Princeton’s oldest footage: John Grier Hibben’s inauguration and Woodrow Wilson returns to vote

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This post con­tains the old­est news­reels present in the Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Archives. As dis­cussed in our pre­vi­ous blog, Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity started mak­ing films in 1919, using the footage for its first pro­mo­tional film in 1921. For ear­lier years, how­ever, it was depen­dent on news­reel com­pa­nies like Pathé, which filmed news­wor­thy sto­ries and items of top­i­cal inter­est for movie the­aters. The first film doc­u­ments the inau­gu­ra­tion of John Grier Hibben, four­teenth pres­i­dent of  Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity (1912–1932). The news­reels that fol­low show US Pres­i­dent Woodrow Wil­son, Hibben’s pre­de­ces­sor, when he returned to Prince­ton to vote in 1913 or 1915 and in 1916.

We do not know what com­pany pro­duced the silent news­reel about Hibben’s inau­gu­ra­tion in 1912 as only the open­ing titles sur­vive, but it is obvi­ous what made the issue par­tic­u­larly news­wor­thy: William Howard Taft, Pres­i­dent of the United States 1909–1913, was a guest at the cer­e­mony.  He received an hon­orary degree, along with US Supreme Court Chief Jus­tice Edward Dou­glass White. The news­reel opens with Taft pos­ing with Hibben and his wife and daugh­ter at Prospect House (0:14). It con­tin­ues with Hibben and his dis­tin­guished guests, headed by Grand Mar­shal William Libbey ’77 and Taft’s per­sonal aid, walk­ing past fac­ulty, trustees, stu­dents, and guests on Can­non Green, from where the pro­ces­sion marched to Nas­sau Hall (0:54). The Daily Prince­ton­ian describes the pro­ces­sion and fol­low­ing exer­cises in detail. The news­reel footage, how­ever, shows very lit­tle of the cer­e­monies on the podium in front of Nas­sau Hall. Hibben’s inau­gu­ra­tion and speech are shown at 1:36, fol­lowed by the con­fer­ment of hon­orary degrees to Chief Jus­tice Williams (1:51) and Pres­i­dent Taft (2:04).

 

Woodrow Wilson Newsreel flipped.jpgThe footage of Woodrow Wil­son that fol­lows Hibben’s inau­gu­ra­tion (2:26) seems to have been taken from two dif­fer­ent news­reels. Although the title and cred­its of both news­reels were almost com­pletely removed, a remain­ing sin­gle frame of the first title survived–oddly enough in mir­ror image and shown cor­rected at the right. This footage may have been from Wilson’s visit on Sep­tem­ber 28, 1915, when he trav­eled to Prince­ton to vote in the Demo­c­ra­tic pri­maries at the polling sta­tion on Cham­bers Street. (See the New York Times at NYTImes 28_Sep_1915.pdf.) Alter­na­tively, it may depict him in the Demo­c­ra­tic pri­maries of Sep­tem­ber 23, 1913, when he voted for James Fielder for Gov­er­nor of New Jer­sey. (See NYTimes_23_Sep_1913.pdf.)

The very brief footage thaWilsonvote.jpgt fol­lows at 3:15, show­ing Wil­son greet­ing women, was taken when he voted in the NJ pri­mary on  April 25, 1916. (For a photo of Wil­son arriv­ing by train, see the His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety of Princeton’s photo archives). Dur­ing this visit, which is described in the Prince, Wil­son par­tic­i­pated in the plant­ing of trees along the Lin­coln High­way under the aus­pices of the New Jer­sey Fed­er­a­tion of Women’s Clubs.
It is not known on what occa­sion the his­toric footage was copied onto the 16mm film reel on which it was found, though it must have hap­pened after June 1940, when the footage of Hibben’s inau­gu­ra­tion was dis­played at the 25th reunion of the Class of 1915, whose mem­bers had wit­nessed the inau­gu­ra­tion as fresh­men.  (On May 17, 1940 Everett Frank ’15 wrote Don Grif­fin, Sec­re­tary of the Grad­u­ate Coun­cil, that he had located the news­reels, which Grif­fin was wel­come to bor­row). The Woodrow Wil­son footage on the reel is fol­lowed by the com­mence­ment activ­i­ties of what seems to be the Class of 1928. That, and related footage, will be the sub­ject of a future blog.
This footage on this 16mm film is part of the Uni­ver­sity Archives’ His­tor­i­cal Audio­vi­sual Col­lec­tion (part of item no. 0192). 

One thought on “Princeton’s oldest footage: John Grier Hibben’s inauguration and Woodrow Wilson returns to vote”

  1. This is the most won­der­ful find. I’m writ­ing about John Grier Hibben, and this film is a first hand visual account. Once again the Mudd Man­u­script Library has out­done itself.

    Thank you for the glo­ri­ous footage and commentary!

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