Tag Archives: slavery

This Week in Princeton History for January 23-29

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In this week’s installment of our recurring series, Princeton seeks to build housing for married students, locals consider the merits of slavery in the South, and more.

January 23, 1946—Princeton University requests an amendment to local zoning regulations in order to build a “garden-type housing project” to accommodate 150 to 170 families. The proposed housing will be primarily for returning married students who served in World War II.

The housing project would later be known as Butler Apartments, shown here in October 1947. Historical Photograph Collection, Campus Life Series (AC112), Box MP166, Image No. 4088.

January 26, 1837—Students rush to join other local citizens at about 2:00AM to put out a fire at Stryker & Conover’s tailor shop.

January 27, 1860—A letter from Robert Field Stockton appears in the Princeton Press explaining why he refuses to attend Union meetings. After outlining his rationale for why northern states must support slavery in the southern states, he urges residents to unite with the South if there is a national division.

In this defensive attitude of the South I for one will stand by them as a friend, to the last gasp of my existence, and if a dissolution of the Union is inevitable, then I would have the lines of separation drawn along the Hudson and the Lakes, rather than the Potomac and the Ohio. I have no doubt that in such an event the Northwestern states would unite with New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the South. I will stand by them, because they are right…

January 29, 1987—A New York federal appeals court blocks the publication of a biography of J. D. Salinger on the grounds of unfair use of unpublished letters which the author accessed in Firestone Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections Reading Room. Though “A Writing Life” will remain unpublished, future readers will still be able to access it at Princeton.

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 February 8-14

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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 Bric-a-Brac has a new cover, an employee at an eating club protests unfair treatment, and more.

February 9, 1931—The new Bric-a-Brac subscribers receive today has a new cover design.

Cover of 1931 Bric-a-Brac.

February 11, 1874—The Hampton Singers, a touring choir of African Americans, most of whom were formerly enslaved, perform in Princeton. (Sheet music for the songs typically sung by the choir—raising money for what will later be named Hampton University—are available online.) Their visit comes just a few days after a lecture by civil rights activist Wendell Phillips. Some students find themselves thinking about Phillips’s lecture during the concert.

February 13, 1940—An employee of a Princeton University eating club protests unfair treatment in a letter to the editor of the Daily Princetonian, citing unpaid overtime and a work schedule of 80 hours/week during the school year with no days off. “I think that all men should never work more than six days a week, but of course if the high class clubs (think they are) say you should work seven, then of course I’m wrong. I’ve always been told that a University was a place of higher education and culture, so why in the hell don’t they practice what they preach?”

February 14, 1803—The New York Daily Advertiser reports that Princeton students are focused on devotional practices: “In fact, the College is now what I have not known it to be before. One thing which is now particularly insisted on, and which seems to be readily acquiesced in, is a punctual attendance on religious duties. … The Freshmen and Sophomore classes read the Bible, and recite a catechism; but they are left at liberty to chuse [sic] the one of the church to which their parents belong–Accordingly some study the shorter catechism–some that of the Episcopal Church, and some that of the Friends or Quaker Society.”

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.

Songs of the Freed: The Hampton and Jubilee Singers at Princeton

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In the 1870s, Princeton students were exposed to a form of entertainment new to them: African American choirs. Many of the singers in these choirs, who were raising money for Black colleges, had formerly been enslaved. Their performances met with a mixed reception among Princetonians and on balance appear to have been a negative experience for the performers. Our own records don’t tell us all that much about these choirs, but using other available resources alongside the materials in the University Archives can give us a fuller understanding of the context of what we do have here at Mudd Library.

The first such choir to visit Princeton seems to have been the Jubilee Singers, who organized in 1871 to raise money for Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Their music marked a shift in what most white Americans were accustomed to hearing as “slave music,” in that it was not minstrelsy, but a sincere presentation of the songs of the enslaved, sung a capella. They are usually credited with introducing the genre of music known as “negro spirituals” to the world. Ultimately, this first group of Jubilee Singers from Fisk raised the money to build the university’s first building, Jubilee Hall.

