The Scribners have been consistently devoted Princeton workers and benefactors. Charles Scribner 1875 was a trustee of the University 1912-1930 and chairman of its library committee 1915-1930. Founder of Princeton University Press, the donor of its first building, and its first president, he was also one of the organizers of the Alumni Weekly, first president of the Princetonian Publishing Company, and president of the Princeton Club of New York. He was awarded an honorary Litt.D. in 1925. On his death in 1930, he left Princeton University Press $50,000 toward its endowment fund; when his portrait by Wilford Seymour Conrow '01 was unveiled at the Press in 1935, Dean Christian Gauss said the richest legacy the Press had received was the spirit of Charles Scribner himself.
Charles Scribner '13 followed in his father's footsteps as president of Princeton University Press 1940-1948. He also carried on his father's interest in the University library -- he was a frequent donor of rare books and manuscripts. In 1946, under his presidency, Charles Scribner's Sons, in celebration of its centenary and Princeton's bicentenary, gave the University $50,000 for a conference room in the Firestone Library in memory of his four predecessors.
Charles Scribner '43, who was class salutatorian at his graduation, has carried on the family tradition of service to Princeton as president of Princeton University Press, as chairman of the advisory councils of the department of classics and the department of English, and, like his grandfather, as a trustee of the University and chairman of its library committee. He was given an honorary degree in 1966. In 1967, under his presidency, the Scribner firm turned over to the University its archives of more than a quarter-million documents, including correspondence with Winston Churchill, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway.