Call Number:

MC182

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Public Policy Papers

Extent:

106 boxes

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Arthur S. Link Papers, Box and Folder Number; Public Policy Papers, Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1940s-1992 (inclusive)

Creator:

Link, Arthur S. (Arthur Stanley) (1920-1998)

Form:

Correspondence, Notes., and Office files

Abstract:

Arthur S. Link was an author, editor, scholar and publisher, but is best known as the leading historian on Woodrow Wilson and for his leadership over the publication of Wilson's papers. This collection consists of the personal papers of Link, which includes articles, correspondence, notes, office files, and presidency records of the American Historical Association.

Arthur Stanley Link was an author, editor, scholar and publisher, but is best known as the leading historian on Woodrow Wilson and for his leadership over the publication of Wilson's papers. Link was born to John William and Helen Link in New Market, Virginia on August 8, 1920. He received his B.A. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1941 and taught at North Carolina State College from 1943-1944. From 1944-1945 he was a Rosenwald Fellow at Columbia; he received his doctorate from UNC in 1945. In 1945 Link became an instructor in history Princeton; in 1949 he joined the faculty at Northwestern and became a full professor in 1954. Link was the Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford from 1958-1959, having received an M.A. from Oxford in 1958. In 1958 the Woodrow Wilson Foundation invited Link to be director of The Papers of Woodrow Wilson Project, and he returned to Princeton as the chief editor of the project and a professor of History in 1960. At Princeton, Link led the 69 volumes of the Papers project from its inception through completion in 1994 and was also the Edwards Professor of American History from 1965-1976 and the George Henry Davis Professor of American History from 1976-1991. Link retired from the History Department as Professor Emeritus in 1991.

Along with his editorship of the Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Link published more than 30 books, including a five-volume biography of Wilson, as well as numerous articles and reviews. He held both Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, was a member of Institute for Advanced Study, and was president of Southern Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the American Historical Association. Additionally, Link was the main organizer and first president of the Association for Documentary Editing. He also served as Vice President of the National Council of Churches.

Link married Margaret McDowell Douglas on June 2, 1945; they had 4 children. Link died on March 26, 1998 in Bermuda Village, North Carolina.

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.

In the earliest years of the College of New Jersey, the study of history was typically marginalized as an ancillary aspect of politics such to the extent that in 1904 when Princeton University president Woodrow Wilson established the departmental system, history was grouped together with politics and economics in an arrangement that remained until 1924. The Department was carried through its formative years by the teaching skill and scholarship of its first two chairmen, Dana Carlton Munro and Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker, both of whom would also serve terms as president of the American Historical Association. A newfound interest in the study of history among undergraduates following World War II sparked growth in the Department's faculty and course offerings, and since this time the Department of History has typically been one of the most popular undergraduate concentrations at Princeton, offering 40 or more undergraduate courses each year.

In 1965 faculty from Princeton University's Department of History applied for federal funds under the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) for a summer program for the advanced education of secondary school history teachers. The program took place in the summer of 1966 and enrolled approximately 40 students. It was taught by faculty from Princeton as well as other universities.

Founded in 1968, the Davis Center for Historical Studies is named after Shelby Cullom Davis '30, who provided a generous gift to assure the continuance of excellence in scholarship and the teaching of history at Princeton University. The Davis Center has funded numerous research projects, including projects to document all Princetonians of the 17th and 18th centuries.

The collection consists of personal papers of Arthur S. Link. Included are correspondence, papers, writings, notes on Link's biography of Woodrow Wilson, lecture notes, office files, and presidency records of the American Historical Association.

This is an unprocessed collection and remains in its original arrangement.