Ivy Club

The Ivy Club, often simply Ivy, is the oldest eating club at Princeton University,[2] and it is "still considered the most prestigious.” [3][4] It was founded in 1879 with Arthur Hawley Scribner as its first head.[5]

Ivy Club
The current clubhouse as viewed from Prospect Avenue in a 1909 photographic postcard
Ivy Club is located in Mercer County, New Jersey
Ivy Club
Ivy Club is located in New Jersey
Ivy Club
Ivy Club is located in the United States
Ivy Club
Location43 Prospect Ave, Princeton, New Jersey
Coordinates40°20′53.4″N 74°39′08.0″W
Built1897
ArchitectCope and Stewardson
Architectural styleJacobethan
Part ofPrinceton Historic District (ID75001143[1])
Added to NRHP27 June 1975

Club culture

The club is described by F. Scott Fitzgerald in This Side of Paradise (1920) as "detached and breathlessly aristocratic".[6] A more recent account described Ivy as the "most patrician eating club at Princeton University" where members "eat at long tables covered with crisp white linens and set with 19th-century Sheffield silver candelabra, which are lighted even when daylight streams into the windows."[7]

Ivy Hall, built to house Princeton's short-lived law school, later the first home of the Ivy Club, to which it gave its name

Membership

The club was one of the last to admit women, resisting the change until spring 1991 after a lawsuit had been brought against the Ivy Club, Tiger Inn, and Cottage Club by the Princeton student Sally Frank and her lawyer Nadine Taub.[8][9][10] The members of each class are selected through the bicker process, a series of ten screening interviews, which are followed by discussions amongst the members as to whom of the remaining to admit. Current undergraduate members host regular "Roundtable Dinners" featuring talks by faculty and alumni.

Clubhouse
Ivy Club from Prospect Avenue

The first clubhouse was Ivy Hall, a brownstone building on Mercer Street in Princeton that still stands. It had been constructed by Richard Stockton Field in 1847 as the home for the Princeton Law School, a short-lived venture that lasted from 1847 to 1852. From the time of its founding until its incorporation in 1883, the club was generally known as the "Ivy Hall Eating Club."[11]

In 1883 the club purchased an empty lot on Prospect Avenue, which was a country dirt road at the time. Ivy erected a shingle-style clubhouse in 1884 on what is today the site of Colonial Club. The clubhouse was remodeled and extended in 1887-88. Following Ivy's move to new quarters across Prospect Avenue some ten years later, its second clubhouse was used by Colonial before being sold and moved to Plainsboro Township, New Jersey.[12]

Ivy's third and current clubhouse was designed in 1897 by the Philadelphia firm of Cope & Stewardson. In 2009, the club completed its most significant renovation to date. The expansion added a second wing to the facility, changing the club's original L-shaped layout to a U.[13] Designed by Demetri Porphyrios, the new wing includes a two-story Great Hall and a crypt to provide additional study space.

Notable alumni

The following is a list of some notable members of the Ivy Club:[14][15]

References
  1. "Princeton Historic District". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  2. Yazigi, Monique (May 16, 1999). "At Ivy Club, A Trip Back to Elitism". New York Times. Retrieved February 2, 2011.
  3. Battey, Allison (4 April 2006). "Taking it to 'The Street'". Yale Daily News. Retrieved 16 January 2014.
  4. Karabel, Jerome (2005). The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 620. ISBN 9780618773558.
  5. "A. H. Scribner Dead. Headed Book Firm. Son of Founder of Noted Publishing House Is Victim of Heart Attack in His Sleep. Was Active for Princeton. Permanent President of His Class of '81 and an Organizer and First Head of the Ivy Club". New York Times. July 4, 1932. Retrieved 2008-07-24. Arthur Hawley Scribner, president of the publishing house of Charles Scribner's Sons, died of a heart attack In his sleep early ...
  6. Fitzgerald, Francis Scott (1920). This Side of Paradise. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 49.
  7. Yazigi, Monique P. (16 May 1999). "At Ivy Club, A Trip Back to Elitism". New York Times. Retrieved 16 January 2014.
  8. Eating Clubs Records, 1879–2005: Finding Aid Archived 2003-10-26 at the Wayback Machine
  9. Stanley, Alessandra (1990-07-04). "Court Tells Princeton Clubs They Must Admit Women". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-09-25.
  10. Doskoch, Evelyn; Gjaja, Alex (July 13, 2020). "How the Eating Clubs Went Coed". The Daily Princetonian. Retrieved 2021-09-25.
  11. Rich, Frederic C. (1979). The First Hundred Years of The Ivy Club. Princeton, NJ: The Ivy Club. pp. 20–27. ISBN 0-934756-00-7.
  12. Rich, Frederic C. (1979). The First Hundred Years of The Ivy Club. Princeton, NJ: The Ivy Club. pp. 28–35. ISBN 0-934756-00-7.
  13. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-07-13. Retrieved 2011-06-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  14. Griffin, James Q.; Reath Jr., Henry T.; Wilson, Sally, eds. (2001). Constitution and Rules, Officers and Members of The Ivy Club. Princeton, NJ: The Ivy Club. pp. 48–106.
  15. Rich, Frederic C. (1979). The First Hundred Years of The Ivy Club. Princeton, NJ: The Ivy Club. pp. 248–261. ISBN 0-934756-00-7.
  • Rich, Frederic C. (1979). The First Hundred Years of The Ivy Club. Princeton, NJ: The Ivy Club. ISBN 0-934756-00-7.
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