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This Week in Princeton History for November 14-20


In this week’s installment of our recurring series, students are setting fashion trends in nearby New York, alumni are memorialized, and more.

November 16, 1928—Lynn Carrick, Class of 1920, observes that current students are now setting fashion trends in New York.

Suffice it to point to such obvious departures from tradition as that black socks have been superseded by hose of kaleidoscopic flamboyance, that high shoes now excite derision, and that the emancipated male has acquired a plethora of new accoutrements which if worn on campus a decade ago would have been the cause of catcalls and abusive whistling and much leaning out of dormitory windows; and the articles which would have offended that austerer age are such innocent haberdashery as colored handkerchiefs, silk mufflers, spats, canes, yellow gloves, pastel shirts, and ice-cream suitings.

November 18, 1900—A memorial service is held in Murray Hall to commemorate the lives of George Y. Taylor, Class of 1882, and C. V. R. Hodge ’93, who died in the Boxer Rebellion in China.

Memorial tablet for George Yardley Taylor (Class of 1882) and Cortland Van Rensselater Hodge (Class of 1893), Marquand Chapel, Princeton University, ca. 1901. Undergraduate Alumni Records (AC104), Box 218.

November 19, 1804—A controversial resolution is proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives to exempt colleges from duty taxes on books and scientific equipment if purchased for their sole use for educational purposes. Rep. Samuel L. Mitchill of New York, who introduces the bill, says the motivation is that Princeton is expecting a large shipment of books from Europe and will be subject to paying duty taxes on them otherwise.

November 20, 1863—All of Princeton is reportedly dissatisfied with local train service:

The farmer, the mechanic, the merchant, the scholar who is not cloistered, the clergyman who goes from home, the professional man—the public man, the private gentleman, all join in speaking not with pride and satisfaction of “our railroad” as other communities speak of their railroads, but with sober and earnest dissatisfaction—nay, indignation at the treatment which Princeton has received in the matter of railroad facilities for years and years past.

For the previous installment in this series, click here.

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