The Annual Giving video about McCosh 50 includes photos of the century-old hall and shots of Princeton students and activities across eras that capture both the timeless traditions and the evolution of the University since the 19th century. Those photos flash by quickly, so some of them are presented here with captions and context.

Right: Julian Zelizer, the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs

Princeton Rowing, 1920s

Princeton’s crews have participated in intercollegiate rowing competitions since 1872. Today the University has one of the premier rowing programs in the country, and it is the largest varsity sports program at Princeton.

Princeton Baseball, 1890s

Princeton has fielded organized baseball teams since 1857, playing its first outside game in 1860 and its first intercollegiate game in 1864.

Students in dorm room, 1890s

Alexander Hall and the library were electrified in the 1890s, but not dormitories. The college treasurer rejected the architect’s idea of electrifying Brown Hall, saying that any students who needed that newfangled luxury could run the wires themselves.

Students pulling a carriage, 1910s

President John Grier Hibben ’1882 *1893 announced in May 1925 that “all automobiles, carriages, and motorcycles” would be barred from campus, “except in cases where necessary for business purposes.”

Colonial Club, 1946

Colonial Club was founded in 1891, fifth of the eating clubs. It drew its name — mistakenly, it would seem — from its first clubhouse, an old ship captain’s house on Nassau Street thought to date to the Colonial period.

Jimmy Stewart ’32 with fellow students around a piano

Stewart ’32 (top, middle) didn’t limit himself to Triangle Club; he also joined the Glee Club, Theatre Intime, and Charter Club in addition to drawing cartoons for Tiger Magazine. In his junior year, he was elected head cheerleader.

An array of post-World War II beer jackets, circa 1950

Senior jackets were formerly known as beer jackets. The tradition dates to 1912, when a group of seniors, fed up with dry-cleaning bills after visits to the bar at the Nassau Inn, adopted easily washable blue denim overalls and jackets to wear.

Princeton Tennis

Princeton’s first men’s match was in 1901 versus Columbia. Tennis was also one of the original women’s varsity sports introduced at Princeton during the 1971-72 academic year.

Sculpture class, 1949

Formal instruction in the creative and performing arts was offered in 1939, when a faculty committee proposed a Creative Arts Program “to allow the talented undergraduate to work in the creative arts under professional supervision while pursuing a regular liberal arts course of study, as well as to offer all interested undergraduates an opportunity to develop their creative faculties in connection with the general program of humanistic education.”

James Everett Ward ’47 and Arthur Jewell Wilson ’47

During World War II, Princeton participated in the United States Navy’s V-12 program, which afforded the admittance of four African American students: Ward, Wilson, John Leroy Howard ’47 and Melvin Murchison Jr.

Civil Aeronautics Association flight training program, 1940

Princeton students learned to fly at the Princeton Airport during the war. Even before Pearl Harbor, Princeton established the Department of Aeronautical Engineering to prepare for critical wartime needs.

Penn T. Kimball II ’37

During World War II, Kimball served as a pilot for the U.S. Marines in the Pacific theater, ultimately achieving the rank of captain. Later, he became a journalist at Time and The New York Times, a political adviser, and a longtime professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Princeton Students

Two students on campus, circa 1980s.

Princeton Friends

A group of students on campus, circa 1980s.

Princeton Wildcats

The Princeton Wildcats is a student-led a cappella group founded in 1987 by Bernie Bowman ’89 and Collin Holbert ’90. Their founding song is “Respect” by Aretha Franklin.

Princeton Tigerlilies

A cappella groups like the Tigerlilies are frequently heard harmonizing under one of the campus’ many stone arches that provide acoustically desirable venues for the singers to hone their pitch and performances.

Cynthia Chase ’75 and Lisa Siegman ’75

Just five years after the first women received undergraduate degrees at Princeton, the University had a female sweep of its top academic awards at Commencement: Chase was valedictorian and Siegman was salutatorian. Chase pursued a Yale doctorate and is a professor emerita in English and comparative literature at Cornell. Siegman earned her law degree at Harvard and became an international business lawyer.

Rockefeller College Dining Hall, 2016

The four-year college plan, altering relationships between upper- and underclassmen, undergraduates and graduate students, and between the University and the eating clubs, transformed what generations of students knew as the Princeton experience — Princeton’s most radical social experiment since coeducation.

QuestBridge Scholars

Princeton is committed to providing a top-quality education to students from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. Since 2006, the partnership with QuestBridge has helped the University reach out to students who may not have previously considered Princeton as an option for an affordable education.

First-year Orientation, 2018

Fall Orientation introduces students to the community and to the extensive support available for success. During the program, students find their homes in the residential colleges, bond with others in small-group experiences and community-building events, and participate in traditions and programs that prepare them for life at Princeton.

Students having lunch in Wu-Wilcox Dining Hall, 2018

With more than 300 student organizations, 38 sports clubs, 15 chaplaincies, and several campus centers, the opportunities for students to explore their interests abound.

Princeton Pride Alliance “Hug-in,” 2012

The Pride Alliance represents the interests of LGBTQA members of the Princeton campus community, and offers regular meetings, dances and other special events, including Pride Week.

Pre-rade, 2019

Established in 2004, Pre-rade is for first-year students only. They march on to campus through FitzRandolph Gate with the president and members of the faculty (in full regalia). Other classes welcome the first-year students and introduce them to Princeton’s “Locomotive.”

McCosh Hall, 1907

McCosh Hall memorializes James McCosh, the University’s 11th president. Designed in the Tudor Gothic style of architecture then dominant at Princeton, it was the largest building on campus when it was built.

McCosh Hall, 1930s

The lecture hall has hosted dozens of prominent figures in politics, science, literature and the arts. Most notably, Albert Einstein gave his renowned Stafford Little lectures on the theory of relativity in McCosh 50 in 1921, the year before he received the Nobel Prize.

McCosh 50, 1951

In the 1950s, professors, lecturers and assistants in instruction (preceptors) were not present while students took their exams, trusting them to police themselves and signing their exams under this handwritten statement: I pledge my honor that I have not violated the Honor Code during this examination.

Meryl Streep, 2006

“I’m here under false pretenses,” the multiple-Oscar winner told a packed McCosh 50. “My achievement, if you can call it that, is that I’ve basically pretended to be extraordinary people my entire life, and now I’m being mistaken for one.”

Craig Robinson ’83, 2019

Robinson, a former Ivy League basketball Player of the Year and an Alumni Trustee, spoke at the opening session for Thrive: Empowering and Celebrating Princeton’s Black Alumni.

Melanie Lawson ’76 and Helen Zia ’73, 2018

Zia, an author and activist for Asian-American and LGBTQ rights, was interviewed by Lawson at She Roars: Celebrating Women at Princeton.

Professor Julian Zelizer, 2017

Zelizer, the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs, taught “The United States Since 1974,” covering topics such as the end of the Cold War era, the rise of an interconnected global economy, and revolutionary technological innovation coupled with growing economic inequality.

McCosh 50, 2017

“I remember walking into McCosh 50 for the first time, looking around with wide-eyed excitement,” Melissa Parnagian ’17 (not pictured) wrote as a senior. “It’s the kind of room that makes you feel important, like you’re connected to a long line of Princetonians who once sat in the same uncomfortable wooden chairs. Which, you are.”

Eric Schmidt ’76, 2015

The former Google CEO and chairman spoke as part of the G.S. Beckwith Gilbert ’63 Lecture series, giving a preview of a future dominated by increasingly interconnected relationships between humans and machines.