Jubilee Singers, 1875. Image courtesy the National Portrait Gallery.

James McCosh invited the group to perform in Princeton in 1873. A local church (Second Presbyterian Church) was offered as the venue. There was some buzz in advance of their arrival, stirred partly by the Nassau Literary Magazine:

Their antecedents, they having been slaves, their peculiar songs and manner of singing, the object they have in view, that is to raise $70,000 for their College, all unite to create a great interest in their behalf, and excite a universal desire to see these singers and listen to their strange yet pleasing melodies.

Gustavus Pike, a minister who often toured with the Jubilee Singers, wrote that the invitation McCosh sent had been especially welcome, since the group had experienced a lot of mistreatment in New Jersey due to bigotry and this gave them hopes of a better reception. However, they soon found that Princeton was like anywhere else in the state—if not worse. The Story of the Jubilee Singers (1877) describes the visit as “the most offensive manifestation of caste prejudice that ever flaunted itself in the face of the party.” Black ticketholders, regardless of what their tickets said, were sent to “an out-of-the-way corner of the church” and were not allowed to leave the section of the building to which they were segregated. The group’s director, a white northern missionary named George Leonard White, addressed the discrimination head-on, denouncing it as immoral.

Pike summarized White’s words to the audience as having condemned the segregation as

a grievance not to be passed over in silence when asked to make an invidious distinction in a Church of Christ against the very class of people who gave the performance, and especially when this demand was countenanced by the distinguished educators of a Christian College, who might be presumed to hate all manner of prejudice with a holy hatred.

According to The Story of the Jubilee Singers, the audience (which included many Princeton students) responded by hissing angrily at White. The choir considered refusing to perform but chose to go ahead out of consideration for the many people who had traveled significant distances to hear them and who had not participated in the church’s discriminatory actions. Although Pike said he had “no reason to suppose that [McCosh] approved of the injustice shown,” he also gives no indication that McCosh responded in any way other than “kindly” behavior toward the choir.

I have not found any account of the segregation, White’s words, or a hissing audience within Mudd’s holdings, though I did find hints of the attitudes behind these events. In the Lit, one writer complained of discrimination on the part of Second Presbyterian Church for a different reason: for allowing the Jubilee Singers to perform instead of Charlotte Cushman or Mary Frances Scott-Siddons. Cushman and Scott-Siddons were actors known for their dramatic readings of Shakespeare, and some students indicated that they would prefer to hear from one of these women (both of whom were white). The unnamed writer in the Lit described “a series of comic-religious travesties in heathenish songs [that] were produced by the Jubilee Singers,” “dressed in the grotesque gibberish of the slave’s accents, and replete with the gross superstitions of the slave’s mind…” They, the student wrote, not female actors, “should be excluded from the House of God.”

Whether it was the same author or another is unknown, but this theme came up again months later in the Lit:

…we feel justified in saying, that to listen to the familiar words of the poet [Shakespeare] delivered with the exquisite expression and rare pathos that this woman [Scott-Siddons] possesses is preferable to…the weird chants and plaintive song of Jubilee Singers.

However, another writer for the Lit took a different approach, praising the choir’s talents and reporting that the concert had been very well attended, with the audience being “highly delighted” with their performances of “Go Down Moses” and “Mary and Martha.” To this student’s mind, “The object of their singing is a very worthy one and they are meeting with a hearty response in all the cities and towns which they visit.” Princeton’s own Nassau Quartette decided to add “Mary and Martha” to their repertoire after the concert. One can find “Mary and Martha” in some subsequent Princeton songbooks. Given what we know about Princeton’s minstrel tradition and local attitudes, as well as the other music such groups performed, it is probable that Princeton students would have sung this piece in a less sincere way than they had heard it from the Jubilee Singers, however.

In February 1874, Princetonians had an opportunity to hear this style of music again from the Hampton Singers, who were raising money for the Hampton Institute (now Hampton University). Their choir, too, was partially made up of formerly enslaved singers. The Hampton Singers were highly successful, contributing the bulk of the school’s early endowment and enough money to build Virginia-Cleveland Hall.

