OVERVIEW
Since 2000, the Historical Society of Princeton has housed the papers of the Old Guard of Princeton in its manuscript holdings. These papers include Member Meeting Minutes, Executive Committee Meeting Minutes, governance documents, and schedules of speakers/lecturers. The Old Guard provides its members, retirees and semi-retirees of the Princeton area, with intellectual lectures and discussions on a weekly basis. These lectures cover a wide range of disciplines and are presented by experts in their fields. The collection at HSP documents the lecture topics and lecturers of each meeting dating back to 1943. Detailed summaries of the lectures and the discussion that followed may be found in the meeting’s Minutes. Lecture summaries within the Minutes vary in length.
Old Guard Meeting Minutes are stored chronologically at HSP. This new Old Guard Index (completed December 2014, updated September 2015) allows researchers to browse the meeting lectures by topic, view the title and the speaker, and then locate a specific lecture within the Old Guard Minutes. Topics are ordered alphabetically and then split into sub-categories. They are then listed chronologically using a “Year/Month.Date” classification. Where lecture topics are italicized, this indicates that either the corresponding Meeting Minutes or a lecture summary are absent from the HSP holdings. Titles are cross-listed, with many listed in multiple categories, to make it easier for a researcher to find any relevant meetings.
Researchers can search through the PDF electronically. To do so, open the document in Adobe Reader and use the “Find” box located in the toolbar at the top of the screen. To search categories only, make the click the arrow to the right of the box and select case sensitive. All category headings are included in all capital letters. Speakers’ names are consistent throughout the index.
Researchers interested in viewing minutes should contact the Historical Society of Princeton to schedule an appointment. Please call the Historical Society of Princeton at 609-921-6748 x100 or email at research@princetonhistory.org.