Call Number:

C1004

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 2 boxes
• 2.2 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Citations should be as follows: Stephen Alexander Collection, Box #, Folder #, Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1827-1882 (inclusive)

Creator:

Princeton University. Library. Special Collections and Alexander, Stephen (1806-1883)

Form:

Correspondence, Logbooks -- United States -- 19th century, and Manuscripts, American. -- 19th century

Abstract:

Consists primarily of correspondence of nineteenth-century American astronomer Stephen Alexander.

Stephen Alexander was an astronomer, a mathematician, an author, and an educator, under whose influence astronomy first developed as a separate discipline at Princeton University. He graduated with honors from Union College at the age of eighteen. A cousin and also a brother-in-law of Joseph Henry, he collaborated with Henry in his scientific investigations at Albany Academy and accompanied him to Princeton in 1832. Appointed tutor in mathematics in 1833 and professor of astronomy in 1840, Alexander's association with Princeton continued for fifty years. He gave Princeton's first discrete course in astronomy and the College's first astronomy building, the Halsted Observatory, was built through his influence and from his plans. He studied the atmospheres of Venus, Mercury, and Jupiter, and led expeditions for the Coast and Geodetic Survey and the National Academy of Sciences to observe solar eclipses. He was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1859 and was chosen as one of the original fifty members of the National Academy of Sciences in 1862.

In February 1813, students of the College of New Jersey at the encouragement of college president Ashbel Green founded the Nassau Hall Bible Society, the first college Bible society. Its task was to distribute Bibles and New Testaments to those who did not have them; the students concentrated on Navy Ships and New Jersey's poor. The Society raised money on campus and in the community to buy and distribute the Bibles. In 1827, in a nationally-noted campaign, they distributed copies to five thousand of the seven thousand New Jersey households without Bibles.

The Society's influence spread beyond New Jersey. In 1816, two members of the Society participated in the founding of the American Bible Society. It donated Bibles to settlers in the West, and received financial support from the British and Foreign Bible Society of London. By the mid-1840s, however, student interest in the Society waned, and its work fell dormant.

In 1864, an agent of the American Bible Society living in Princeton urged the revival of the Society. The student members continued giving Bibles to the local poor and to missionary Sunday Schools, as well as raising money for the American Bible Society. The Princeton Society operated as an arm of the Philadelphian Society; the two groups held their annual meetings at the same time. The Bible Society went out of existence by the late 1880s.

The College of New Jersey was initially chartered in 1746. The first classes were held in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in the parsonage of the president, the Reverend Jonathan Dickinson. Upon his death, the College moved to Newark, New Jersey, and was headed by the Reverend Aaron Burr, Sr. Since 1756, the College has been located in Princeton, New Jersey. For the first fifty years, nearly all College operations took place within Nassau Hall. Fires, fundraising difficulties, low student enrollment, and the Civil War challenged the vitality of the College in the early and middle nineteenth century, but the College grew vigorously under the leadership of President James McCosh, and it was renamed Princeton University in 1896. The Graduate School was established in 1900, although a limited graduate program had existed since the 1870s. Princeton enthusiastically supported the country (living up to its informal motto, "Princeton in the Nation's Service") during the First and Second World Wars, offering the expertise of faculty and campus space for training, as well as facilitating the early graduation of students so they could enlist. The post-World War II years brought dramatic changes to Princeton. The size and strength of the University's facilities and academic programs—especially for the applied sciences and public policy—were increased dramatically. Under President Robert Goheen, Princeton began to admit minority students in greater numbers in the 1960s and admitted women undergraduates in 1969. Today, Princeton is widely regarded as one of the top universities in the world.

The collection chiefly consists of correspondence between Alexander and John S. Hart, Joseph Henry, Alexander Dallas Bache, Benjamin F. Joslin, Francis Baily, Charles Babbage, de Rothenburg, James Challis, John T. Nixon, Caleb Smith Green, and William S. Stryker. The collection also contains a journal of a sea voyage, dated June 28 to August 6, 1860; an 1839 certificate of membership to the American Philosophical Society, signed by Bache; a receipt of funds from Stephen W. Woodbridge, treasurer of the Nassau Hall Bible Society; and handwritten notes of an address before the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The correspondence is arranged alphabetically by correspondent.