The Lit published the same refrain, albeit somewhat less stridently, about the performance. After noting that “the concert was peculiar,” the writer noted that the audience was “unusually attentive and responsive” and praised the performers themselves for being “exceedingly earnest.” Though the Lit had previously derided the Jubilee Singers, here it pronounced them the superior choir to the Hampton Singers “in point of cultivation and taste,” while “no slave…can favorably compare with that of the most talented operatic singer of the day in rendering many of the popular songs of the South.” The Lit again asked why these singers were being invited to town rather than Scott-Siddons.

It so happened, however, that for at least one student, what might have been a coincidence of scheduling caused some reflection on the goals and lives of these singers. Wendell Phillips, a prominent abolitionist and civil rights activist, also visited Princeton in 1874 at the invitation of a student group just a few days before the Hampton Singers. The Lit noted,

Call him abolitionist you may, stigmatize him as a grumbler and enthusiast if you will, yet there are traits in his character which belong only to the true man…And when, a few evenings after, we listened to the signing of the Hampton slaves, we thought that the negroes of the South had at least one champion, who had power to speak for them in the North and who could plead with an eloquence approaching perfection…

In nearly every reference, positive or negative, that I found to these singers formerly being enslaved in our records, Princeton sources refer to them not as freed, nor formerly enslaved, but as “slaves” as if in the present. Emancipation thus met with some linguistic resistance on campus in the decade after the Civil War. To the extent that this language gives us insight into community attitudes, we can see how the experience of singing at Princeton would have been to perform for a hostile venue, even if our own sources do not tell us about the racial segregation of the audience or the hissing in response to condemnation of prejudice. It is also telling that one of the students writing for the Lit indicated that it would be better to hear plantation spirituals performed by trained (white) opera singers rather than by a choir of the formerly enslaved.

These and similar choirs made several visits to Princeton in the early decades of the 20th century, but their 19th-century appearances seem to have been largely erased from community memory. The Hampton Singers’ performance in 1914, for example, was said to be “the first time that the Hampton party has visited Princeton,” though other colleges (such as Harvard and Yale) had annual performances. Perhaps the original visit of the Hampton Singers to Princeton was similar to the experience the Jubilee Singers had, and the group themselves chose not to return for a few generations.

 

Sources:

Jubilee Singers. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Audio recording, ca. 1915.

Marsh, J. B. T. The Story of the Jubilee Singers with Their Songs. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1877.

Papers of Princeton

Pike, Gustavus D. and Theodore F. Seward. The Singing Campaign for Ten Thousand Pounds, or The Jubilee Singers in Great Britain. New York: American Missionary Society, 1875.

Princeton Music Collection (AC056)

Dear Mr. Mudd: Did Enslaved People Live in Princeton’s Dormitories?

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This post is the first in a two-part series.

 

Dear Mr. Mudd,

Rumor has it the dorms at Princeton were designed to allow students to bring enslaved people with them to live in adjoining rooms and serve them. Is this true?

 

Though one often hears a rumor about enslaved people accompanying students to campus and living in dorms with them, there is quite a bit of evidence that this could not have taken place, and we have never found any evidence that indicates that it did. Indeed, as is detailed below, any building currently used as a dormitory was constructed after slavery was illegal in the United States. The rumor’s persistence despite this probably reflects the legacy of the social hierarchies of prior generations of Princetonians. In this first of a two-part answer, I will outline the evidence for why this is not factually correct. Next week, I will provide more context for the emotional truth about histories of oppression on campus held within this myth.

There were enslaved people present on Princeton’s campus; this is well-established and interested researchers can find a wealth of information on the Princeton and Slavery website. Nonetheless, the only enslaved people known to live on campus lived in the President’s house, not in student dormitories, and were legally considered the private property of the institution’s presidents. Slavery was not fully outlawed in New Jersey until the Civil War, and Princeton itself was friendly to Southern ideas about race, enrolling many students from slaveholding families. There was also a need for what was then termed “servants” and what we know today as staff in a wide range of roles who provide meals and maintain and clean campus buildings. However, the individual students would not have brought enslaved persons with them, and having personal attendants living alongside them was prohibited.

