Deirdre's Research Blog

Playing Catch Up

Looking down the barrel of a new year, I'm excited to soon return to an old project. Life put much of my Princeton work on hold for a few months. After completing a book chapter in September, I spent October planning for and celebrating my wedding. November was catching up on all the things that were put off in October, and now it is December. I find myself back in New York, back at FIT, and back in action.

Next up? My dissertation prospectus. I have most of the "thinking" done and "doing" has never been much a problem for me. There are, of course, a few obstacles, including doctoral qualifying exams in late February. I hope to have the prospectus approved in early Spring, so I can go back to Nassau Hall.

You Can Go Home Again

Half packed and realizing I need to rework my storage strategy, I’m getting ready to leave Ireland. After six weeks, a life-changing choice or two, and significant liver damage, it is time to go home—or at least to New York.

Waiting in Pittsburgh is the Princeton project. I have piles of photocopies from Mudd Library to code and sort and organize. The first two projects from the research are developing rapidly. After a week of processing the info, I’ll start on an essay I’ve promised to complete in early September. It will be included in a book, called Display: The Places and Spaces of Fashion. The essay focuses on the role of clothing in the construction of masculinity on the Princeton campus and how clothing manufacturers used the campus’ image to sell everything from shoes to sweaters to men around the country.

The second project, to begin in mid September, deals with the two faces of Princeton—the locale for football, frivolity and freshman pranks alla Fitzgerald and a solemn, academic institution marked by religiosity. At the center of the analysis are the letters of Chalmers Alexander, a Princeton student from 1928-1932.

I’m heading home with a suitcase full of Aran sweaters purchased at charity shops and with more books than I brought over. However, my time here can’t be quantified in suitcases. So much of my life revolves around my research. I am constantly in the process of producing new papers, or applying for a grant, or editing past work. Yes, in the past six weeks I’ve read several history books (The History of Higher Education in America and The Culture of Space and Time ). Yes, I did do the final edit on my sportswear paper. But no, my research has not dominated my days here. I’ve walked around Dublin with absolutely no destination. I’ve slept until noon and ate cheese for lunch. I’ve sat on a cliff, on a beach, and on a bar stool with a peace I haven’t felt in a long time.

Forever FIT

I have a long love affair with libraries. It began in the steel-gated elevator at Penn State’s Pattee, solidified in the subterranean stacks of Hopkins, and culminated in the periodicals room at the one-and-only Carnegie Library in Oakland. Maybe it’s the silence, or the smell of “old,” or the sheer volume of knowledge, but the library is my respite. The funny thing about my love of libraries is that I don’t like to read; I’m not particularly good at it. I do, however, like to collect information.
Choosing a favorite library is like picking a favorite pair of Prada shoes—next to impossible. But there is a soft spot in my heart for the Gladys Marcus Library at FIT. Just several floors of giant rooms overlooking the dingy streets around the garment district, the library lacks character. It is filled with chatty, catty, over-dressed undergrads with no respect for the rules and regulations standard at all scholarly institutions. With the exception of a few, the librarians offer mostly annoyed looks and confusing instructions.
The wonder of the place is that I can always find what I’m looking for, even if I don’t know exactly what that is. FIT has the best run of Vogue on the East Coast and it is open access—just walk up and pluck a volume of 1935 issues off the shelf. The Special Collections is a room packed with treats including hand-painted programs from the Ballet Russes, sketches from Thierry Mugler’s 1989 collection (very jungle-inspired), and enough crusty old magazines to sink a ship.
I’m sure there will soon come a day when I will have to go to the New York Public for things my beloved FIT won’t have. That day, however, is not today.

Forever Fitz

A well-meaning mathematician asked me once what my “thing” was with Fitzgerald. I stumbled over some barstool answer, and I agreed to a second date. He never did find out what my” thing” was with Fitzgerald. I don’t think he would have understood anyhow.

Today was the day I’ve waited for ten years to have.

After signing numerous forms, stashing my worldly belongings in a cubbyhole alla kindergarten, and putting on some white gloves, I held in my hand letters Fitzgerald had written to everyone from a fan from St. Paul to Willa Cather. Some letters were about literature. Some were about his next project. Some were about Zelda or Scottie or Ernest. Some were written while he was drunk –you could tell by the handwriting. Some were postmarked Paris, Ashville, Alabama, California, New York, or Princeton.

Many were funny, but most were sad.

Too many mentioned alcohol. Too many were apologies for bad behavior, missed appointments or late payments on loans made by well-meaning friends. I had read the biographies. I knew the stories of Fitzgerald collecting watches at a party and then cooking them up in a pot of soup in the kitchen or the time he stood on the ledge outside a window of some Parisian hotel until James Joyce’s wife screamed, “I love Scott Fitzgerald” at the top of her lungs. But today the romantic egotist was cast a real person and something in me changed.

My time at Princeton has served me well. Yes, I unearthed an amazing amount of information on the role of clothing on the campus. Yes, I have a well-researched paper that just needs written and published. Yes, I got myself back in shape—or at least on the road to being there. I could not have asked for more.

Getting ready to return home to Pittsburgh, I feel that I’ve answered many of the questions I came here to ask. Not simply questions about clothing or campus traditions, but questions about me and about what I want for the rest of my life.

It is time to go home.

The Paragon of Paradox

Nostalgia. Everyone has it for something. I have it for days fishing with my dad on the Juniata River, a blue Benetton rugby I wore for first day of the seventh grade, and Brooklyn--for every day I lived there.

Graduates of Princeton have it for Princeton. And I can see why.

In the form of school cheers, canvas beer jackets and campus antics, this university celebrates its past. It is decidedly exclusive yet welcoming, aristocratic yet democratic, traditional and modern. Princeton is the paragon of paradox.

