Description
Description
The content of this collection varies markedly over time. The eighteenth and
early nineteenth-century presidents' records are typically secondary sources
such as clippings or letters written by others, most of which long postdate the
lifetimes of the men to whom they refer. In a few instances, primary material in
the form of correspondence, financial records, and sermons exists. The early
presidents' records are usually divided into five broad categories: biographical
information, their presidency, family members, post- mortem material, and
portraits. It is only with the presidency of John Maclean, Jr. that original
materials such as correspondence begins to predominate, nor can any set of
records be said to be voluminous save his and those of Harold Dodds. In the
post-Maclean era, James McCosh's administration is the least well documented,
comprising just six boxes of material, and those of Francis Landey Patton,
Woodrow Wilson, and John Grier Hibben, though informative in many regards, are
by no means complete.
Presidential portraits and other images have been placed at the end of the
collection under the appropriate series number and are referenced in the
following series descriptions. Every president is depicted, along with many of
their wives, though these images are limited in number and variety until the
advent of photography in the middle years of the nineteenth century. Photographs
of Presidents Robert Goheen (1957-1972), William Bowen (1972-1988), and Harold
Shapiro (1988-2001), whose records are presently closed and unprocessed, can be
found in the box 252.
Collection Creator
History
The role of Princeton University's president, who is chosen by and answerable to the
Board of Trustees, has evolved significantly since Jonathan Dickinson first taught a
handful of students in his Elizabeth, New Jersey parsonage in 1747. By the close of
Harold Dodds's tenure, more than two centuries later, the undergraduate and graduate
student body had swelled to 3,584 and the faculty to 582, supported by an extensive
infrastructure of libraries, laboratories, classrooms, and residential and
recreational facilities. By the middle of the twentieth century, the president, once
the heart and soul of a fledgling college chiefly concerned with preparing men for
ministry, was charged with leading a complex multi- disciplinary and non-sectarian
institution.
The presidents of Princeton University (or the College of New Jersey as it was known
prior to 1896) have always served as their institution's chief executive officer.
Their primary function, however, is no longer pedagogical but administrative, and
even in this sphere, they now share their duties with others. Their leadership
remains a critical factor in Princeton University's success, but their centrality
and ubiquity have slowly diminished. In the words of Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker,
“Today the president of an American college, as its educational leader and chief
administrative officer, is vital to its prosperity and progress, but two centuries
ago he was still more important, for the entire life of the institution centered
upon him.” Of Aaron Burr, Sr., the College of New Jersey's second president,
Wertenbaker writes: “He was president, professor, secretary, librarian, purchasing
agent all in one.” ( Princeton, 1746-1896)
Even when Princeton University had far outgrown its small beginnings, presidents like
Francis Landey Patton carried a disproportionate burden, though by the close of the
nineteenth century, this was seen as an error in judgment rather than a necessary
virtue. According to David W. Hirst, “Even by standards of that day, the
administrative structure of Princeton was spare to the extreme. Patton conducted
college affairs from his study in Prospect. He had no personal secretary until 1895
when he assigned that position to his son, George Stevenson Patton '91, and there
was no college or university secretary until the election of Charles Williston
McAlpin in December 1900. Patton was assisted by only one dean for most of his term,
during which he turned aside the faculty's urgent appeals to inaugurate a system of
deans to accommodate the expanding institution.” ( A Princeton
Companion) In contrast, by 1957, when Dodds retired, the president could
draw on the talents of no fewer than six deans, aided, in turn, by six assistant or
associate deans.
The 15 presidents whose records can be found in this collection faced a wide range of
challenges, from the warfare of the American Revolution, which left Nassau Hall in
ruins, to the twentieth-century educational reforms that propelled Princeton
University into the first tier of the world's universities. Their training and
abilities also varied, and it is this diversity of men and issues, interacting with
one another in unique ways, that have defined the office of Princeton University's
president.
It has never been a self-sufficient office, even in its earliest incarnation, for
presidents have always had to work in concert with the Board of Trustees and, as the
latter's day-to-day involvement in the life of the institution lessened, with a
corps of administrative officers as well. The will of the faculty, students, and
alumni have also had an important impact on the power of presidents. Each of these
groups has asserted itself at different points in history, from the rampaging
students who helped to wreck the presidency of Samuel Stanhope Smith, to the faculty
who agitated for Patton's removal, to the alumni who undermined Woodrow Wilson's
initiatives concerning graduate education and undergraduate eating clubs. At times,
however, power has been willingly shared, as the close partnership of James Carnahan
and John Maclean, Jr., the College of New Jersey's ninth and tenth presidents,
demonstrates.
Variety has also marked the length of presidential tenures. The combined service of
Princeton University's first five presidents was under 20 years, thanks to stress
and illness.
Carnahan, in contrast, headed the College of New Jersey for no fewer than 31 years,
and four of the presidents represented here enjoyed tenures of between 20 and 30
years.
Familial and religious cohesion has given way to pluralism. Until Wilson assumed the
presidency of Princeton University in 1902, the men who held this office were
exclusively Presbyterian clergymen, and in two cases, family members succeeded one
another: Burr by his father-in-law, Jonathan Edwards, and John Witherspoon by his
son-in-law, Smith. It was not until 2001, however, that the gender barrier was
broken with the election of Shirley Tilghman, Princeton University's first female
president.
The contributions of Princeton University's presidents have varied with the times in
which they lived and in proportion to their talents and resources. Their ranks have
included statesmen of the stature of Witherspoon, the only clergyman to sign the
Declaration of Independence, and Wilson, who guided the United States through the
First World War. They have included accomplished educators like James McCosh, whose
impact was likened to “an electric shock, instantaneous, paralyzing to the
opposition, and stimulating to all who were not paralyzed.” They have included
pioneers like Burr, who oversaw his institution's move from Newark to Princeton in
1756 and the erection of Nassau Hall. They have included gifted administrators like
Dodds, who, notwithstanding the turmoil of the Great Depression and the Second World
War, set a new standard of academic excellence and, as the development of the
Woodrow Wilson School attests, gave his university a global outlook. And,
inevitably, there were presidents who failed to sustain the burdens of their office:
men like Smith, whose tenure was marred by a fire that gutted Nassau Hall in 1802
and student riots that led to mass suspensions in 1807. Indeed, Smith is one of four
presidents who have been compelled to resign under pressure. The other three are
Ashbel Green, Patton, and Wilson.
The series descriptions that follow provide individual profiles of Princeton
University's first 15 presidents, as well as insights into the changing character of
their office. As a whole they were an able group of leaders who successfully guided
their institution through the social, political, and economic vagaries of two
centuries. Though Latin and Greek have fallen from their position of curricular
pre-eminence, though Nassau Hall is no longer the place where students study, eat,
sleep, and worship, and though financial transactions are no longer entered in the
president's own hand, the work of the presidents documented in this collection
continues to bear fruit today. The names and tenures of these men are listed
below:
President Tenure
Jonathan Dickinson 1747
Aaron Burr, Sr. 1748-1757
Jonathan Edwards 1758
Samuel Davies 1759-1761
Samuel Finley 1761-1766
John Witherspoon 1768-1794
Samuel Stanhope Smith 1795-1812
Ashbel Green 1812-1822
James Carnahan 1823-1854
John Maclean, Jr. 1854-1868
James McCosh 1868-1888
Francis Landey Patton 1888-1902
Woodrow Wilson 1902-1910
John Grier Hibben 1912-1932
Harold Willis Dodds 1933-1957
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