Dear Members of the Great Class of 1975:

Welcome to our class’s fifth Fifty-Year Flashback. As our class prepares for and ramps up to our 50th Reunion from May 22-25, 2025, we are sending a monthly flashback that will highlight events that happened fifty years ago that month. The goal is to help us remember our Princeton experiences, both good and not so good, and recall how our experiences at Princeton changed us and, hopefully, benefited each of us. We also hope that they will encourage as many classmates as possible to come back to Princeton for our 50th Reunion and to participate in the planning for our 50th Reunion. 

This flashback contains links to articles in the Daily Princetonian to many of the items discussed below. If you are interested in reading more about one or more of the topics in this flashback, you can access the archives of the Daily Princetonian at:

https://theprince.princeton.edu/princetonperiodicals/cgi-bin/princetonperiodicals

Each edition of the Daily Princetonian is easily searchable by date. 

This fourth flashback was prepared by our classmate, Joyce Rechtschaffen '75, and we hope that you enjoy it. We welcome any comments that you have about the flashbacks.

Please let us know if you would like to volunteer to help out with our 50th Reunion or with the Flashbacks!

Julie Raynor Gross '75, Class Co-President

Maureen Kelly Scott '75, Class Co-President

Nikki Ballard Rosengren '75, Reunions Chair

PRINCETON CLASS OF 1975 FLASHBACK: 

FEBRUARY 2024

50 years ago in February 1974 in the US and around the world …

In the Nation:

•  Patricia (Patty) Hearst, a 19 year old sophomore at the University of California at Berkeley studying art history, and granddaughter of the late American publishing giant William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army. For more than two years, stories and pictures of her participation in crimes with her kidnappers and theories about brainwashing and coercion gripped the nation. At a trial which also gripped the nation, she was convicted (but later pardoned) of bank robbery and other crimes.

        Image Credit: Federal Bureau of Investigation, https://www.fbi.gov/image-repository/hearst-mugshot.jpeg

• With only four Members dissenting, the House of Representatives voted to allow the House Judiciary Committee to subpoena witnesses in the Nixon impeachment probe.
• For the first time in Georgia history, the portrait of an African American man, Dr. Martin Luther King, was displayed in the Capitol.

In the World:

• The British election resulted in a hung parliament with no political party receiving a clear majority, which had not happened since 1929. Conservative Leader Ed Heath tried, but failed, to form a coalition with the Liberal Party. Labour Leader Harold Wilson put together the governing coalition. 
• The Soviet Union arrested the Nobel Prize winner and outspoken dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, stripped his citizenship, and later deported him to Germany.
• Grenada became independent, ending 210 years as a British colony.

In Sports:

• James Thomas Bell, “Cool Papa Bell,” known as one of the fastest players in baseball history, was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
• Gordie Howe left retirement to play for the Houston Aeros for $1 million.
• 49 people were killed in a stampede at a soccer stadium in Cairo.

In Entertainment:

• People magazine produced its first issue with a price on the stands of 35 cents. The cover featured Mia Farrow in her role in “The Great Gatsby.”
• Barbara Streisand’s The Way We Were was number one on the charts.
• Movies included Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles starring Gene Wilder. Movie critic Roger Ebert wrote, “There are some people who can literally get away with anything—say anything, do anything. Others attempt a mildly dirty joke and bring total silence down on a party. Mel Brooks is not only a member of the first group, he is its lifetime president.” Viewers arrived on horseback to the drive-in movie theater.

In Space:

• The world was treated to the first pictures of Venus, sent to Earth by the Mariner 10, an American space mission.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Meanwhile, at Princeton University …

In Princeton News:

• The admissions office received a record number of applicants, with female applicants up 17.1 percent. Engineering applications were up 37 percent.
• Chester Spatt ’75 reported for the Prince that the start of a new mandatory allocation system based on the digits of license plates reduced service station gas lines. Students with out-of-state licenses were only entitled to an allocation if their home states had one in place; otherwise, it was up to gas station owners if students could receive gasoline. 
• The 20 cent era of a soda can was ending. The Canteen Corporation announced a 25 percent increase in all campus machines. But Elaine Ober ’75 was negotiating with Coca-Cola in New Brunswick for a bulk price.