A jaunt to the annual Reunions reaffirmed my notions. Accompanied by my omnipresent Nicole, I had margaritas with some well-spoken members of the class of 1966. Funny, charming, and forever the gentlemen, I understood first hand the allure of the Princeton man. I don't think I'll forget the afternoon anytime soon and it was a high in my stay here.

The last few days in the archives have been exhausting. I've been wading through the Princeton Alumni Weekly from 1900-1960. The process is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Most coverage is of Woodrow Wilson's plans to rework the students, the curriculum and the endowment or of the "departmentalization" of the school in the 1930s.

Finding a reference to clothing most often deals with the varied and well-enforced codes for college freshman. Many of these restrictions had to do with dress, as newcomers had to earn the right to wear school colors, roll up their pant legs, and don a colored tie. Fashion was a means of social control at Princeton from 1900 until World War II.

My archive torture sessions have been complemented by my workout schedule, which has kicked up in light of both the venture-worthy surroundings of Princeton and my desire to get in top physical standing for my upcoming trip to Ireland.

Yes, Ireland.

"Are you a Princeton man?"

"No, I'm a hair-oil salesman."

—a joke popular at Harvard in the late 1920s

I arrived in Princeton to all the green spaces and Gothic spires that Fitzgerald had promised. This place is worthy of its reputation—quaint without being "cutesy" and reeking of permanence. My little room is in a charming old house located about a five- minute walk from the library and my host has a grill that I just can't wait to spark up. The University's pool is a bit "retro," but I'm studying campus life in the 1930s so it adds to the mystique that inhabits every crevice of this place. I must admit that I've had the door held for me more times in the past two days than in the past two years at Carnegie-Mellon.

Today I spent my second day in the papers of Chalmers Alexander, Class of 1932. He wrote to his mother in Jackson, Mississippi nearly every day while at Princeton and filled her in on minute details of his life from the cost of his breakfast to the booze-filled shenanigans of the other boys. A devout Christian, incredible penny pincher, and almost laughable moralist, Chalmers represents much of the University's own struggle between its reputation as an institute of higher learning for religious men and its reputation as a country club for upper-class brats.

The great foil to Chalmers is Bill Priestley, Class of 1928. A senior when Chalmers arrives, Bill is a family friend who kept an eye on the newcomer. Bill is a member of the elite Ivy club, plays the coronet in a jazz band, and saunters off to Europe after graduation. Bill “is the type of fellow who won’t go to heaven, unless a miracle happens.” Chalmers commentary on Bill’s and the other boys’ antics says much about Princeton social life in the late 1920s from a perspective of an outsider.

Fortunately for me, Chalmers also was fanatical about his wardrobe and provides remarkable insight into the social and cultural significance of clothing during this time period. He comments on the kinds of socks he wants his mother to send (“Nothing loud—those of a subdued pattern”), the kind of cloth he likes his shirts to be made of (“cambric not broadcloth”), and how he keeps losing his fur-lined gloves. The stuff is just remarkable.

Tomorrow will get into the collection of papers that has to do with the University’s eating clubs. I’ll be looking for information on dress codes for dinner attire.

Eye of the Tiger

For someone who studies history, I love new things. I live for the latest installment of Lost, a fresh bottle of chocolate milk, and a set of highlights from Brad Johns. Aside from a new love, nothing puts more spring in my step than the start of a new project.

Princeton. I’ve never even been there, but I now know its history, its buildings, its thrift stores. The trip is both well researched and a long time coming. When I was applying to colleges, my father, forever the gambler, told me to pick a “dream school” to round out my applications to liberal arts-oriented mini-universities--Oberlin, Haverford, Colgate. I offered up both Princeton and Johns Hopkins. My father, forever the realist, laughed, “Go with Hopkins—at least you have a shot there.” It turned out that I was fated to be a blue jay rather than a tiger. All is well that ends well; orange has a tendency to make me look sickly.

The preliminary research has already brought me into unchartered waters. I’ve been digging around in primary and secondary sources dealing with the history of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Why was Princeton the place where fashion thrived? How did the College of New Jersey come to serve as the inspiration for trends in everything from collar shapes to shoe styles? Initial prognosis? It has something to do with the homogeneity of the students and the importance of social standing among the undergraduates. Yet, Princeton was a free enough environment that young men could take risks with fashion choices; trends to emerge from the Princeton campus are a key part of the story. The deeper I get, the fuzzier the water.

Ah, the murkiness of a new project.

Tomorrow it begins.

Something about Summer

I believe that Snickers bars and Mountain Dew are essential researching tools. I think that 30 cents is too much for a photocopy and I always leave my belongings unattended.

My summer will consist of archives and Ireland—though the two are entirely unrelated. First, I’m off to several weeks at the Princeton University archives, compliments of a research grant from their library. I have every intention of sneaking in snacks and sneaking off to check out F. Scott Fitzgerald’s papers. I’ll pop up to New York to round out the research with a few days in FIT’s Special Collections—and a few nights in Harlem with the one-and-only Nicole.

After my nieces’ dance recital in late June, I head to Ireland for six weeks. I will, of course, be hauling around a suitcase filled with second-hand history books. Reading instead of writing? Not as much fun, but absolutely necessary.

For now, snuggled up in my bed in Pittsburgh, I can only focus on the next few weeks, grading forty-odd final exams, and finishing the sportswear paper that has plagued me all semester. I’ve hauled the summer wardrobe out of the cellar, substituted sunscreen for foundation and even planted flowers in my front yard. And still, I cling to spring and hope that the last days of April will be as memorable as the first.