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Vol. LXI, No. 37
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Wednesday, September 12, 2007
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Vol. LXI, No. 37
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Wednesday, September 12, 2007
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"Princeton in the 1930s," opened Tuesday, September 11, at the Historical Society of Princeton (HSP). It will be on view in Bainbridge House on Nassau Street through July 13, 2008.
Curators Howard Green and Julia Williams — the couple responsible for the "Princeton's Civil War" exhibition, which ran from last October through July — have again brought together various elements from the historical society's collections.
Furniture from Updike Farm and from Albert Einstein's home on Mercer Street have been used to create a typical 1930s parlor complete with a chair, side-table, and lamp that once belonged to the renowned physicist. Items from the farm include an electric sewing machine that would have taken pride of place in any early 1930s home, its use made possible by the introduction of electricity to the farm a decade earlier.
Also used to good effect in the room display are moving pictures taken by Dr. Charles Erdman, Jr., Mayor of Princeton Borough from 1936 to 1942. Beginning with the 1929 P'rade, scenes include the bonfire that used to take place every fall behind Nassau Hall and images of children at Miss Fine's school, which once stood next door to Mr. Erdman's home close to where Borough Hall is today and which he attended as a boy.
Mr. Erdman's granddaughter, Jody Erdman, a relatively new member of HSP's board of trustees and a dedicated fundraiser, provided the family films. "My grandfather was Princeton through and through," said Ms. Erdman. "He was born in Princeton and attended the University; he was very fond of the town and took lots of photographs and movies, including aerial shots."
The silent films are provided with sound accompaniment, seemingly from a period radio from Updike Farm, playing music from the era interspersed with speeches by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
For many Princetonians, the exhibition will be a walk down memory lane. Photographs show a cross-section of the populace and such bygone institutions as the trolley that once ran through the center of town.
There are pictures of "Baker's Alley" and publicity material for local innovations such as the new system of milk production developed by the Walker-Gordon dairy in Plainsboro. Described as a "technical marvel," the "rotolacter" sped up milk production.
Princeton's African American owned businesses are represented. A photograph taken on Spring Street shows two beauticians on the steps of the Christine Vanity Parlor (now Farrington's Music). Then owned by Christine Moore Howell, the shop is well-remembered by Shirley A. Satterfield, HSP board member since 1990. Ms. Satterfield, who recalled that the shop served white clients in front and African American clients in the back, pointed out the boxed Christine "Emancipator," a hard pressing iron "scientifically designed for the straightening of negro hair."
Ms. Satterfield has a long interest in the history of Princeton's African American community and of her family, one of the oldest in the area. She periodically leads walking tours of Princeton's African American Heritage and is currently at work on a history of the Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church, where Paul Robeson's father served as pastor.
Along with Nancy Carnevale, Elric J. Endersby, Wanda S. Gunning, Daniel T. Rodgers, and Mark Wasserman, Ms. Satterfield was an adviser for the exhibition.
"Every time they [HSP] have an exhibition, I have found something of relevance to contribute, especially, since the 1996 exhibition relating the history of Princeton's African American community," said Ms. Satterfield, who donated a book of autographs to this exhibition. "From earlier exhibitions one would have received the impression that everyone in Princeton was white. That perception is no longer tenable.
"When I tell young people about Princeton's segregated schools and about my own experiences attending the Witherspoon School for Colored Children on Quarry Street, their response is usually to wonder just how old I am," laughed Ms. Satterfield, an educator and former guidance counselor at the high school. Ms. Satterfield said that her favorite part of the exhibition is the section devoted to education. "During the Depression, students had to stay in school because there was no work for them," she said.
"One of the positive outcomes of exhibitions like this and 'Princeton's Civil War,' is that the society receives items from the community that add to the collection, such as a clock that came from the Witherspoon School," said HSP curator Eileen Morales.
Other items come from the Princeton Doll and Toy Museum in Hopewell, including a Shirley Temple Doll, her rival Patsy Ann Doll, and a Popeye doll. "We are very grateful to the museum director Virginia Aris for letting us use these wonderful period items," commented HSP Executive Director Erin Dougherty at a press preview last Friday, September 7.
A sign from Skirm's Smoke Shop once lit the doorway of the Nassau Street store before it relocated in the new Palmer Square redevelopment.
The section on the Palmer Square Redevelopment is almost the last section that visitors will see, but it is a story that perhaps sums up the era most poignantly. A document describes the project thus: "Carved out of a dingy, small-town slum, Princeton's new civic center will ultimately consist of a complete square."
The stops and starts in the development of Palmer Square — work that began in the fall of 1930 was put off until August 1936 — paralleled Princeton's economic development.
In the late 1920s, agents for financier Edgar Palmer, a Princeton University alumnus, began buying property in the African American neighborhood in the vicinity of Nassau, John, and Hulfish streets. Displaced residents were moved to Birch Avenue as the $4.5 million mixed-use project took shape: 28 buildings including the Princeton Playhouse movie theater and the Nassau Inn.
Timeline
To represent the era, exhibition designer Steve Tucker has mounted the items on view against muted dust bowl earth tones with lettering from the Jazz Age.
Starting with the stock market crash of October 29, 1929, and including events such as Gandhi's 1930 civil disobedience campaign against British rule in India, the destruction of Diego Rivera's Rockefeller Center mural in 1934, and Churchill's election in 1940 as Prime Minister of Great Britain, a 1929-1940 timeline shows Princeton in world context, against the backdrop of rising militarism of Europe and Japan, and the entry of the United States into World War II in 1941.
In addition to sections on Education and Palmer Square, local entertainment, social organization, University and civic life are featured. The Depression's effect on local employment, especially on the African American and Italian American communities, is described. When Princeton residents lost their livelihoods, the privately-run Community League of Princeton (an outgrowth of turn of the century improvement efforts by the Present Day Club) stepped in to help, prior to state and government intervention. The league undertook relief drives, raising some $44,000 for food, shelter, fuel, and clothing. A visiting nurse provided free care.
While the Depression did not hit Princeton as hard as other communities, mainly because of the presence of the University and the lack of idled industrial workforce, immigrant groups suffered. A 1937 report of the Princeton Social Service Bureau (run by the Community League) blamed difficulties on the large numbers of men, primarily Italian, who came to Princeton when large-scale building projects were on Princeton's campus. When these projects ended, the immigrants and their families struggled to maintain the high cost of living in Princeton.
The last section, titled "On the Edge of War," brings together several items from the University and the Institute for Advanced Study related to Jewish émigrés who came to Princeton during the period of Hitler's rise to power.
End of An Era
"Princeton in the 1930s" records the end of an era. After World War II, Princeton schools desegregated, Princeton University experienced massive growth and expansion, farmland became developed for business and housing, and families adopted new technologies. The exhibition sets the stage for Princeton's development mid-twentieth century.
Assisted by a grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, "Princeton in the 1930s" is on view in Bainbridge House, 158 Nassau Street, Tuesday through Sunday, from noon to 4 p.m.
Admission is free, but donations are accepted. For more information, call (609) 921-6748 or visit: www.princetonhistory.org.