Club History Interest Group

THE FUN THINGS WE DO AS HISTORIANS

Doris Ju, Club Historian, has reserved the Windrows’ Barnhart Room for the meetings of the WCCP Club History Interest Group, one Monday per month (fourth Monday) from 9:30 to 11:30 (changed from previous 10:00-12:00)– NO meeting on the Mondays when the club has our General Meetings:

Next meeting dates: TBA

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Archive: dates of past meetings: 2024 Sep 9, 23; Oct 14, 28; Nov 25 (not meeting Nov 11); Dec 9. 2025 January 27; No February meeting; Mar 10; Apr 14; May 12 (Cancelled); Jun 9 (Cancelled).

Archive: dates of past meetings: 2024 January 8, 22, 29; Feb 5 (cancelled), 12, 26; Mar 4, 11, 25; Apr 1, 8, 22, 29; May 6, 13 (no meeting Memorial Day May 27); Jun 3, 10, 24.

Archive: dates of past meetings: Sep 2023 — 4, 11, 25; Oct 2023 — 2, 9, 23, 30; Nov 2023 — 6 (did not meet), 13, 27; Dec 2023 — 11 (Dec 4 cancelled, to go on trip to NJ State Capitol).

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PAGES FROM THE CLUB SCRAPBOOKS (click the underlined)

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The Club History Interest group has been meeting on selected Monday mornings, and has sorted through roughly 20 boxes – some packed full, some half empty.  So now we need to go through the piles that we have decided to keep and re-sort them into finer categories.  At the same time, we have kept many pieces of artifacts that may no longer have value as to the data – such as several old ledgers but valuable as artifacts.  There are also several photo albums and scrap books of newspaper clippings and thank-you letters from scholarship recipients. There are bundles of old member directories, and a Club recipe book!

What to do with what remains is a question to brain storm. Ideas such as designating one General Monthly meeting (perhaps in March to coincide with Women’s History Month) to focus on our Club history, during which perhaps the many artifacts will be displayed like a museum exhibition, and members can view the displays. Another idea is to publish a History Book like the Present Day Club, which took two years and the hard work of historian Rosemary Walmsley, or publish the history digitally on the club website. The idea of digitizing also will take great effort.  Meanwhile, we will continue to meet on selected Mondays in the Barnhart Room from 9:30-11:30 to further organize the documents and photographs and newspaper clippings we have saved.

Wanted: a member who would like to write a short blurb or tidbit about our history in each newsletter. Please contact Doris Ju.

LOOKING BACK…..

A Look Back 1916: In January 1916, 47 women residing in Princeton who held college degrees, gathered at Princeton High School to form a club whose purpose was “to collect data concerning colleges open to women; to place on file information for the use of prospective students in such institutions; to raise a fund for the use of Princeton girls unable otherwise to continue their studies; and to foster friendly fellowship among college women in Princeton.”  Fundraising for these “loans” quickly became an immediate problem. (It wasn’t until 1928 that the loan program was discontinued and the Club started offering scholarships).  One option to raise money was to serve lunch before the Yale-Princeton football game that November.  The luncheon was held at Mrs. Fiedler’s home on Prospect Avenue.  There is no record of how much the club charged for the lunch, nor what was actually served and how much profit they made, but it was termed “a success” and helped to form a foundation for the burgeoning loan fund. A side note:  45,000 persons came to town to attend that Yale-Princeton game, in 6,000 automobiles! Chris Greges

Another Look Back – 1916 As we begin to review the applications for scholarship awards given by the Women’s College Club every May, we are indeed grateful to our founders and their successors, as well as other benefactors who have enabled our endowment to flourish and grow, especially when we look at the early days of the Club when loans, not scholarships, were given. In the spring of 1916, the immediate problem of the loan committee was that three girls had applied for loans of $50, $100 and $150, and that one girl had asked for any amount which could be offered.  Even with $100 borrowed from the High School Alumni Association, the Club treasury was still inadequate for these needs.  During the summer, two of the loan applications were withdrawn, and grants of $125 were made to each of the remaining two girls. In late summer a young lady entered an urgent plea for money to supplement an available scholarship for college.  A clergyman raised $75 to assist her and the Club was asked for $200.  A member of the Alumni Association loaned $100, and the other $100 was available in the Club treasury.  Seven months after organization, the Club had loaned $350 of its $352.50 balance.  The Club still had to find the money to reimburse the generous individual who loaned $100, but the Women’s College Club had met its first challenge successfully.—-Chris Greges

A Look Back : 1920’s Fundraising became a high priority for the Women’s College Club in the early 1920s. Subscription dances (sponsored jointly with the Princeton Hospital Committee) were popular and brought in added revenue (a dance in 1921 netted the Women’s College Club $350!). At one dance, held in Thomson Hall, the Farr Hardware orchestra played and a campus policeman took tickets at the door. Mothers brought their daughters and chaperoned from seats along the wall. For couples desiring conversation, a few chairs and potted palms decorated what eventually became the police court when the building became Borough Hall in 1936. The building was demolished in 1973. Sandwiches sold at football games added to the Club’s coffers. One of the Club’s former presidents tells of making hundreds of sandwiches to be sold at a University reunion. Unhappily, so few were sold that she and her husband filled cartons and clothes baskets with unsold sandwiches and dumped them at midnight into the piggery of a farm where Princeton Hospital once stood at the intersection of Witherspoon Street and Franklin Avenue. Quite a feast for those pigs! —Chris Greges

Looking back in our history, there are many interesting facts that you are probably unaware of.  Here is one of them:

Peggy Brennan is a second-generation member of the Women’s College Club of Princeton. Her mom joined in very early 50s and was still a member when she died in 1989. Her name was Pauline Spahr. She was secretary when Mrs. Sjostrom (67-69) was president. Peggy was secretary about 1962, 1963 and remember going to Mrs. Sjostrom’s house in West Windsor for meetings.  Neither she or her mom could type so her dad had his secretary type the College Club minutes.