Tag Archives: dining

Foodways for Princeton Students, Part II: Diversified Menus, 1855-2010s

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This is the second post in a two-part series examining student foodways at Princeton.

As mentioned in the conclusion of last week’s post in this series, the campus refectory was no longer an option after the Nassau Hall fire of 1855. This meant that eating clubs became entrenched in Princeton’s traditions. There were many transient clubs with fanciful names at first, most of which simply pooled resources to engage the services of local boarding houses. In spite of the theoretical market forces that might have acted upon these establishments to encourage higher quality, W. F. Magie (Class of 1879) described “generally miserable eating conditions,” “poor food,” and “coarse service.” This motivated the formation of Ivy Club as a more permanent fixture in 1879 that would employ its own staff. Several other eating clubs followed suit, eventually building clubhouses along Prospect Street.

“A Baker’s Dozen” was one of many eating clubs that have come and gone in Princeton’s past. It was made up of members of the Classes of 1891 and 1892. This illustration is taken from the 1890 Bric-a-Brac.

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Foodways for Princeton Students, Part I: The Refectory, 1760s-1855

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This post is the first in a two-part series examining daily foodways at Princeton.

Today, most Princetonians are likely to take it for granted that they can have a bagel with cream cheese and lox in the morning, pick up Chinese takeout for lunch, and relax over a dinner of spaghetti, but all of these things were unheard of for most of Princeton’s past. Indeed, many of the things considered standard American fare today were once mysterious and exotic. The converse is also true—we don’t expect many students today to have much experience with turtle soup or roasted peacocks, for example.

It can be a challenge to figure out what people actually ate on a day-to-day basis in earlier centuries. Many of the menus available in our collections are more of a guide to special occasion fare than they are for the everyday meals people ate to fuel studying, research, and teaching. However, through letters, diaries, editorials, advertisements, and other documentation in the University Archives, we also find glimpses of a changing palate that maps well onto a broader history of American foodways. This two-part series looks back at centuries of expansion from the daily snacks of bread and butter with “small beer” the Board of Trustees authorized in 1765 to the sushi and falafel delivered to dorms in the late 20th century. This first post considers the antebellum student’s diet, while the second will unveil the postbellum diversity in options for meals. When one looks into what was available in the antebellum period, economic concerns had a clear influence on foodways at Princeton, but consistent themes emerge in spite of this.

Full menus were not printed for everyday meals, but we do find representative special occasion menus in our collections. This is the reception menu for the celebration of Princeton’s centennial in 1847. All of the items listed on the menu, including the fruit, would have been special treats for students. Historical Subject Files (AC109), Box 307, Folder 11.

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This Week in Princeton History for April 6-12

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In this week’s installment of our recurring series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, Evelyn College trustees vote to include women on their board, a shanty in Firestone Plaza demonstrates anti-apartheid sentiment, and more.

April 6, 1895—The Board of Trustees of Evelyn College votes to expand so its membership can include women. Rather than the current 15 men, the board will include 15 men and 15 women.

Evelyn College catalog, 1891-1892. Historical Subject Files (AC109), Box 330, Folder 4.

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This Week in Princeton History for March 30-April 5

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In this week’s installment of our recurring series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, the library receives a new gift of F. Scott Fitzgerald correspondence, a campus publication rails against women’s suffrage, and more.

March 31, 1967— Charles Scribner Jr. ’43 presents the Princeton University Library with Charles Scribner’s Sons complete correspondence with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Class of 1917.

