In this week’s installment of our ongoing series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, Thomas Mann says he has found a new home, a miniseries about a professor premieres, and more.
May 16, 1959—In today’s issue of Nation, Princeton University’s resident psychiatrist, Louis E. Reik, writes of Cold War tensions among the undergraduate population, “the problem of whether the individual’s aggressive energies will be expressed in useful or destructive ways has never before cast such a deep and terrible shadow over human life. … That the days of unbridled individualism are gone is a lesson that, at bottom, no high-spirited young man wants to learn.”
May 17, 1927—The results of the Nassau Herald’s poll of graduating seniors are released. Isaac Hall is selected as the “Greatest Woman-Hater” of the Class of 1927.
Have you ever wondered what our researchers are up to in the reading room? Many of them are working fervently towards producing highly esteemed, ground-breaking, and sometimes award-winning books.
This entry features a sample of recent publications, each developed through extensive research at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library. Drawing from material found in the Princeton University Archives, as well as the Public Policy Papers, these works demonstrate the varied research potential of the collections housed in our library. (All descriptions from Amazon.com.)
In Ebony and Ivy, Craig Steven Wilder, a rising star in the profession of history, lays bare uncomfortable truths about race, slavery, and the American academy.
From Pulitzer Prize–winning, #1 New York Times–bestselling author A. Scott Berg comes the definitive—and revelatory—biography of one of the great American figures of modern times.
Neither a straightforward architectural history nor a simple guidebook, it weaves social history and the built fabric into a biography of a great American place.
These books are also on display in the lobby case at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library.
The Robert Lansing Papers and the John Foster Dulles State Department Records are viewable via their finding aids.
The Robert Lansing Papers document the later years of Robert Lansing (1864-1928), lawyer, writer, and the longest serving (1915–1920) of Woodrow Wilson’s three Secretaries of State.
The two collections took a little over six months to complete.
For this project, we asked students who worked at the library’s front desk to scan documents by using a top feed and flat bed scanner when not assisting patrons. Once scanned, students would combine files together using Adobe Acrobat Pro.
Student receptionist using the top feed scanner to digitize documents.
While we continually work in house to make more of our collections available online, recently we also have been awarded a grant to have six other collections digitized. Read more about those collections and the project here:
The Political Cartoon collection consists of one thousand original drawings, including a significant number by Charles Lewis Bartholomew, Otho Cushing, Homer C. Davenport, John Tinney McCutcheon, and Frank Arthur Nankivell. Other artists that are well represented include Louis Glackens, Harold Imbrie, Udo J. Keppler, Norman Ritchie, and Fred O. Seibel.
More Dough? MC180, Box 2
The Carey Collection consists of large color boards that were originally displayed in shop windows. Most of the cartoons comment on foreign policy issues during World War I.
United States Declares War! MC156, Box 1, Folder 4
The William H. Walker Cartoon Collection reflects the political climate of America during the late 19th Century and early 20th Century. The cartoons were drawn between 1894 and 1922 for Life Magazine. Life is the title of an American magazine that from 1883 to 1936 was published as a humor and general interest magazine. While the earlier years did not encompass the quantity of cartoons of the latter years, Walker’s satirical style is ever poignant. Through the use of humor, Walker directs attention towards such topics as war, immigration and domestic politics. These themes are related to the reader through the synergistic relationship of ink on paper and intellectual wit. In turn, this relationship generated a light, but serious message for all to appreciate.
Uncle Sam, Buyer of Small Islands, MC068, Box 44.
Mudd Library Technical Services staff collaborated with the University Library’s Digital Initiative’s team in making this material available. Mudd staff created or enhanced the descriptions of the cartoons within the finding aid for each collection and the cartoons were scanned in the Library’s digital studios in Firestone Library.
In October 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, Adlai Stevenson spoke the most famous line of his career. The former Illinois governor and two-time presidential candidate was the United States’ ambassador to the United Nations.
After a series of provocative political moves and a failed US attempt to overthrow the Cuban regime, Nikita Khrushchev proposed the idea of placing Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuba to deter any future invasion attempt in May 1962. By October 14, American spy planes captured images showing sites for medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles under construction in Cuba.
Tensions mounted quickly. Concurrent with other negotiations, the United States requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on October 25. There, Adlai Stevenson confronted Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin, challenging him to admit the existence of the missiles. Ambassador Zorin refused to answer.
“Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the U.S.S.R. has placed and is placing medium- and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Don’t wait for the translation! Yes or no?”
“I am not in an American courtroom, sir,” Zorin responded, “and therefore I do not wish to answer a question put to me in the manner in which a prosecutor does–”
“You are in the courtroom of world opinion right now,” Stevenson interrupted, “and you can answer yes or no. You have denied that they exist, and I want to know whether I have understood you correctly.”
“You will have your answer in due course,” Zorin replied. “I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over, if that’s your decision,” countered Stevenson. “And I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room.”
The entire file is also available for download in PDF form.
Clicking on this button will download a pdf of the entire file.
We hope that researchers everywhere will be able to make use of these newly-available materials. As always, please contact the Mudd Library with questions about any of our collections.
