Graduate Alumni Records, 1900-1929

The records consist of the academic files of former graduate students of Princeton University. The information contained in each file varies greatly but can include grades cards, Graduate School applications, a photograph of the student, letters of recommendation, as well as biographical information, lists of achievements, news clippings, and obituaries.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged by the year that the degree was earned, and alphabetically by student's last name within each year.

Collection Creator Biography:

Princeton University. Graduate School

The earliest form of organized graduate education at Princeton began when President James Carnahan announced the establishment of a Law School in 1846, which awarded its last degree in 1852. Graduate work in a formal sense emerged at Princeton in the 1870s when President James McCosh added new faculty and graduate fellowships. The introduction of graduate work in the sciences came with the opening of the John C. Green School of Science in 1873, offering both masters and doctoral degrees.

Princeton's Graduate School, established officially by the Trustees in late 1900, began its operations in the fall of 1901. The School's first dean, Andrew Fleming West, sought to improve the quality of education by insisting on high entrance and academic standards and by creating what he believed to be the proper residential setting, a Graduate College, where the students would learn from one another. Merwick, located on Bayard Lane and provided by benefactor Moses Taylor Pyne in 1905, served as the first residence for graduate students. It housed twelve to fifteen students and served as a dining facility and center of recreation.

Upon her death in 1906, Josephine Thomson Swann, the first benefactor of the Graduate School, bequeathed $275,000 to Princeton for the construction of a Graduate College in her late husband's name. This money allowed Dean West and President Woodrow Wilson to formulate plans for the Graduate School, but controversy came with the building of the Graduate College, which would replace Merwick as a residence for students. West proposed that the College be remotely located, away from the distractions of undergraduate life, while Wilson favored a site near Prospect House. William Cooper Procter, Class of 1883, who contributed funds for what would become Procter Hall, strongly campaigned for the site near the golf links. He offered $500,000 toward the Graduate College, but found Wilson's choice for the site unsuitable and made his offer conditional "upon further understanding that some other site be chosen, which shall be satisfactory to me." Wilson refused to accept a gift upon such terms, and held tightly to his belief that West could not succeed in his plan to locate the Graduate College at the golf links, away from the "existing life of the University." Although Wilson had the support of the faculty and a majority of the trustees, Procter still insisted on his conditions.

After weighing the options, Howard Crosby Butler, the first Master-in-Residence of the Graduate College, agreed with West that a Graduate College apart from the undergraduates was wise based on his "practical experience with the group of graduate students at Merwick." Isaac Chauncey Wyman, Class of 1848, who came to side with Dean West and William Cooper Procter, left the bulk of his estate, initially estimated at two million dollars, to the Graduate College, and it was this that ultimately settled the question of its location. In his report to the trustees, Wilson finally accepted West's plan for the location and acceded to Procter's conditions. Once the site controversy was settled, architect Ralph Adams Cram, the "high priest" of American Collegiate Gothic, designed the College as a complex consisting of a quadrangle, the Pyne Memorial Tower for the residence of the Master of the College, and the great hall, Procter Hall, which became known for its stained glass windows, carved timber ceiling, and pipe organ. A "collegiate" lifestyle developed at the Graduate College, with recreation, lectures, and meals together in Procter Hall. The Graduate College provided graduate students with a communal life outside of the classrooms and laboratories.

World War I radically changed the character of the nascent Graduate School as students left for war service, and the Graduate College was leased to the military for training naval officers. Until 1922, the Graduate School had limited its enrollment to 200 degree candidates. Several departments, such as history, English, and chemistry, felt increased pressure to admit students beyond the 1922 quotas. By 1932, under Dean Augustus Trowbridge (1928-1933), enrollment was raised to 250, but it was not until the administration of Dean Hugh Stott Taylor (1945-1958), that the upper limit was finally removed. With increased research funds in math and sciences came assistantships for students. By World War II, Dean Luther Eisenhart (1933-1945), who had come on board during the Depression, had given the Graduate School a new sense of mission and increased claim to excellence. He changed doctoral regulations, redefined master's degrees, and created scholarships.

As World War II wound down and enrollment began strongly increasing again, the Graduate School faced a housing crisis, especially for married students. Married veterans and their families moved into what were at one time army barracks, the Butler Apartments, on Harrison Street. The shape of graduate education in the postwar years became a major interest, and Dean Taylor oversaw the postwar expansion of the Graduate School. He added new doctoral programs and brought alumni more fully into the University family through the creation of the Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni. The establishment of the Forrestal Campus in 1951, which included the Plasma Physics Laboratory and a particle accelerator, helped cement Princeton's reputation as a world-class institution in the study of physics

Under Dean Donald Hamilton (1958-1965), the enrollment of the Graduate School continued to increase steadily. The fellowship budget grew, as did the number of interdisciplinary programs. Princeton admitted its first woman graduate student as a special case in 1961, and in 1968 the Graduate School's doors were officially opened to women. Throughout the 1960s, the recruitment of minorities, especially African Americans, grew. Toward the end of the 1960s, with the global political climate changing, Princeton, like other graduate schools, felt increasing pressure to admit more students from other nations.

