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Date: October 25, 1996
Speeches, Fireworks and Feasts: A Party in the Princeton Tradition
"We must make a little press, or New Haven will go far a head of us in the way of show." -- Trustee Matthew Newkirk, May 18, 1847
Princeton, N.J. -- The celebration of the 250th Anniversary of Princeton University, including today's Charter Day convocation, draws on elements that date to the Centennial celebration of the College of New Jersey, which took place on June 29, 1847.
Celebrations of major anniversaries in 1847, 1896, and 1946 all featured opportunities for both the campus and the community to reflect on the past and pursue new ideas while savoring the merriment of a birthday party. The 250th Anniversary celebration has featured speeches, music and academic conferences, which were important elements of earlier anniversaries. Today's convocation and birthday party will offer new takes on tradition, including the illumination of Nassau Hall, the use of flashlight "torches," an outdoor picnic, and a fireworks display.
The current anniversary celebration began with an opening ceremony in Alexander Hall on February 23, 1996. Under the direction of Burton G. Malkiel, Professor of Economics and Chair of the Steering Committee, and Dorothy Bedford, Executive Director, the celebration has included a series of historical lectures, 30 academic conferences, six concerts, a feature-length film, a book on the history of the university, a joint session of the New Jersey State Legislature and a commemorative post card of Alexander Hall. In June, President William Jefferson Clinton delivered the commencement address.
Today, Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities, will deliver an address, "The Place of the Idea, the Idea of the Place." About 14,000 people have been invited for celebrations across the campus. Alumni from across the country will gather in 15 cities to view a satellite broadcast of today's events.
Service to the community, the nation and the world will be a legacy of the 250th Anniversary. Alumni have created a service project "challenge," and today's ceremony will feature the unveiling of an engraved stone on the green in front of Nassau Hall honoring alumni contributions in support of the University's missions of teaching, research and service.
Memorabilia from earlier anniversaries can be seen at a recently opened exhibit at the Historical Society of Princeton, 158 Nassau St. The exhibit, Commemorating Old Nassau: Princeton University Anniversary Celebrations, features letters, decorations, and accounts of Princeton anniversaries, including efforts to publicize the events through the media. Curator Patricia Bruttomesso made extensive use of materials loaned by Princeton's Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library.
According to Bruttomesso, there are no records of a 50th anniversary celebration. Accounts of the Centennial, Sesquicentennial and Bicentennial reveal the roots of many elements that have been updated for the current celebration.
Centennial: Students Start Fireworks Tradition
The trustees of the College of New Jersey originally scheduled the Centennial celebration for October 22, 1846, the anniversary of the signing of the charter. That date conflicted with Presbyterian synods, which was a problem for a college borne of a split in the Presbyterian Church. The date was moved to June 29, 1847, the day before commencement.
Students, however, were not deterred from celebrating Charter Day. According to the Princeton Whig, students acting against the administration's orders put on "a splendid display of fireworks," which resulted in five suspensions. Despite the discipline, the students established the fireworks tradition that will continue tonight on Poe-Pardee field.
The best accounts of the official Centennial celebration the following June came from newspapers, which were also used to invite alumni. The occasion marked the opening of a law school that operated only a few years. Accounts of the speeches are less complete than records of more than a dozen toasts that occurred during a outdoor dinner, served under tents behind Nassau Hall. That area, Cannon Green, will be the site of a reception after today's convocation.
Sesquicentennial: With the new University comes the 'P-rade'
More than two years of planning preceded the three-day celebration, which took place October 20-22, 1896. Anniversary planners crossed the country asking alumni to attend and traveled to Europe to attract the world's best scholars to the event. Six foreign scholars and President Grover Cleveland spoke. The featured speech came from a member of the faculty, Woodrow Wilson, who provided an unofficial motto with his address, "Princeton in the Nation's Service." Wilson described the early College of New Jersey as "a seminary of statesmen" and reminded all of their duty to the country:
"We dare not keep aloof and closet ourselves while a nation comes to its maturity. The days of wide expansion are gone, our life grows tense and difficult; our resources for the future lies in careful thought, providence, and a wise economy; and the school must be of the nation."
Today, Wilson's motto has been expanded to read: "Princeton in the Nation's Service and in the Service of all Nations."
The Princeton community was a full partner in the Sesquicentennial, erecting giant arches on Nassau Street. On October 21, 1896, about 2,000 alumni joined 800 students in a procession that wound its way from campus, through the Princeton Theological Seminary, through town and back to Nassau Hall. In this "torch light" procession, marchers carried orange Chinese lanterns, and many alumni classes selected costumes. Nassau Hall, illuminated with 1,500 incandescent lights, served as the reviewing stand for President Cleveland. This procession inspired the "P-rade," the alumni march held during reunions each spring.
On October 22, 1896, President Francis Patton concluded the celebration with the proclamation that "From this moment on, what heretofore for one hundred fifty years has been known as the College of New Jersey shall in all future time be known as Princeton University."
Bicentennial: A time to renew ties severed by war
The bicentennial celebration began on September 22, 1946 and concluded in a three-day celebration on June 14-17, 1947. Princeton held five major convocations and 16 academic conferences. According to Bruttomesso, these sessions afforded scholars an opportunity to re-establish ties with their colleagues from across the globe, since many of these links had been lost during World War II. The celebration also offered alumni and undergraduates, three-fourths of whom had served in the war, a chance to come home to Princeton.
Princeton took full advantage of experimental television technology to broadcast its Bicentennial Commencement to New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The academic conferences were broadcast on radio, making them available to the public.
President Dodds spokes at three convocations during the academic year, including the final event that featured a parade of representatives from universities around the world. The list of dignitaries who marched through Princeton's front gate included President Harry S Truman, former President Herbert Hoover, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Albert Einstein and T.S. Eliot. The weekend included the dedication of the new Dillon Gymnasium and the laying of the cornerstone of Firestone Library, thus fulfilling the promise President Dodds had made the previous October:
"Throughout the year we shall disprove the charge of a Princetonian editor a few years ago, that the University is content to sit on her laurels, a rather uncomfortable posture, if you stop to think about it, and one that we intend to avoid at all costs."
Note: Our thanks to University Archivist Ben Primer and to the Historical Society of Princeton.