the St. Louis Car­di­nals hosted the New York Yan­kees and their great player Babe Ruth. Ruth would shine for the Yan­kees, hit­ting three home runs in a 10–5 vic­tory. These home runs would be sig­nif­i­cant in the base­ball world, but for one lit­tle boy, they appeared to be life-saving.
In 1926 Johnny Sylvester was an 11 year-old die hard Yan­kee fan liv­ing in Essex Fells, New Jer­sey. Dur­ing the sum­mer he was involved in a horse­back rid­ing acci­dent in which he fell off his horse. The horse then kicked him in the head, leav­ing Sylvester with a bad infec­tion that began to spread rapidly. Doc­tors feared he would not sur­vive. While it is true that Sylvester was sick, there is some dis­agree­ment in the his­tor­i­cal record as to how crit­i­cally ill he actu­ally was. Some think he had blood poi­son­ing or a sinus con­di­tion or a back problem.
Soon telegrams reached the Yan­kees in St. Louis, noti­fy­ing them of young Sylvester’s con­di­tion. There is some dis­crep­ancy in who ini­ti­ated the contact—Sylvester him­self or his father or uncle—but the end result was pos­i­tive. Ruth responded by send­ing back two auto­graphed balls (one from the Yan­kees, and one from the Car­di­nals). He also included a note to Johnny: “I’ll knock a homer for you on Wednesday.”
On Wednes­day, Octo­ber 6th, Ruth hit three home runs, ensur­ing a Yan­kee vic­tory. Remark­ably, Sylvester’s con­di­tion improved greatly after the game. He even­tu­ally made a com­plete turn­around, grad­u­ated from Prince­ton in 1937, served in the Navy dur­ing World War II, and was a suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man in Long Island City, New York.
While mem­o­rable and inspir­ing for Sylvester, when a year later Ruth was asked about the event, he report­edly said, “Who the hell is Johnny Sylvester?” The spe­cial home run mes­sage was not Sylvester’s last con­tact with Ruth. Sylvester vis­ited Ruth at the open­ing game of the 1929 sea­son at Yan­kee Sta­dium. And, while Ruth was in his declin­ing years, Sylvester vis­ited him at Ruth’s New York apartment.
A pos­si­bly apoc­ryphal story about the Sylvester-Ruth con­nec­tion revolves around the tra­di­tion of older classes car­ry­ing signs at P-rade. Though there is no proof of it extant in the Archives, Sylvester allegedly once car­ried a sign that read “Who the hell is Babe Ruth?” pay­ing homage to the great slugger’s for­get­ful remark and Sylvester’s mem­o­rable con­nec­tion to him.

–Kris­ten Turner

Syngman Rhee’s Time at Princeton

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Dear Mr. Mudd,
What can you tell me about Syn­g­man Rhee’s time at Princeton?

In South Korea, March 1 marks Inde­pen­dence Move­ment Day, a com­mem­o­ra­tion of the 1919 Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence that marked the start of Korean resis­tance against the country’s Japan­ese occu­pa­tion. One of the notable fig­ures of that move­ment was Syn­g­man Rhee *1910, who was named the Pres­i­dent of the exile Pro­vi­sional Gov­ern­ment of the Repub­lic of Korea that arose dur­ing this strug­gle. Rhee served this exile gov­ern­ment, based in Shang­hai, China, until his ouster in 1925, and later served as the first pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic of Korea from 1948 until another acri­mo­nious depar­ture in 1960.
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Pho­to­graph of Syn­g­man Rhee *1910 from the Octo­ber 6, 1950 Daily Princetonian

Researchers curi­ous about Rhee’s time at Prince­ton should know that the See­ley G. Mudd Man­u­script Library has a vari­ety of infor­ma­tion on him. Because Rhee was a grad­u­ate stu­dent, we have a Grad­u­ate Alumni File which pro­vides a great deal of insight into his time at Prince­ton, as well as the dis­ser­ta­tion he pro­duced in com­ple­tion of the degree. Researchers can also exam­ine Daily Prince­ton­ian arti­cles con­cern­ing Rhee’s later vis­its to Prince­ton, or view an infor­ma­tion file com­piled by the Office of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

Con­tinue read­ing →

Martin Luther King Jr.‘s visits to Princeton

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Dear Mr. Mudd,
What types of mate­ri­als do you have con­cern­ing Dr. Mar­tin Luther King Jr.?

The See­ley G. Mudd Man­u­script Library’s Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Archives and the Pub­lic Pol­icy Papers each have a great deal of mate­r­ial regard­ing Dr. King, his vis­its to Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity, and his civil rights legacy.
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King with Assis­tant Dean of the Chapel Reimers on the steps of Chan­cel­lor Green, March 1960. Also pic­tured: top right: Tom Gar­rett ’61, top mid­dle: Jerry H. Shat­tuck ’61, top left: Daniel H. Jack­son ‘1961, bot­tom right: John N. McConnel Jr. ’61. His­tor­i­cal Pho­to­graph Col­lec­tion, Indi­vid­u­als Series, box MP4

First, the Pub­lic Pol­icy Papers con­tain infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing King’s civil rights and orga­niz­ing activ­i­ties in the David Lawrence Papers, John Mar­shall Har­lan Papers, Robert K. Massie Papers, George McGov­ern Papers, David E. Lilien­thal Papers, Law Stu­dents Civil Rights Research Coun­cil Records, and in the Sub­ject Files, Project Files, and Audio­vi­sual mate­ri­als series of the Amer­i­can Civil Lib­er­ties Union Records.

