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This Week in Princeton History for March 13-19


In this week’s installment of our recurring series, juniors make plans, an activist housewife is on campus, and more.

March 15, 1869—Samuel Rene Gummere (Class of 1870) writes to classmate Adrian Hoffman Joline to invite him to a game of Whist in Gummere’s dorm room tomorrow night.

Letter (see caption for transcript)
Gummere’s invitation to Joline, which reads as follows: “Princeton, Mar. 15, 1869. Dear Addie, Will you come over to my rooms tomorrow evening at half past eight, for a little game of Whist? Yours, Sam Gummere. 28 East College. R.S.V.P.” Scrapbook Collection (AC026), Box 21.

March 16, 1971—Halfway through her 450-mile walk from Boston to Washington to protest the Vietnam War, housewife Louise Bruyn speaks at Murray-Dodge. Bruyn says she is

trying to reach those who have become anaesthetized and feel there is nothing one person can do. I am asking them to look for alternatives, to actively say “no” to the death machine which is war, in their own way.

March 18, 1880—Locals take in the “Chalk Talk” arranged by the Student Lecture Association. Frank Beard’s comedic lecture illustrated with chalk drawings (the genre he pioneered) pleases the audience.

March 19, 1798—Princeton president Samuel Stanhope Smith writes to Benjamin Rush regarding his belief in the benefits of bloodletting to cure disease, on the basis of his own experience of frequent use of a lance to bleed himself over the years.

I have, perhaps, carried my bleedings somewhat farther than was absolutely necessary; but, in such cases, it is difficult to fix the point of strict necessity, and success has justified my rashness.

For the previous installment in this series, click here.

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