Thomas Feyer ’75 (Unidentified in picture)—"No More Nickels”

Image Credit: Malcolm Cheung ’75 for the Princetonian

• Cigar-smoking dean designate Donald E. Stokes ’51 of the then-Woodrow Wilson School, now School of Public and International Affairs, announced a “deep and rigorous examination of the school." He was interested in the “school having a major impact on societal needs.”
• Economics professor Burt Malkiel *64 released his first version of A Random Walk Down Wall Street. The book is now in its 13th edition.
• A group of Black women formed a workshop to cope with difficulties faced by Black women at Princeton. Classmate Pamela Taylor Jenkins, one of the organizers, said its goal was “to unite black women under one organization in which they can express who they are and pursue what is meaningful to each individual.” Alicia Bass ’75, “called for more participation in Student Volunteer Council programs which relate directly to black women of all ages.”
• Senator Claiborne Pell ’40 of Rhode Island, and playwright and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thornton N. Wilder *1926, were recipients of the University’s highest awards given to an undergraduate and graduate alum. Senator Pell’s landmark legislation, establishing federal grants for low-income students, changed the landscape of higher education and remains the most important piece of federal higher education legislation ever enacted.

In Princeton Sports:

• On the hockey court, Princeton skaters accomplished their second dramatic upset, beating Dartmouth 5-3 after defeating Cornell. The late Walter A. Snickenberger, Jr. ’75, playing wing, received a two minute standing ovation for his play. John Wilheim ’75 wrote in the Prince that Snickenberger’s “sheer instinct for the net remains unequalled…” In an obituary in 2021, the Princeton Alumni Weekly wrote that Snickenberger “was named MVP of the Freshman Hockey Team. He then went on to earn three varsity letters in football and in hockey and served as hockey co-captain in 1972-73.”

“SNICK IT TO ‘EM”

Image Credit: the Princetonian

• On the squash court, the women’s team, which included Constance “CeCe” Turner Haydock ’75, was Princeton’s only undefeated varsity winter team and the top team in the nation. Princeton men’s team defeated Harvard for the first time since 1964, with star David Scamurra ’75 defeating his opponent 3-1.

In the Princeton Lecture Halls:

• Jerry Wilson, Chief of Police in Washington, D.C., “The Future of Crime and Crime Control in America,” Hosted by Whig Clio
• Seminar, discussion groups: “Issues in Human Sexuality,” McCormick 101, Sponsored by the student “Course” Committee of the Sexuality, Education, Counseling and Health Program
• Panel, “Famine Crisis in West Africa: US Response,” Sponsored by the Student Mobilization Against the Famine
• Bernard Berelson, President of the Population Council, “The No-Population Growth Society: How Desirable. How Feasible.”
• Ivan Vansertima, “Africans in America Before Columbus,” Third World Center
• Robert Maddox, “Cold War Revisionism and the Liberal Historians,” McCosh 10

In Princeton Entertainment:

In Relaxation:

• Americana Vintage 1950s Weekend, Presented by Classes of 1975, ‘76, ’77, including The Hop, music by Ben Steel, and drive in movies at McCosh 10 (bring a blanket): “I was a Teenage Werewolf; Bikini Beach Party,” starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello.
• The Pub: 1st Anniversary, Valentine’s Day, Beer 5 cents

In Movies:

• George C. Scott in Patton 
• Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine in Rebecca
• Charles Chaplin in The Great Dictator
• Paul Newman and Lauren Bacall in Harper
• Woodstock
• 13 experimental, independent, avant-garde filmmakers featured at McCarter Theater.

In Theater:

• Ian Richardson, famous English actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company: three lectures and Shakespeare performances in Alexander Hall. Guest of the Humanities Council and McCarter.
• “Slow Dance on the Killing Ground,” Theater Intime
• “Twelfth Night” or What you Will, McCarter Theater (The review in the Prince: “In spite of much overplaying and some weak performances, the overall effect of Louis Criss’ ‘Twelfth Night’ is a pleasant glow, a sense of uninterrupted magic on the McCarter stage.”)

In Music:

• Announced: Cat Stevens;(first concert in expanded use of Dillon Gym);  Ravi Shankar; Harry Chapin and David Bromberg; Gordon Lightfoot
• Princeton University Glee Club, “Requiem,” Alexander Hall (The review in the Prince: “The orchestra, glee club and four soloists handled the drama of operatic passages without becoming competitive and without sacrificing the work’s spiritual oneness. No one in the audience, of 700 in Alexander Hall was cheated: the “requiem” had something for everyone.”) 
• WPRB presents, McCoy Tyner, Alexander Hall
• Lucinda Child and Company: Concert of Dance

Come to the Class of '75's 50th Reunion on May 22 to May 25, 2025!

The material and images from the Daily Princetonian in this flashback are used with the consent of the Daily Princetonian and we thank the Daily Princetonian for allowing their use.