It was the role of the Steward to ensure adequate staffing in service roles on campus, as Jonathan Baldwin’s contract spelled out in 1768, and students paid a fee for the college servants to make their beds and sweep their rooms unless they agreed to handle these matters themselves. Meanwhile, outside this specific service provided to them in their housing contracts, students were required to clean their own rooms and shoes. The Board of Trustees formally approved this rule in 1757, at their first meeting ever held in Nassau Hall, the first building that functioned as a dormitory as well as a chapel, library, refectory, and recitation hall.

Image of Nassau Hall, 1764. Nassau Hall Iconography Collection (AC177), Box 1.

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This Week in Princeton History for December 7-13

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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, concerns about local residents corrupting undergraduates are expressed, sophomores cancel plans to burn a dean in effigy, and more.

December 8, 1835—A new academic year begins. The Class of 1838, which began with 12 and grew to 24 during the previous academic year, absorbs 50 new classmates.

December 9, 1786—A committee reports to the New York Manumission Society: “With great satisfaction we communicate to the society the agreeable accounts of the exertions made in different states, and also in Great Britain, towards the emancipation of the unfortunate Africans—That to this end public orations have been made and received with great applause at the colleges of New Haven and Princeton and of Cambridge, in Great Britain, in which the injustice of holding Africans in slavery, hath been depicted in the most lively colors that sound judgment and elegant imaginations could form.”

December 11, 1868—A letter to the editor of the Princeton Standard warns that not enough residents of the town take temperance seriously enough. “How many times has the law which forbids the sale of intoxicating drinks to the students of Colleges, or other literary institutions, been enforced in Princeton during the last year? And how many of the graduates of the College of New Jersey now fill drunkards graves, or are fast hastening toward them, under the influence of habits of intoxication contracted, and confirmed, while residing in Princeton during their College course?”

In this sketch by an unknown artist ca. 1863 (”It’s a Way We Have at Old Nassau”), students at the College of New Jersey (Princeton) are shown drinking to excess while playing cards. Historical Photograph Collection, Campus Life Series (AC112), Box MP159, Image No. 4395.

December 13, 1999—Sophomore class officers have decided to cancel their plans to burn Dean of Student Life Janina Montero in effigy to protest the recent ban on the Nude Olympics after a flood of disapproving emails from members of the Class of 2002. The Daily Princetonian quotes Joanna Ganson ’02: “Burning someone in effigy…should be used for important protests, not to protest not running around naked.”

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 16-22

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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, a controversial statue finds a home on campus, ticket scalping for sporting events is causing concern, and more.

November 17, 1978—Princeton accepts a statue Kent State University rejected, George Segal’s “Abraham and Isaac,” which memorializes the Kent State Massacre. Officials at Kent State have said that they fear the statue would incite more violence.

People viewing George Segal’s “Abraham and Isaac” on Princeton University’s campus, ca. 1978. Historical Photograph Collection, Grounds and Buildings Series (AC111), Box AD09, Folder 1.

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“Subsequently Came to Grief”: Evidence and Stories of Corruption in the Autograph Book of Charles P. Stratton, Class of 1848, Part II

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By Alec Israeli ’21

This is the second of a two-part series on the autograph book of Charles P. Stratton, Class of 1848, and its relationship to the scandal surrounding the career of William W. Belknap, Class of 1848, Secretary of War under President Ulysses S. Grant. Part one closed with the damning testimony of Caleb P. Marsh, which suggested Belknap had benefited from illegal kickback payments through a supplier of a Western fort. Here, after examining the shared racial politics of Belknap and the Pennsylvania congressman investigating him, I close with the response to Marsh’s testimony, as well as further considerations on the function and creation of historical evidence as relevant to Stratton’s book.

