Post-War Princeton: The building of Firestone Library, the Dillon Gym, and Bicentennial celebrations, 1945–1949

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From the start of the Depres­sion until the end of World War II, con­struc­tion activ­ity at Prince­ton, like at other uni­ver­si­ties, was at a near stand­still. The first build­ings to be erected here as part of the post-war build­ing boom on Amer­i­can cam­puses were the Dil­lon Gym and the Har­vey S. Fire­stone Memo­r­ial Library. The four silent films dis­cussed on this post, which are all in color, cap­ture the begin­ning of the con­struc­tion of Fire­stone Library, the ded­i­ca­tion of the Dil­lon Gym in June 1947, and other activ­i­ties at the close of the bicen­ten­nial cel­e­bra­tions of 1946–1947 and the imme­di­ate years thereafter.

The ori­gin of the 16mm film that is fea­tured here is unknown. Although it seems excru­ci­at­ingly slow at times, the 14 minute long time lapse footage spans almost one and a half years, dur­ing which the exca­va­tion work for Fire­stone Library was under­taken, the struc­ture of the three under­ground floors almost com­pleted, and the steel struc­ture of the upper part of the library erected.

Firestone ground.jpgAs can be seen on this cam­pus map, the space between Wash­ing­ton Road and the then library (what is now Chan­cel­lor Green and Pyne Hall) was quite open. Dur­ing most of the film the cam­era is fac­ing the Engi­neer­ing Build­ing on Wash­ing­ton Road (now Burr and Green Hall), and moves between the Joseph Henry House, home of the Dean of the Col­lege (the white house seen on the left) and the ’77 Lab­o­ra­tory (the square brick build­ing with the cres­cent shaped win­dows on the right). This biol­ogy lab­o­ra­tory, donated by the Class of 1877 at its tenth reunion, was demol­ished in the sum­mer of 1946, which is cap­tured start­ing at 9:15. The ’77 Lab appears as a pile of rub­ble at 9:21, when the Bracket Dynamo Lab­o­ra­tory behind it becomes vis­i­ble. This sec­ond lab is grad­u­ally bro­ken down in the footage that follows.

The Joseph Henry House, how­ever, was not destroyed but moved instead, for the third time since it was built in 1837. Although the cam­era focused on the exca­va­tion work, prepa­ra­tions for the move to its present loca­tion, which accord­ing to the Prince started in April 1946, can be fol­lowed from 8:40 at the top of the screen. The actual move took place at the end of May, and the house can be seen to have moved a few yards between 9:45 and 9:48. Most of the footage con­cerns the dig­ging and exca­va­tion work prior to the con­struc­tion work, which had started on Christ­mas Eve 1945, and was sub­con­tracted to George M. Brew­ster and Sons (Turner Con­struc­tion Com­pany was the con­trac­tor). The work of Brewster’s “blast­ing crew,” which accord­ing to the Prince in March con­sisted of a “blast expert,” a “pow­der mon­key” and twelve drillers, can be fol­lowed from 3:28, with two explo­sions vis­i­ble at 4:35 and 6:48.

Only the last few min­utes of the film (10:39–14.15), cap­ture the begin­ning of the con­struc­tion of the Fire­stone Library itself, start­ing with the low­est floor. The snow at 11.31, sur­round­ing the con­crete columns, indi­cates that a year has passed since the time lapse film­ing began. On Jan­u­ary 15, 1947 the Prince wrote that most of the under­ground struc­ture had been com­pleted. The footage at 11.53, which includes a view on Nas­sau Street, must have been filmed dur­ing or shortly after Feb­ru­ary 1947, when the library, accord­ing to the Prince had risen above the ground. The film ends with footage of the build­ing of the steel struc­ture of the library’s three floors (13:11), the last shots of which indi­cat­ing that it is spring­time now (13:32).

The sec­ond film was shot by Lawrence L. Rauch *49, a grad­u­ate at the Depart­ment of Math­e­mat­ics, dur­ing the reunion week­end of June 14–17, 1947, which marked the con­clu­sion of Princeton’s year-long bicen­ten­nial cel­e­bra­tions. The film opens with the ded­i­ca­tion of the Dil­lon Gym on Sat­ur­day June 14, prior to the P-rade. The gym­na­sium, named after the prin­ci­pal donor, one­time foot­ball cap­tain Her­bert Dil­lon ’07, had been a first pri­or­ity after the old gym­na­sium, built in 1903 and located at the same spot, was destroyed by a fire on May 13, 1944.

After some P-rade footage (1:48) the film con­tin­ues at 3:34 with the lay­ing of the cor­ner­stone of the Har­vey S. Fire­stone Memo­r­ial Library on Mon­day morn­ing, June 16, by the widow of rub­ber tire man­u­fac­turer Har­vey Fire­stone, in whose honor the library was named. A descrip­tion of the cer­e­mony can be found in the Daily Prince­ton­ian of June 9, a copy of which went into the time cap­sule inside the cor­ner­stone.  Pres­i­dent Harold Dodds poses with the five sons of Har­vey Fire­stone, all Prince­ton alumni, at 4:10. The library is still mainly the steel struc­ture that was seen at end of the pre­vi­ous film.

The footage is fol­lowed at 7:10 by the Bicen­ten­nial Con­vo­ca­tion pro­ces­sion on Tues­day morn­ing June 17,  the clos­ing cer­e­mony of the Bicen­ten­nial Year, dur­ing which many dis­tin­guished guests received an hon­orary degree, includ­ing US Pres­i­dent Harry Tru­man. This con­vo­ca­tion is also fea­tured in the Para­mount news­reel, dis­cussed in our pre­vi­ous blog. Rauch filmed some of the most famous nota­bles in the pro­ces­sion up close, includ­ing Dwight D. Eisen­hower (6:53 and 9:20), Albert Ein­stein (7:01 and 9:12), Her­bert Hoover (7:01), Harry S. Tru­man (7:13 and 9:04) and Admi­ral Chester Nimitz (9:17).

The third film, also shot by Lawrence Rauch *49, con­tains mis­cel­la­neous Prince­ton and per­sonal scenes. After spring scenes on cam­pus the footage con­tin­ues with aer­ial views of Prince­ton and New York (2:55), pos­si­bly related to work Rauch was involved in out­side his grad­u­ate research. The footage from 4:14 cap­tures var­i­ous cam­pus scenes, includ­ing an uniden­ti­fied foot­ball game (4:52). The footage of this film was found with Rauch’s record­ing of the move of Cor­win Hall in 1963, dis­cussed in a pre­vi­ous blog.

The fourth film, which seems to have been shot by a mem­ber of the promi­nently fea­tured Class of 1929, con­tains addi­tional footage of the P-rade and other scenes of the reunion week­end at the end of the Bicen­ten­nial year, includ­ing the Yale base­ball match (with Present Harold Dodds and his wife, 4:53), and out­door din­ing scenes (5:35).

The 8mm and 16mm films fea­tured here are part of the Uni­ver­sity Archives’ His­tor­i­cal Audio­vi­sual Col­lec­tion (item nos. 0187, 0913, and 1979–1980).

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