Call Number:

MC063

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Public Policy Papers

Extent:

1 box

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Luther P. Eisenhart Collection on Woodrow Wilson; Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1902-1960 (inclusive)

Creator:

Eisenhart, Luther Pfahler, 1876-1965 -- Correspondence.

Form:

Correspondence.

Abstract:

Luther P. Eisenhart taught mathematics at Princeton and was one of the original preceptors appointed in 1905 by Princeton University president Woodrow Wilson. The Luther P. Eisenhart Collection on Woodrow Wilson contains correspondence between Eisenhart and Woodrow Wilson, Eisenhart and others about Woodrow Wilson, letters received by Churchill Eisenhart, and miscellaneous Wilson-related ephemera.

Luther P. (Pfahler) Eisenhart taught mathematics at Princeton and was one of the original preceptors appointed in 1905 by Princeton University president Woodrow Wilson. He was born on January 13, 1876 to Charles Augustus Eisenhart and Emma Catherine Pfahler Eisenhart in York, Pennsylvania. Eisenhart received his B.A. in Mathematics from Gettysburg College in 1896 and a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in 1900. Eisenhart became an instructor at Princeton University in 1900; Wilson named him a preceptor in 1905. He became a professor of mathematics in 1909, was Dean of the Faculty from 1925-1933, Chairman of the Mathematics Department from 1929-1945 and Dean of the Graduate School from 1933-1945. He was active in the post-World War I reform of the educational program at Princeton and was the originator of the famous four-course plan of study in the last two years of undergraduate studies. Adopted in 1923, this program of independent reading and research culminating in an undergraduate thesis continues to be in effect at Princeton. Eisenhart married Anna Maria Dandridge Mitchell in 1908; they had one son. Following his wife's death in 1913, Eisenhart wed Katharine Riely Schmidt in 1918; they had two daughters. Eisenhart died in Princeton on October 28, 1965.

The Luther P. Eisenhart Collection on Woodrow Wilson consists of Woodrow Wilson-related materials such as Wilson letters to Eisenhart, Eisenhart correspondence about Wilson, printed material and ephemera. In addition, there is a folder of letters received by Eisenhart's son Churchill Eisenhart (Princeton Class of 1934), from various family members and acquaintances.

The Luther P. Eisenhart Collection on Woodrow Wilson is broken down into three sections, Correspondence, Writings By or About Wilson, and Miscellaneous Ephemera, and arranged alphabetically within these sections.