After last week’s film about liv­ing and learn­ing at Prince­ton in 1962, it is inter­est­ing to watch “A Walk in the Spring­time,” cre­ated only twelve years later. The film fea­tures the leg­endary Fred­eric C. Fox, ’39, whose love and knowl­edge of Princeton’s his­tory and lore made him the first and only Keeper of Prince­to­ni­ana in 1976. Helped by his class­mate Sandy Maxwell ’39 and Arthur (Buz) Schmidt ’74 (“He looks like a rad­i­cal but he is only just the son of a class­mate” 0:18) Fox reaches out to the many alumni who were uncom­fort­able with the rapidly chang­ing face of campus.

As with other col­leges, the civil rights move­ment and Amer­i­can involve­ment in Viet­nam had sparked polit­i­cal activism at Prince­ton, includ­ing stu­dent demand to be part of cam­pus gov­er­nance. In addi­tion, the tra­di­tion­ally all-male pri­mar­ily white, Protes­tant, private-school edu­cated stu­dent body had diver­si­fied.  Of par­tic­u­lar con­cern for con­ser­v­a­tive alumni was the intro­duc­tion of coed­u­ca­tion in 1969. In the film Fox, Maxwell, and Schmidt, take view­ers on a tour, with the aim to show that although some things have changed much is still the same.

The film opens with Fred­die Fox in front of Nas­sau Hall’s two bronze tigers, point­ing out that one is male and the other female (1:25). After a brief visit to Fire­stone Library, Fox, Maxwell, and Schmidt sing Prince­ton songs at the piano in Prospect (8:38). The last part of the film, shot from the top floor of Fine Hall (11:56), con­tains exten­sive shots of the old and new build­ings on campus.

Out­takes are shown below. Fred­eric C. Fox died in 1981 at age 63.

These Umatic UC-30 videos are part of the Uni­ver­sity Archives’ His­tor­i­cal Audio­vi­sual Col­lec­tion (items no. 0516 and 0528).

These Umatic UC-30 videos are part of the Uni­ver­sity Archives’ His­tor­i­cal Audio­vi­sual Col­lec­tion (items no. 0516 and 0528).