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Bruce Wright, future member of the New York Supreme Court, was accepted into Princeton in the mid-1930s. His offer of admission was revoked when he arrived on campus and administrators learned that he was African American.

Alexander Dumas Watkins (1855-1903), a self-taught biologist, conducted significant scientific research alongside Princeton University professors from the 1880s until his death in 1903. Despite holding no formal academic position, Watkins worked in Princeton’s laboratories and taught courses as the University’s first Black instructor—and the last until the 1950s.

Hundreds of Princeton alumni served the Confederacy as soldiers, officers, and political leaders. Yet Princeton’s close involvement with the Confederate States of America has received surprisingly little scholarly attention until recently.

Tensions between Unionist and Secessionist students reached their peak in 1861, shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War.

The Civil War divided Princeton as well as the United States along regional lines, complicating the university’s patriotic history of wartime service as students and alumni fought in both the Union and Confederate forces.