Sec­ondly, the Uni­ver­sity Archives have sub­stan­tial infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing King’s 1960 and 1962 vis­its as part of the Stu­dent Chris­t­ian Association’s Bien­nial Reli­gious Con­fer­ence, as well as a can­celled 1958 ser­mon. The Uni­ver­sity Archives col­lec­tions also con­tain mate­ri­als that doc­u­ment the University’s annual obser­va­tions of the civil rights leader’s legacy. In addi­tion, Dr. King’s widow, Coretta Scott King received an hon­orary degree in 1970, infor­ma­tion about which can also be found at Mudd.

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Bronze Memorial Stars

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Dear Mr. Mudd:

What is the ori­gin of the stars on Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity build­ings? Is there any data­base list­ing the loca­tion of each star?

The bronze stars on win­dow sills of Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity dor­mi­to­ries com­mem­o­rate the University’s stu­dents and alumni who died in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and in the Viet­nam War. An addi­tional 13 bronze stars hon­or­ing those who died on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001 are located in a memo­r­ial gar­den between East Pyne and Chan­cel­lor Green.

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Let­ter from the Soci­ety of the Claw to mem­bers seek­ing fund­ing for the ini­tial stars.

The orig­i­nal 140 stars, hon­or­ing stu­dents who lost their lives in World War I, were placed in 1920. These stars were donated by mem­bers of the Soci­ety of the Claw, an orga­ni­za­tion of mem­bers of the Class of 1894 who, as a sign-on con­di­tion, promised to either attend the next five reunions or every reunion through­out their lives. The Soci­ety also inducted hon­orary mem­bers who had done an “unusual ser­vice” or “brought excep­tional honor” to Prince­ton, such as Woodrow Wil­son ’1879. The Soci­ety of the Claw raised $431.65 for these stars, which were then placed on the win­dow sill of each dorm room last occu­pied by a Prince­ton stu­dent who lost his life in the war.

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From the Archives…Bob Bradley ’80

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Long before he was coach­ing the US National Soc­cer Team at the World Cup, Bob Bradley ’80 was Princeton’s coach of twelve years. Dur­ing this time, he led the Tigers to a pair of Ivy League titles and an appear­ance in the 1993 Col­lege Cup.

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Bob Bradley as a fresh­man. Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Archives: Under­grad­u­ate Alumni Records, 1921–2008

Before that, he was a Prince­ton stu­dent as well. A his­tory major, Bradley wrote his senior the­sis on “The His­tory of Inter­col­le­giate Ath­let­ics at Prince­ton,” and was joint top scorer on the 1979 team that was Princeton’s most suc­cess­ful up to that point. Bradley was also a var­sity base­ball player dur­ing his fresh­man year, and a broad­caster at WPRB as a junior and senior.

One of Bradley’s assis­tants, Jesse Marsch ’96 was also a Prince­ton stu­dent. Marsch was named All-American in 1995 while play­ing on Bradley’s team.

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Jesse Marsch ’96, Photo by Greg McDer­mott, Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Archives: Under­grad­u­ate Alumni Records, 1921–2008

–John DeLooper

Does Princeton Have a Mandatory Swim Test?

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Dear Mr. Mudd,

Is it true that Prince­ton has a manda­tory swim test for fresh­men? Fur­ther­more, was this test insti­tuted after the drown­ing death of an alum­nus, whose par­ents gave the uni­ver­sity a pool on the con­di­tion that all stu­dents were trained to swim to pre­vent such a tragedy from ever occur­ring again?

New Stu­dents Card for William Humphreys ‘1928
His­tor­i­cal Sub­ject File, Box 122, Folder 7

Prince­ton did indeed have a swim test, but this test was not insti­tuted because of the death of an alum­nus. It is, how­ever, easy to see why this story would develop and cre­ate a last­ing legend.

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History of Opening Exercises

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Dear Mr. Mudd,

What is the his­tory of Princeton’s Open­ing Exer­cises, and how long have they been held at the Chapel?

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1986 Open­ing Exer­cises, Office of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Records, Box 172

Pur­suant to your ques­tion on when Open­ing Exer­cises began and how long the cer­e­mony has been held in the Chapel, the ear­li­est doc­u­mented “open­ing exer­cise” I could find was in 1802, held in Nas­sau Hall. There is a news­pa­per clip­ping to that effect in His­tor­i­cal Sub­ject Files, Box 312. I also checked the index to Trustees Min­utes but did not see any­thing there.

The first time the gath­er­ing is referred to as “open­ing exer­cises” is in 1904. It was pre­vi­ously referred to in the Gen­eral Cat­a­logue as an assembly.

Open­ing Exer­cises have been held in the Uni­ver­sity Chapel since 1929. After Nas­sau Hall, they were held in Mar­quand Chapel. After Mar­quand burned, they were held in Alexan­der Hall until the com­ple­tion of the Uni­ver­sity Chapel.

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Open­ing Exer­cises Pro­ces­sion at Mar­quand Chapel,
His­tor­i­cal Pho­to­graph Col­lec­tion: Grounds & Build­ings, Box MP29

Best,

Christie Lutz

Did Julia Child’s Father Attend Princeton?

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Dear Dr. Mudd,

In read­ing a biog­ra­phy of Julia Child, I noticed her father attended Prince­ton. Can you tell me any more details?

With the release of Nora Ephron’s new film, Julie and Julia, Julia Child, the doyenne of tele­vi­sion cook­ing shows, is receiv­ing a lot of buzz, and her life and leg­end have been dis­cov­ered by a new gen­er­a­tion of cooks. A search of our col­lec­tions con­firmed that her father, John McWilliams, Jr. Class of 1901, attended Prince­ton, and also revealed that three of her cousins, Charles “Mac” McWilliams ’29, John P. McWilliams II ’31, and J. Alexan­der McWilliams ’35 attended as well.

Julia Child’s father John McWilliams ‘1901

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