Permanent URL: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/f7623c57f
Arthur J. Horton Collection on Coeducation, 1968-1980: Finding Aid
AC039
One of many impassioned letters found within the Horton collection.
65 Olden Street
Princeton, New Jersey 08540 USA
Phone: 609-258-6345
Fax: 609-258-3385
mudd@princeton.edu
http://www.princeton.edu/~mudd
Published in 1997
©2006 Princeton University Library
Summary Information
- Creator:
- Horton, Arthur J.
- Title and dates:
- Arthur J. Horton Collection on Coeducation, 1968-1980
- Abstract:
- In January 1969, Princeton's trustees voted to make the undergraduate college coeducational, breaking the 224-year tradition of an all-male student body. The Patterson Committee, made up of faculty and administrators, had studied and advocated the change. The one dissenting voice on the committee was Arthur J. Horton '42, the university's director of development; he wrote a minority report and became a rallying point for those opposing the move. Horton's collection of materials on coeducation contains his annotated copy of the committee's report, his memoranda to the committee's chair and university administrators, official university releases and letters to alumni, and newspaper clippings regarding the change and campus issues in general. A quarter of the collection is letters from alumni, some welcoming coeducation but most strongly opposed.
- Size:
- 1.68 linear feet (4 archival boxes)
- Call number:
- AC039
- Location:
- Princeton University Library. Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.
Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library.
Princeton University Archives.
Princeton, New Jersey 08540 USA - Language(s) of material:
- English.
- Storage note:
- This collection is stored onsite at the Mudd Manuscript Library.
History of Coeducation at Princeton University
Like all early American colleges, the College of New Jersey educated only men; the first coeducational college was Oberlin, founded in 1833. On October 22, 1896, the name was changed to Princeton University. However, the men-only admission policy remained the same. Other than the female students at the short-lived Evelyn College, located at Nassau Street and Evelyn Place, and women attending well-chaperoned formal campus dances, Princeton was an all-male preserve for over two centuries. A modest extension of Princeton's educational opportunities for women came in World War II when twenty-three were admitted to a government-sponsored defense course in photogrammetry. More significant changes occurred in the 1960s with the admission of women graduate students (the first Ph.D. was awarded in 1964), and the admission each year of several dozen young women for a year of concentrated study in "critical languages.''
Following World War II, American education underwent significant changes in enrollment. Government funding and rising incomes allowed more people -- both men and women -- to pursue a college degree and to go on to graduate study. To meet the demand many colleges and universities grew enormously and aggressively competed with Ivy League schools for prominence in American higher education. Princeton's enrollment remained steady, but it did place increasing emphasis on engineering and the sciences in this new competitive environment.
Along with the American economic landscape, the American social climate was also changing. Students of the 1960s, seeking "relevance," had little time for Princeton's traditionalism, while the faculty -- many of them not Princeton alumni -- wanted to raise the intellectual level of the student body. Both groups wanted to change Princeton's "old boy" image, an image which they feared was keeping away the best and the brightest students. Women were also seeking to claim a larger piece of the economic pie that men had dominated for so long. The one sure way to establish a foothold was through a premiere education, and many women thought that it was high time that exclusively male schools opened their doors to women.
In response to both internal pressures and external competition, Princeton moved toward coeducation. In his 1967 commencement speech, president Robert Goheen suggested that Princeton should consider admitting women. That summer he appointed a faculty administration committee, chaired by economics professor Gardner Patterson, to investigate the issue. Among the members was Arthur J. (Jerry) Horton, an alumnus of the Class of 1942 and the university's director of development. The committee met throughout the year, consulting with a group of undergraduates and contacting alumni leaders. Its report, written by Patterson and supporting coeducation, appeared in the Princeton Alumni Weekly on 24 September 1968; it included a minority statement from Horton expressing grave doubts about the expense of coeducation and its affects on Princeton's fund-raising, which was largely dependent on alumni goodwill.
As Horton feared, the alumni reacted swiftly. While some, particularly younger graduates, supported the move toward coeducation, the majority were furious. The Princeton they had known and loved was dead or dying. Many threatened to stop their annual giving and still others wanted to write the University out of their wills. Coeducation was just one of many hot button issues that conservative alumni found objectionable. Others included student radicalism, the active recruitment of African-Americans and other minorities, the decreasing prominence of eating clubs and athletics, and the greater emphasis on academics (which conservatives blamed on the non-alumni among the faculty).
In January 1969 it was recommended to the board that Princeton undertake the education of women at the undergraduate level. It gave two reasons: first, that both Princeton faculty and Princeton alumni engaged in higher education elsewhere now believed that ``the educational experience is improved . . . when it is carried out in mixed, rather than single-sex, circumstances,'' and second, that the general shift toward a favorable view of coeducation among younger alumni and faculty, combined with the clear preference of today's students, seemed to them ``to have very important implications for Princeton's future.''
The trustees, by a vote of 24 to 8, approved coeducation in principle and instructed the administration to develop plans for its implementation. An ad hoc faculty-administration-student committee, appointed and presided over by the president, made an intensive study of all aspects of conversion, including the relative merits of coordinate versus coeducational arrangements; all of its members came to be convinced that if properly worked out, coeducational arrangements would be ``both better educationally and generally more economical.'' During the first weekend after Labor Day in 1969, a pioneering band of 171 women arrived in Princeton as candidates for bachelor degrees; among them were 101 members of the freshman class of 1973 looking forward to full Princeton careers along with their 820 male classmates. Four years later, in his concluding remarks at the 1973 Commencement, President Bowen declared that "the women among us have now added their gifts of fallibility to our own, and I think we are a far better university -- and a far richer community of people -- for them.''
