“Damn it, this book is going to get done!” Judy P. Schmitt ’76 thought to herself in the last weeks of her senior year. For the first time, the ‘Prince’ planned on commemorating a major milestone of the paper in a physical book. As the 100-year anniversary of the publication caught up to the Board of Trustees, Schmitt, the Business Manager of the 99th Managing Board, took up the monumental task of capturing a century of history in a matter of months. After her graduation, she and her husband Terry, who was not a student at Princeton but offered his skills with the scanning equipment, returned to campus every weekend to pore through a century of bound volumes containing past ‘Prince’ issues. They stayed overnight on the couch in the Business Manager's office.
“What do we need to codify for the future?” Schmitt asked herself. “Obviously, issue one, number one, that was a no-brainer, we could find that. But after that it was, what are you going to pick?”
After many weekends and help from a group of intrepid writers and researchers, Schmitt and her small team made the book a reality. Titled “The Prince Remembers: A Century of the Daily Princetonian,” it features front pages of the past, cartoons, and tidbits from alumni. They could also read the first page of the first ever issue of the ‘Prince,’ which greeted readers with a capitalized “salutamus,” welcoming readers to the paper in Latin.
In 1992, the ‘Prince’ continued its commemoration of the paper’s milestones. Celebrating 100 years of daily print, ‘Prince’ staff members published a softcover book: The Orange & Black in Black & White. The 1992 book had as its self-declared mission, to “captur[e] Princeton through the eyes of the second oldest college daily” within its pages. Advertised as a collector’s piece, the book was given to students and available for purchase to parents and alumni.
“We not only saw the making of a university, we saw the maturation of a newspaper,” wrote then-editor-in-chief Paul Lim ’92 in the foreword.
Next year, the ‘Prince’ will honor the paper again, with a new commemorative book for the 150th anniversary of publication.
Staff Archivists have been poring through the bound volumes as well as enjoying the convenience of our digitized archives, named after 20th century newsroom fixture, Larry DuPraz. Our researchers have interviewed alumni from 1975 to 2025 and in between. Their work has taken them through classifieds and hoagie ads, archived websites, and cardboard boxes retrieved from basements.
Telling the story of the past 30 years since the last commemorative publication, the book will highlight the evolution of the paper alongside that of the University. From overachieving students in the 1870s to happenings in town in 2025, coverage from the past century and a half of student journalism will occupy neighboring pages in one volume.
If you’d like to get involved to share a memory from 48 University Place, email archives@dailyprincetonian.com. To sign up for updates for the 150th anniversary, visit prince150.org.
Jillian Ascher and Lianne Chapin are head Archives editors for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com
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