Pennsylvania congressman Hiester Clymer led the response to Caleb P. Marsh’s testimony in the corruption trial of William W. Belknap, Class of 1848. Clymer was a prominent politician, businessman, and another Princeton alum of the 1840s. Clymer graduated a year before Belknap, in the class of 1847. The two likely knew each other, as they both lived in “North College” (i.e., Nassau Hall; some secondary sources describing Clymer’s investigation claim that he and Belknap were actually roommates, but Princeton’s Catalogue suggests otherwise). And, like that of Edward Wall and William Belknap, the signature of Clymer can also be found in Stratton’s autograph book.

Hiester Clymer’s signature in Charles P. Stratton’s autograph book. Autograph Book Collection (AC040), Box 1.

The annotation next to his name in the book reads as almost laudatory, stating, “Has had a career. Has been in Congress from Reading; is there now (1877). Ran for Gov. in Pennsylvania. Was defeated; Is lucky, and knows how to make good use of small capital.” His “career” as a politician in the Democratic Party began even earlier than what is noted here. Before running for Governor in 1866, and before he was a US Congressman, he served in the Pennsylvania State Senate during the war. There, Clymer delivered fiery speeches against abolition and the Republican-led war effort. Before the Senate chamber, he maintained that slavery was not inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus, and that the nation’s founders had written a constitution which both recognized and protected slavery. Additionally holding that the war must only be for the preservation of the Constitution as it was (that is, as a pro-slavery document), he thus opposed Republican policy that would come to frame the war as one of explicitly for abolition— in his words, into a “visionary, fanatical struggle.”

For example, one of his speeches was in opposition to a Pennsylvania Senate resolution stating that “it is the unquestionable right and manifest duty of Congress to abolish Slavery in the District of Columbia; and instructing their Senators and requesting their Representatives to Congress, to vote for its total and immediate abolition in the said District, upon such terms as may be deemed just and equitable to the slave owners therein.” Here was a hardline stance indeed; he claimed (somewhat ironically) such abolition would “utterly enslave” the citizens of Washington DC, that it was a stripping “of property, of comfort and of many of the dearest relations of life.” All this, he said, even though the above resolution arguably provided for compensation for former slave-owners: abolition “upon such terms as may be deemed just and equitable to the slave owners therein.” This aspect of the resolution he commended.

Hiester Clymer speech on the Civil War to the Pennsylvania Senate, March 11, 1862. Undergraduate Alumni Records 1748-1920 (AC104).

Clymer further argued against this resolution on the grounds that abolition in Washington DC could not proceed without the consent of the voters of Maryland, which had ceded land for the creation of the District, and the District itself. This argument echoed the doctrine of “popular sovereignty” propounded by Stephen Douglas, famed Democratic opponent of Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election, and the 1858 Illinois senate race. The doctrine held that the Western territories seeking statehood should decide whether they be free or slave states by popular election, a solution framed as democratic only to the extent that “democracy” as such was exclusive to white men. 

Though the investigation may have made the pair opponents, Belknap’s politics were not all that far from Clymer’s in some respects. Both advocated for policy to maintain the white supremacist status quo. Before the war, Belknap was a Douglas Democrat. And, as a Republican during his tenure as Secretary of War, he hardly seemed to identify with the more radical wing of the party, which demanded a more involved federal approach to supporting former slaves and Black Americans more generally. Secretary Belknap did little to address the persistent racist harassment faced by James Webster Smith of South Carolina, the first Black cadet at West Point. As Edward S. Cooper and William S. McFeely have written, Belknap’s weak response was not for lack of awareness; he knew in detail of Smith’s case, and as Secretary of War ultimately had the power to enforce discipline at West Point.