After weathering Vietnam War protests in the 1970s, the Graduate School faced further problems with funding, particularly in the humanities. Budget cuts served to reshape the Graduate School's demography, financing, programs, and morale through to the early 1990s. Steady growth throughout the latter part of the decade, however, can be attributed to doctoral students remaining enrolled in extended programs in order to conduct sophisticated research, acquire foreign languages and study in foreign countries, among other things. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Graduate School saw more specialties in academic departments and the establishment of focused research institutes and centers, as well as a strong exchange program with peer institutions.

Acquisition:: Graduate Alumni Records are transferred to the University Archives on an annual basis.
Appraisal: No materials are separated in the processing of Graduate Alumni Records.
Processing Information: This finding aid was created by Lynn Durgin in 2017.

Conditions Governing Access

Materials in this collection are subject to the terms of the University Archives Access Policy. Student Academic Files are restricted during the lifetime of the student.

Conditions Governing Use

Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. The Trustees of Princeton University hold copyright to all materials generated by Princeton University employees in the course of their work. For instances beyond Fair Use, if copyright is held by Princeton University, researchers do not need to obtain permission, complete any forms, or receive a letter to move forward with use of materials from the Princeton University Archives.

For instances beyond Fair Use where the copyright is not held by the University, while permission from the Library is not required, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections, nor does it require researchers to obtain its permission for said use. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the Ask Us! form.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.

Credit this material:

Graduate Alumni Records; Princeton University Archives, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library

Permanent URL:

http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/p8418r27j

Location:

Princeton University Archives

Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library

65 Olden Street

Princeton, NJ 08540, USA

(609) 258-6345

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Storage Note:

Mudd Manuscript Library (scamudd): Boxes 3-47; 639

Other Finding Aids

Graduate Alumni Records, 1839-1899.

Graduate Alumni Records, 1930-1959.

Graduate Alumni Records, 1960-1989.

Graduate Alumni Records, 1990-2018.

Subject Terms:

Graduate students -- New Jersey -- Princeton.

Names:

Princeton University

Graduate Degrees Earned, 1900-1909

Brown, John Hart, 1900

Carver, John Edward, 1900

Caughey, Rudolph M., 1900

Clagett, Dudley Malcolm, 1900

Diehl, Charles E., 1900

Dobson, Roy Calvin, 1900

DuBois, Marion Derrelle, 1900

Evans, Silas, 1900

Gregory, Carey Ellis, 1900

James, Edward Rutter, 1900

Jones, T. Catesby, 1900

Kershner, Frederick D., 1900

Kratz, Maxwell Hillegass, 1900

Lewis, Robert Lee, 1900

Light, George Heyser, 1900

Lockhart, Robert John, 1900

McDermott, Herbert, 1900

Morehead, James Caddall, 1900

Morgan, Minot Canfield, 1900

Pittman, Charles Read, 1900

Pringle, Alexander, 1900

Rauch, Charles Matthias, 1900

Richelsen, John Theophilus, 1900

Simpson, Edwin Wilcox, 1900

Webster, Richard, 1900

Weston, Alfred Sewall, 1900

Wilkie, John Richard, 1900

Case, Charles A., 1901

Euwer, Norman L., 1901

Griffith, Hugh W., 1901

Helm, Nathan Wilbur, 1901

Horn, William, 1901

Jones, Ebenezer Edwin, 1901

Koontz, Thomas Grier, 1901

Nevin, James, 1901

Preston, John F., 1901

Richardson, Robert C., 1901

Sakamoto, Tusutoma, 1901

Smith, Oscar N., 1901

Stemple, Edward Pennington, 1901

Taylor, Andrew Todd, 1901

Vail, Harry B., 1901

Wyatt, Harvey L., 1901

Aoki, Chojuro, 1902

Brewer, Wesley C., 1902

Campbell, Walter Jenkins, 1902

Cochran, Peyton, 1902

Culp, Cordie Jacob, 1902

Devilbiss, Roger B., 1902

Dodd, Albert B., 1902

Doeltz, Paul, 1902

Doltz, Paul, 1902

Ferrell, Dudley S., 1902

Frank, Adam G., 1902

Hall-Quest, Alfred L., 1902

Harding, Merritt Lynde, 1902

Hare, David Henry, 1902

James, Joseph Eakins, 1902

Johnson, William Brower, 1902

Judd, Clark Silliman, 1902

Kilworth, William W., 1902

Kirkwood, Joseph E., 1902

Leetch, Robert G., 1902

Mackie, John Kirkwood, 1902

Maier, Geroge William Marque, 1902

McDowell, Samuel, 1902

McKean, Frank Chalmers, 1902

Miller, Adam Marion, 1902

Neibel, Charles Lewis, 1902

Paist, Benjamin F., 1902

Phelps, William George, 1902

Phillips, Walter, 1902

Purcell, Jonathan Wesley, 1902

Rath, Charles E., 1902

Ridgway, Richard Frederick Lat, 1902

Roper, William Winston, 1902

Smith, Charles J., 1902

Thompson, David A., 1902

Urban, Leigh R., 1902