An excerpt from a letter F. Scott Fitzgerald, Class of 1917, to Max Perkins, his editor at Charles Scribner’s Sons, December 20, 1924:
“Hotel des Princes, Piazza di Spague, Rome.
“Dear Max:
“I’m a bit (not very–not dangerously) stewed tonight & I’ll probably write you a long letter. We’re living in a small, unfashionable but most comfortable hotel at $525.00 a month including tips, meals, etc. Rome does not particularly interest me but it’s a big year here, and early in the spring  we’re going to Paris. There’s no use telling you my plans because they’re usually just about as unsuccessful as to work as a religious prognosticater’s [sic] are as to the End of the World. Iv’e got a new novel to write–title and all, that’ll take about a year. Meanwhile, I don’t want to start it until this is out & meanwhile I”ll do short stories for money (I now get $2000.00 a story but I hate worse than hell to do them) and there’s the never dying lure of another play.
“Now! Thanks enormously for making up the $5000.00. I know I don’t technically deserve it considering I’ve had $3000.00 or $4000.00 for as long as I can remember. But since you force it on me (inexorable [or is it exorable] joke) I will accept it. I hope to Christ you get 10 times it back on Gatsby–and I think perhaps you will.” 
Archives of Charles Scribner’s Sons (C0101); Manuscripts Division (Firestone Library), Department of Special Collections.

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This Week in Princeton History for November 25-December 1

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In this week’s installment of our recurring series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, the football team defeats Dartmouth in hurricane force winds, a student writes home to complain about the food, and more.

November 25, 1950—Despite 108-mile winds at kickoff, Princeton and Dartmouth still play their championship game in Princeton’s Palmer Stadium. About 5,000 fans attempt to watch the game in person, but an estimated 25,000 ticket holders simply stay home to wait out the storm. Most of those who do attend seek refuge in the dormitories.

The 1951 Bric-a-Brac‘s report on the 1950 Princeton-Dartmouth football game.

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This Week in Princeton History for September 23-29

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In this week’s installment of our recurring series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, the Princetonian complains about a change in staffing, a new kiosk is under construction, and more.

September 24, 1899—Today’s issue of Nature refers to the “Libbey Deep” off the shores of Newfoundland, newly named in honor of physical geography professor William Libbey, Class of 1877.

September 25, 1765—The Board of Trustees orders the buttery to provide bread, butter, candles, and small beer for sale to students, but prohibits sales to students of anything else.

September 26, 1878—The Princetonian complains about a change in staffing: “The men servants who last year did good service in the entries of the various dormitories, and proved such real comfort to the students, have been dismissed, and we are left to have all our work done by a few superannuated Irish women, who are required to do an immense amount of work in so short a time that they necessarily do it in a careless, partial manner, which is worse than absolute neglect.”

September 27, 1988—A new kiosk, designed by Robert Venturi ’47 to better blend in with surrounding architecture, is under construction at Princeton University’s Nassau Street entrance.

Artist’s rendering of Princeton University’s Nassau Street kiosk, found in Handbook of Information for the Administrative Staff, 1971, Historical Subject Files (AC109), Box 241, Folder 6.

For the previous installment in this series, click here.

Fact check: We always strive for accuracy, but if you believe you see an error, please contact us.

This Week in Princeton History for November 26-December 2

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In this week’s installment of our recurring series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, graduates react to the possible admission of female undergraduates, a dean’s comments in a local newspaper arouse concern, and more.

November 26, 1968—The Princeton Alumni Weekly prints several letters responding to the Patterson Report, which has concluded that Princeton would benefit from admitting female undergraduates. Logan McKee ’48 writes, “Mixing, ‘integrating’ and polluting seem to be the trend of the times, so it is natural that the mixers would want to homogenize Princeton. Of course this is just the next natural step in the pollution process. Long ago they removed the Presbyterian religious bias, the prep-school, the fraternity and the white race preference, and the School’s independence from government grants—so why not remove its last distinction, that of being a men’s college? Then Princeton can be as ‘democratic’ and just as friendly, folksy and mediocre as any outstate A. & M. institution.”

November 28, 1989—The Dean of the Graduate School’s comments in the Trenton Times alarm graduate students, including his assertion that “I think that a graduate student ought to be here to study 120 percent. I worry very, very much that a graduate student has so much time available to worry about a social life.”

