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This Week in Princeton History for April 11-17


In this week’s installment of our recurring series, Shirley Chisholm speaks on campus, a lantern slide show is well-received, and more.

April 11, 1930—Theatre Intime teams up with the Varsity Club of Bryn Mawr to present “The Constant Nymph.”

April 14, 1972—Rep. Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to serve in the U.S. Congress and who is campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president, speaks at the Sickle Cell Cultural Festival sponsored by Princeton’s Association for Black Collegians. Chisholm says to the crowd in McCosh 50, “It may take a little Black woman to guide the ship of state for another four years.”

April 16, 1898—Lantern slides of Princeton’s campus are shown at Blair Academy in Blairstown, New Jersey, where they are reportedly “enthusiastically received.”

Lantern slide of Princeton University’s School of Science, ca. 1890s. Lantern Slide Collection (AC378), Box 1.

April 17, 1995—Tom Grant ‘64 is quoted in the Daily Princetonian on being a gay student in the 1960s: “[I] had thoughts that were troublesome enough to motivate me to seek professional guidance, [but]…it was such a social impossibility to be openly gay that I was happy to be told ‘don’t worry about it’ (by the psychologist).”

For the previous installment in this series, click here.

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