Belknap also opposed federal attempts to address post-bellum inequalities in the South through the Freedmen’s Bureau, a War Department agency established to support former slaves and refugees by building schools and hospitals, ensuring laws were enforced equally, and mediating disputes, among other responsibilities. He recommended to President Grant in November 1871 that the Bureau be dissolved, and within a few months Congress closed the agency. The prospect of racial equality materially embodied by the work of the Bureau, especially in the wake of emancipation, provoked panic in sectors of white America. Hiester Clymer played to such fears in his failed 1866 gubernatorial race, running an explicitly white supremacist campaign that took specific issue with Black suffrage and the very Bureau that Clymer’s old Princeton classmate would soon bury.

And yet, the ties of alma mater and shared racial politics did not keep Clymer from pursuing the investigation into Belknap’s corruption. Two days after Marsh’s testimony (which revealed the pay-off arrangement between himself, Evans, and the Belknaps), and one day after Belknap and his lawyer appeared before Congress in response, Clymer presented a report from the Committee on Expenditures in the War Department calling for Belknap’s impeachment. However, earlier in the day before the call for impeachment, Belknap had handed in his letter of resignation to President Grant, and Grant accepted, not fully aware of the circumstances. A debate over whether Congress now had jurisdiction over Belknap followed, as his resignation had made him a private citizen again. Nonetheless, Congress voted unanimously to impeach Belknap. His following Senate trial, however, resulted in acquittal. Though the majority voted to convict Belknap, it was not a two-thirds majority as was necessary. Many voted for acquittal on the legal grounds that the Senate did not, in the end, have jurisdiction over Belknap after his resignation.

Belknap’s fall and Clymer’s partial victory (partial, if only because Belknap’s resignation beat Congress to the punch) did not bring the intrigue surrounding the position of Secretary of War to a complete close, especially from a Princeton perspective. George Robeson, the corrupt Secretary of the Navy and of the Class of 1847, briefly served as interim Secretary of War after Belknap resigned. He was succeeded by Alphonso Taft, whose tenure lasted but a few months until he was replaced by James Donald Cameron. The Stratton autograph book, by some strange fate— or rather, by a combination of fortuitous timing and Princeton alum’s influence in national politics— seems to physically bind the Princeton figures of the Belknap scandal together: Cameron’s signature, like Belknap’s and Clymer’s, is in the book.

Cameron graduated with the Class of 1852, though he at first entered Princeton to graduate with the Class of 1850: in another autograph book, that of Robert Hollingsworth of the Class of 1849, Cameron wrote he was the Class of 1850, and the Catalogue seem to indicate he took two years of absence after his junior year before graduating. In the Stratton autograph book, the annotation beside his name indicates that this Cameron was the same that assumed the position of Secretary of War following the Belknap scandal, stating, “1876 U.S. Sec. of War under President Grant: U.S. Senator in 1877.” “Sec. of War” is written here above “Attorney General”, which is scratched out; the annotator may have made this mistake because Taft, Cameron’s predecessor, became attorney general once Cameron succeeded him as Secretary of War. 

James Donald Cameron’s signature in Charles Stratton’s autograph book (left) alongside Cameron’s signature in Robert Hollingsworth’s autograph book (right). Click to enlarge. Autograph Book Collection (AC040), Box 1.

As many connections as are visible in the autograph book, furnished by the combination of signatures and annotations, their true depth is not immediately apparent. Though the annotator provided a sort of timeline along which the lives of the signers could be compared, detail (especially in the case of the Belknap scandal) is surprisingly lacking. While the annotations for Belknap, Clymer, and Cameron do state each of the men’s relative positions in the scandal, and they do state that Belknap “came to grief”, none explicitly mention the connection between the three. And, this information is not there, even though the annotations on all three appear to have been written in 1877, the year after the very public, well-covered event. Of course, it is possible that the annotator did not know who led the investigation of Belknap, or who ultimately succeeded him (indeed, as stated, the annotator seemed to think Belknap was the Secretary of the Navy, not of War). Or perhaps they did know, and did not recognize the Princeton connection, or did know and did recognize, but merely chose not to add it. Whatever the case, the paucity of information points again to the difficulty of ascertaining intention in historical evidence.

