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Stories

Princeton’s Civil War Memorial
by Richard Anderson | Reconstruction to Present (1865-)
Nassau Hall’s memorial atrium—built in the 1920s—reflects the era’s reconciliationist politics, erasing the role of slavery and emancipation in the Civil War and granting moral equivalency to the Union and Confederate causes.

The KKK and Princeton's 1955 Emmett Till Petition
by Ellen Li | Reconstruction to Present (1865-)
When three Princeton students organized a petition protesting the acquittal of Emmett Till’s murderers in 1955, classmates dressed in KKK robes threatened their lives. Though the campus newspaper and Princeton administration characterized the incident as a “prank,” the event revealed deep divisions on campus over issues of racial justice.

The Murder of Frederick Ohl
by Grace Masback | Reconstruction to Present (1865-)
In 1895, African American Princeton resident John Collins shot and killed white Princeton student Frederick Ohl. The racially biased news coverage surrounding Collins’s trial illustrates racial tensions still present on campus and in town thirty years after the end of the Civil War.

Princeton and the Ku Klux Klan
by Gabrielle M. Girard | Reconstruction to Present (1865-)
During the early 1920s, Princeton students came into contact with local members of the Ku Klux Klan. Their interactions with the Klan reveal both curiosity about the organization and anxiety about the following it could develop on university campuses.

"The Celebrated Alexander Dumas Watkins": Princeton's First Black Instructor
by R. Isabela Morales | Reconstruction to Present (1865-)
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.
Primary Sources

"Increasing List of Signers Opposes Till Case Verdict"
September 30, 1955 | Reconstruction to Present (1865-)
Article describing Princeton students and faculty members who signed a petition protesting the acquittal of Emmett Till's murderers in 1955.

Tappers Carrying Buckets of Latex
November 1966 | Reconstruction to Present (1865-)
African workers at a collection station of the Firestone Plantations Company near Cavalla, Liberia. Their buckets are loaded with latex.

African American Students at the Witherspoon Street School
1922-1933 | Reconstruction to Present (1865-)
Photograph of students at the segregated Witherspoon Street School in the 1920s and 1930s.

"Vote Republican"
November 2, 1947 | Reconstruction to Present (1865-)
Advertisement urging Princeton residents to vote Republican to support the new state constitution, which prohibited the segregation of public schools.

“White Supremacy at Princeton”
September 30, 1942 | Reconstruction to Present (1865-)
One of a series of Daily Princetonian editorials arguing for the integration of Princeton University.