Bric-a-Brac, The, undergraduate yearbook, first appeared in 1876. The founding editors hoped their ``compact and comprehensive summary of every feature of the college'' would help fill the gap left by the college catalogue, which, they felt, did not sufficiently represent the interests of undergraduates. The editors of the second issue voiced sentiments frequently shared by their successors: ``Though meeting with delay and discouragement, we have persevered and now offer [this year's] Bric-a-Brac, hoping it will meet with favor.'' In 1966 the editors were still struggling with an age-old problem: ``If your picture is fuzzy and your name spelled backwards, we apologize, but we did our best.''
The Bric, which began as a 96-page 5«" x 9" paperback, had, within a decade, doubled its pages and acquired a hard cover. It continued to grow and assumed a 9" x 12" format in 1937.
One Bric editor, Mahlon Pitney 1879, became a supreme court justice. Several became college presidents: John Grier Hibben 1882 (Princeton), Robert C. Clothier '08 (Rutgers), Henry P. Van Dusen '19 (Union Theological Seminary), Paul Havens '25 (Wilson). A few became writers, editors, or publishers: Booth Tarkington 1893, Ernest Poole '02, Maxwell Struthers Burt '04, Peter Schwed '32, Donald Clive Stuart, Jr. '35, Andrew Turnbull '42.
From Alexander Leitch, A Princeton Companion, copyright Princeton
University Press (1978).
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