Horton continued to work at University in various capacities until his death in 1980.
Description
Since these are the records of one member of the committee–a member with a particular perspective–this collection will not give an unbiased view of the coeducation debate at Princeton. Since Horton wrote many letters and saved them all, the collection clearly presents his participation in the committee's work and his opposition to coeducation.
Arrangement
Organized into the following series:
- Series 1, Official Papers, 1967-1969
- Series 2, Clippings, 1967-1980
- Series 3, Alumni Letters, 1968-1969
- Series 4, Horton's Papers, 1967-1969
Series 1, 2, and 4 material is arranged hierarchically or by topic. Series 3 is arranged chronologically.
Access and Use
Access
Collection is open for research use.
Restrictions on Use and Copyright Information
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish material from the collection must be requested from the University Archivist. Copyright is held by the Trustees of Princeton University.
Processing and Other Information
Processing Information
This collection was processed by Daniel Sack and Christina Aragon in 1995. Finding aid written by Daniel Sack and Christina Aragon in 1995.
Descriptive Rules Used
Finding aid content adheres to that prescribed by Describing Archives: A Content Standard.
Encoding
Machine-readable finding aid encoded in EAD 2002 by Techbooks and Cristela García-Spitz on October 20, 2006.
Finding aid written in English.
Preferred Citation
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Arthur J. Horton Collection on Coeducation, Box and Folder Number; University Archives, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.
Subject Headings
These materials have been indexed in the Princeton University Library online catalog using the following terms. Those seeking related materials should search under these terms.
- Princeton University -- Admission -- 20th century.
- Princeton University -- History -- 20th century -- Sources.
- Princeton University -- Trustees.
- Coeducation -- New Jersey -- Princeton.
- Sex discrimination in education.
- Women -- New Jersey -- Education.
- Women college students -- Education.
- Women -- Education (Higher) -- New Jersey -- Princeton.
- Correspondence.
- Minutes.
- Reports.
- Clippings.
- Memoranda.
- Patterson, Gardner, 1916- -- Correspondence.
Browse other finding aids related to the following terms:
Contents List
Series 1, Official Papers, 1967-1969
Series Description
Series 1, Official Papers, 1967-1969, contains Horton's copy of the Patterson report–with copious marginal notes–as well as his minority statement which appeared in an appendix and memoranda between Patterson and the committee. Records in this series also reflect how the university sought to explain its decision to alumni and the public and its concerns about implementing coeducation.
Appendix A of Patterson Report, circa 1969
Box 1, Folder 1 The Education of Women at Princeton, 1969
Box 1, Folder 2 Patterson Committee materials, circa 1967
Box 1, Folder 3 Study on Education of Women, 1967-1968
Box 1, Folder 4 Memoranda between Horton and Patterson, 1967-1968
Box 1, Folder 5 General Correspondence, 1967-1968
Box 1, Folder 6 General Correspondence and Memoranda, 1967-1968
Box 2, Folder 1 Press Releases, 1967-1969
Box 2, Folder 2 Letters to Alumni, 1968-1969
Box 2, Folder 3 Alumni Meetings, 1968-1969
Box 2, Folder 4 Implementation, 1969
Box 2, Folder 5 Series 2, Clippings, 1967-1980
Series Description
Series 2, Clippings, 1967-1980, reflect Horton's concerns with coeducation. He clipped and kept stories about coeducation at Princeton and elsewhere; the bulk are from the Daily Princetonian, with others from papers across the country. Reflecting his general displeasure with life at Princeton in the late 1960s, the files also contain clippings about student activism.
Coeducation at Princeton & elsewhere, 1967-1968
Box 2, Folder 6 Coeducation Week, 1969
Box 2, Folder 7 Coeducation at Princeton (from the Daily Princetonian), 1967-1968
Box 2, Folder 8 Coeducation at Princeton (from PAW), 1968,1980
Box 2, Folder 9 Co-education (General), 1967-1969
Box 2, Folder 11 Activism at Princeton University, 1968-1969
Box 2, Folder 10 Series 3, Alumni Letters, 1968-1969
Series Description
Series 3, Alumni Letters, 1968-1969, contains the reactions of Princeton alumni to the coeducation decision in particular and modern Princeton in general. Some support the administration's decisions, but most are strongly critical. As these letters were most often in response to the University's fund-raising appeals, many came through Horton's office; he sent them in batches to the president's office, with covering memoranda pointing out how negative they were. While most of these letters went to alumni annual giving representatives, many came directly to Horton, widely perceived as the only administrator supporting the traditionalist cause.
Alumni Response, September 1968-January 1969
Box 3, Folder 1-8 Alumni Response, February 1969-April 1969
Box 4, Folder 1-4 Series 4, Horton's Papers, 1967-1969
Series Description
Series 4, Horton's Papers, 1967-1969, consists of Horton's internal memoranda, some to himself and many to Patterson (by his own estimate, Horton sent Patterson close to 100 memoranda), and external letters regarding coeducation, as well as friends' comment on drafts of his dissenting statement.
Horton Dissent, 1968
Box 4, Folder 5 Horton: Internal Memoranda, 1968-1969
Box 4, Folder 6 Horton Correspondence, 1968-1969
Box 4, Folder 7 Co-education: other institutions, 1967-1968
Box 4, Folder 8 Miscellaneous, 1966-1968
Box 4, Folder 9
Permanent URL: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/f7623c57f