Editorial cartoon from the Daily Princetonian. This cartoon refers to later claims the dean made that graduate students should not be offered housing after their second year of study.

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This Week in Princeton History for May 14-20

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In this week’s installment of our ongoing series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, the third term of the academic year begins, dining halls begin serving water instead of milk for lunch, and more.

May 14, 1975—The Eastern regional conference of Women in Higher Education Administration meets at Princeton.

May 16, 1859—James W. Reese’s Valedictory Oration for the Class of 1859 seems precognitive in its reference to the battlefield.

Robert Edgar’s Valedictory Ode to the Senior Class of the College of New Jersey (Princeton) May 16, 1859. Princeton University Class Records (AC130), Box 4. Though the third stanza of Edgar’s ode refers to a metaphorical battlefield, many of the Class of 1859 fought against one another on literal battlefields. About half (35) of the 73-member class fought in the Civil War, 15 for the Union and 20 for the Confederacy.

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This Week in Princeton History for November 16-22

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In this week’s installment of our ongoing series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, the college president boasts about America’s educational system, Billy Joel draws crowds, and more.

November 16, 1772—The New York Gazette prints a letter from College of New Jersey (Princeton) President John Witherspoon that asserts that an American college education is the best in the world, because Princeton does not practice corporal punishment: “no correction by stripes is permitted: Such as cannot be governed by reason and the principles of honour and shame, are reckoned unfit for residence in a College.”

November 17, 1972—The University Council’s Executive Committee orders flags on campus to fly at half-mast in mourning for two students shot to death during a protest at Southern University in Baton Rouge under circumstances some say mirror deaths at Kent State University in 1970. The committee refers to the police killings as a “tragedy [that] represents a resort to violence as response to disagreement among people.” The Association for Black Collegians is taking up a collection to help provide for other students in Louisiana affected by the incident.

November 19, 2001—Billy Joel lectures on the history of music and performs in a variety of styles in Princeton’s Richardson Auditorium.

Billy_Joel_AC168_Box_197

Billy Joel gestures to the crowd in Richardson Auditorium, November 19, 2001. Office of Communications Records (AC168), Box 197.

November 21, 1917—The Daily Princetonian runs an editorial suggesting “meatless and wheatless” days in campus dining halls and eating clubs in response to widespread food shortages.

For last week’s installment in this series, click here.

Fact check: We always strive for accuracy, but if you believe you see an error, please contact us.

This Week in Princeton History for November 9-15

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In this week’s installment of our ongoing series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, the school holds its first Commencement, a “food revolt” causes tension between students and administrators, and more.

November 9, 1748—The College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) holds its first Commencement in Newark, where six students are granted the degree of Bachelor of the Arts. The New York Gazette reports “That Learning, like the Sun in its Western Progress, had now began to dawn upon the Province of New Jersey…”

November 11, 1985—Director of University Health Services Dr. Louis Pyle ‘41 speaks to the University Council on medical and administrative issues arising from a new national concern: the spread of AIDS. Though no cases have been found at Princeton, Pyle believes it is only a matter of time before UHS begins facing the issue head on, and refers to the syndrome as “medicine’s most challenging current problem.”

November 13, 1978—Princeton administrators warn 180 students who have signed a petition threatening to cancel their meal plans if food quality does not improve that they will not allow contract cancellations related to what is known as the Wilson College “food revolt.” (Students organized under the slogan “The food is revolting, so why aren’t you?”) In response, hundreds more will sign the petition, for a total of 715 students.

Dininghalls1970s_AC112_BMP192

Princeton University dining hall, ca. 1970s. Historical Photograph Collection, Campus Life Series (AC112), Box MP192.

November 15, 1877—The Princetonian editorializes, “We regret that Yale has again been constrained to make herself obnoxious,” in response to Yale’s refusal to modify the rules of American football to have 15 players per team rather than 11.

For last week’s installment in this series, click here.

Fact check: We always strive for accuracy, but if you believe you see an error, please contact us.