Summary
Overview
Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library.
Athletic Programs Collection
1870-2008 (mostly 1889-1980)
6.30 linear feet, 15 archival boxes
Abstract
This collection contains printed athletic programs for football, baseball, basketball, and ice hockey and other sports, with football predominant. The programs, especially the earlier ones, provide a sweeping view of Princeton's athletic history, documenting not only team statistics and scores, but the players, the venues in which the teams competed, social aspects of advertising, and the evolution of the various games.
Description
Description
Consists of printed Princeton University athletic programs for football, baseball, basketball, ice hockey, and other sports, with football predominant. †b The programs, especially the earlier ones, provide a sweeping view of Princeton's athletic history, documenting not only team statistics and scores, but the players, the venues in which the teams competed, social aspects of advertising, and the evolution of the various games. Other sports represented in this collection include fencing, gymnastics, lacrosse, rowing, soccer, squash, swimming, tennis, track, volleyball, and wrestling. Many programs for away games are found in the collection. This is especially true for basketball games, though the majority of the programs are from Princeton/Yale football games.
Collection Creator
History
Appearing in all shapes and sizes, even in the shape of a football, the athletic programs in this collection depict all four of the major men's sporting categories on the campus: football, baseball, basketball, and hockey, as well fencing, gymnastics, lacrosse, rowing, soccer, squash, swimming, tennis, track, volleyball, and wrestling.
By far football has the largest run of programs. Many of these early games were played on Manhattan Field in New York City, a kind of “neutral ground” for games against Harvard, Yale, or Cornell. Several of these represent the early Princeton/Yale games which were played on Thanksgiving Day. Princeton has played several big football teams throughout the years including Army, Navy, Ohio State, Chicago, the University of Virginia, and Notre Dame. There are programs depicting all of these match-ups. Naturally many of the programs concern games with the University's arch rival: Yale University. One such program is from the November 14, 1914 game which was the first football game played in Palmer Stadium. Surprisingly away games are also well-represented. This is especially true for the basketball games, though the majority of the basketball programs are from Princeton vs. Yale games.
Most of the programs were published by the athletic departments of Princeton or the school of its opponent; the Princeton Pictorial Review, the Daily Princetonian, or the Princeton Athletic News also produced some programs.
In the programs can be found the rivalry, and revelry, that made up the games, statistics and personal information about the players and coaches, as well as team statistics and scorecards. Many of the programs contain advertisements which showed eating and drinking establishments as well as hotels and merchants in the area. In the early football programs the rules of the game were also given.
In contrast to this, the hockey and basketball programs from World War II through the 1960s tend to be thin, four-page sheets containing only rosters and a small amount of advertising, as are many of the other sports' programs.
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