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Consists of records which document the activities of the Princeton Publishing Company. The bulk of the material is related to finance, and includes stock certificates, ledger books, deeds, and bills of sales. A complete set of annual meeting minutes is also included; these too pertain primarily to financial matters.
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Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Collection Title, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.
The Princeton Publishing Company was incorporated in 1900 to oversee the printing of the Alumni Princetonian, a weekly alumni supplement to the Daily Princetonian that had no clear organization or support. The name of the publication was soon changed to the Princeton Alumni Weekly and shares of stock were sold to interested alumni to fund the periodical. Notable stockholders included the company's incorporator Andrew Fleming West, Professor Allan Marquand, and Charles Scribner, who eventually became the company's director. In 1919 it was decided by a vote of the stockholders to transfer control of the Princeton Alumni Weekly to Princeton University Press, and the Princeton Publishing Company was dissolved.
The College of New Jersey was initially chartered in 1746. The first classes were held in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in the parsonage of the president, the Reverend Jonathan Dickinson. Upon his death, the College moved to Newark, New Jersey, and was headed by the Reverend Aaron Burr, Sr. Since 1756, the College has been located in Princeton, New Jersey. For the first fifty years, nearly all College operations took place within Nassau Hall. Fires, fundraising difficulties, low student enrollment, and the Civil War challenged the vitality of the College in the early and middle nineteenth century, but the College grew vigorously under the leadership of President James McCosh, and it was renamed Princeton University in 1896. The Graduate School was established in 1900, although a limited graduate program had existed since the 1870s. Princeton enthusiastically supported the country (living up to its informal motto, "Princeton in the Nation's Service") during the First and Second World Wars, offering the expertise of faculty and campus space for training, as well as facilitating the early graduation of students so they could enlist. The post-World War II years brought dramatic changes to Princeton. The size and strength of the University's facilities and academic programs—especially for the applied sciences and public policy—were increased dramatically. Under President Robert Goheen, Princeton began to admit minority students in greater numbers in the 1960s and admitted women undergraduates in 1969. Today, Princeton is widely regarded as one of the top universities in the world.
Princeton University Press opened on 30 Nassau Street in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1905 with a capital of $25,000. Charles Scribner '1875 served as its first president. In 1910 the Press was reincorporated under an act providing for not-for-profit organizations "to establish, maintain, and operate a printing and publishing plant, for the promotion of education and scholarship, and to serve the University by its manufacturing and distributing publications." Its first incorporators were Charles Scribner, M. Taylor Pyne, Archibald D. Russell, Parker D. Handy, Clarence Blair Mitchell, Arthur H. Scribner, and Robert Bridges. In 1911, Mr. Scribner contributed the site for the Press at the corners of William and Charlton Streets as well as the Press building and much of the printing machinery.
Since the publication of its first book, Princeton University President John Witherspoon's Lectures in Moral Philosophy (1912), the P.U.P has published well over 2000 titles. Among these are such seminal works as Einstein's Theory of Relativity and von Neumann and Morgenstern's The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. The Press has also undertaken such long-range projects as the publication of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Julian Boyd, and The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, edited by Arthur Link. Since its 1905, the Press has also printed The Princeton Alumni Weekly.
Although closely connected with the University, the Princeton University Press is a separate corporation. Nine of its fifteen trustees must be members of the faculty or administration of the University or alumni. The president of Princeton University, an ex-officio trustee, appoints four faculty members to five-year terms on the editorial board, which controls the imprint of the Press.