Whether or not Stratton’s autograph book (or even any historical artifact) may be placed in one of Marc Bloch’s categories of evidence in The Historian’s Craft may then be beside the point; the categories serve more as a heuristic than a rule in any case. Rather, the pieces of the Belknap scandal to be found in the book point towards the work of historical investigation in connecting disparate dots, of consulting other sources in order to glean whatever possible from a given artifact. Evidence, indeed, does not so much as merely exist for us to find, but is something we instead must construct for ourselves.

Sources: 

Autograph Book Collection (AC040)

Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the College of New Jersey.

The Congressional Record (Bound Edition). (Esp. Vol. 4, Parts 2 and 7)

Undergraduate Alumni Records (AC104). 

Wall, Edward. Reminiscences of Princeton College, 1845-1848. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1914.

For further reading:

Bloch, Marc. The Historians Craft. Introduction by Joseph R. Strayer. Translated by Peter Putnam. New York: Vintage Books, 1953.

Cooper, Edward S., William Worth Belknap: An American Disgrace. Madison [NJ]: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003.

McFeely, William S. Grant: A Biography. New York: Norton, 1981.

Purcell, L. E. “The Fall of an Iowa Hero.” The Palimpsest 57 (1976), 130-145.

Wood, Forrest G. Black Scare: The Racist Response to Emancipation and Reconstruction. 1st paperback edition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970.

Alec Israeli is a history major in the Princeton University Class of 2021. Aside from working at Mudd Library over the summer, his extracurricular activities include being an editor and writer for Princeton Progressive Magazine and a pianist for the Jazz Vocal Collective.

What Archival Silence Conceals—and Reveals: Recovering Princeton University’s 19th-Century African American Graduate Alumni

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Archival silences distort the past, shaping our current and future self-understanding, so preserving Princeton’s history sometimes means attempting to correct the work of our predecessors. My struggle to bring 19th and early 20th-century African American graduate alumni to light illustrates one way white supremacy of that era continues to influence us today. It also supports the argument that archives are not neutral, so researchers and archival staff must pay close attention to the ways archival work reflects the values of those who did the preserving and discarding.

In our Graduate Alumni Records collection, I found files for Irwin William Langston Roundtree, George Shippen Stark, and Leonard Zechariah Johnson, African Americans previously known to have received masters degrees from Princeton. Contents were sparse. Stark’s and Johnson’s consisted primarily of the evidence that they had paid fees and earned course credit. Roundtree’s file had no information about the classes he took, but included an obituary that indicated he was a longtime resident of Trenton.

(Click to enlarge.) Academic record of Leonard Zachariah Johnson, graduate class of 1904. Graduate Alumni Records (AC105).

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This Week in Princeton History for November 27-December 3

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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, undergraduates protest the presence of African Americans in chapel, a computer virus is spreading all over campus, and more.

November 28, 1868—Students at the College of New Jersey (Princeton) begin circulating a petition to ban African Americans from chapel exercises after James McCosh allows a black student from Princeton Theological Seminary to attend his lectures on the life of Jesus, but few faculty are willing to sign it and McCosh remains unmoved.

Clipping from New York Tribune, December 8, 1868. The relevant portion reads as follows: “A young man (colored), of fine abilities and address, a graduate of a Western college, and at present a student of the Theological Seminary of this place, has dared to present himself at the College Chapel on Sunday afternoon for the purpose of listening to the President’s [McCosh’s] lectures without the permission of the sympathizers of the ‘Lost Cause,’ who feeling themselves deeply injured are now circulating a protest, which being duly signed, will be presented to the Faculty protesting against the further privilege of colored men entering the Chapel during any Chapel exercise. Thus far no movement has been made by the more liberal minded against this pernicious protest, for they have confidence in the good sense of the Faculty, and believe that such an article will be treated by them with contempt.”

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This Week in Princeton History for August 7-13

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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, Chelsea Clinton visits the campus, a graduate wins an Olympic medal for soccer, and more.

August 7, 1996—As Chelsea Clinton considers potential colleges, she and First Lady Hillary Clinton visit Princeton.

Photo from Daily Princetonian.

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