(Portrait by Peter C. Cook)

Princeton Legend and Witness to History

By Jean Stratton

Theodore Roosevelt was president of the United States. Woodrow Wilson was president of Princeton University. Nassau Street was a dirt road; most people traveled in horse-drawn carriages, and Henry Ford’s Model-T had not yet taken over the roads.

Silent movies were just beginning to attract an audience. There were no powered airplanes, household radios, television sets, fax machines, smartphones, computers, DVDs, or streaming. Certainly, no Facebook or Twitter.

Penicillin had not yet been discovered, nor was the polio vaccine available. Princeton Hospital had not yet been built, let alone become a medical center. The devastating 1918 influenza pandemic was more than a decade away.

It was 1902, the year Albert Edward Hinds was born in Princeton. more

Kathleen Biggins holds a block of carbon that produces 1 Kg of CO2 when burned. The U.S. annual emissions per person is 16 tons of C02, which is roughly two of these blocks per hour.

Opening Minds to the impacts of Climate Change

By Wendy Greenberg |Portraits by Andrew Wilkinson | Infographics courtesy of C-Change Conversations

They appear to be an unlikely group to advocate for and educate on climate change. They are not scientists, but they understand the science. They are not politicians; in fact, they are non-political. They have no hidden agenda, but what they have is a concern that climate change will harm our health and economy, and a passionate interest in the well-being of the Earth for future generations.
The 26 volunteers at C-Change Conversations are professional women (and one man), gathering scientific information on climate change, seeking skeptics, booking presentations, and hoping to open minds. They come from careers in marketing, communications, finance, investment, and business. In some ways the messengers are part of the message: that climate change affects all of us, and we all need to listen. They have become known as trusted messengers.

“We are nonpartisan. People can’t tell what our politics are. That is important to us,” said founder and President Kathleen Biggins of Princeton, where the group is based. “As far as I know, no one is doing it the way we are doing it — our approach and strategy are unique,” she says.

Not only is the timing crucial in terms of mitigating climate change damage, but the group sees a “greater opening” among those who were not previously open to learning that climate change can impact them.

C-Change collects and examines new information regularly and puts out a monthly newsletter to update others. Their science advisers, including Princeton’s own Climate Central, have contributed to the C-Change Primer that is the basis for presentations that take them all over the country. “We translate the science,” says Biggins. “We are careful about our role.”

They have been invited to present in 31 states, reaching 163 organizations, and get standing ovations in politically conservative areas. They speak in places that are comfortable to their audiences: garden clubs, country clubs, investment clubs, land trusts, churches, and schools. The presentation takes the topic out of the realm of the environmental and into the economic — how it will impact jobs, personal security and health, and exposure to geopolitical instability.

In the fall of 2019, Biggins and co-founder Katy Kinsolving wrote in Harvard Public Health Magazine that “the top predictor of one’s opinion on climate change is political party affiliation: Individual positions on the issue are often a litmus test of whether someone is a ‘good conservative’ or a ‘good liberal.’ … By meeting with those who are skeptical, in a place where they are comfortable and surrounded by people they consider to be peers and friends, we find they are more willing to listen. We often speak at regularly scheduled meetings, so that audience members do not have to consciously decide to come hear our message. This means they don’t feel disloyal to their ‘tribe,’ uncomfortable, or that they are wasting their time.” more

Photo from shutterstock.com

The Benefits of Unstructured Play and Nature-Based Camps

By Taylor Smith

Unstructured play is open-ended, and child-led. It is an opportunity for children to flex their creative muscles without adult guidelines as to what they can or cannot do. An example of this is bringing a coloring book to a child. A coloring book is filled with lines and shapes in which children are expected to color within. Alternatively, unstructured play would look more like handing a child a piece of paper and a box of crayons and telling them that they can create and imagine to their heart’s content.

Previous generations probably remember their parents or grandparents telling them to simply “go outside and play.” The benefits of this type of play are only now being fully understood. It has been recognized that there is a pivotal period in childhood development where children can imagine and formulate their own games and rules (waldorfeducation.org/waldorf-education). Even the practice of playing with dolls and toys, creating shapes and structures out of Lego bricks, and building one’s own “world” out of their imagination is significant. Toddlers, children, and even young teenagers benefit from role playing and acting out the scenarios that they dream up in their mind’s eye. This also aids social development, problem solving, and self-understanding in the sense that young people are learning how to occupy themselves and to develop their own creative reflexes.

Using one’s imagination also deepens social connections among children. Acting out storylines and building self-initiated games with their peers stimulates cognitive memory and social acuity, which is defined as the ability and inclination to perceive the psychological state of others and act accordingly.  more

Marian Anderson, center, with Albert Einstein. (Marian Anderson Collection of Photographs, 1898-1992, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania)

Marian Anderson in Princeton

By Donald H. Sanborn III

“Everyone has a gift for something,” contralto Marian Anderson is quoted as saying, “even if it is the gift of being a good friend.” In 1937 a unique friendship was formed after Anderson (1897-1993) gave a recital at McCarter Theatre.

Because of segregation, Anderson as an African American was denied lodging at a hotel in Princeton. In response, Albert Einstein invited her to stay at his home — an invitation he had extended to Paul Robeson two years earlier.

The meeting of Anderson and Einstein is the subject of a play, My Lord, What a Night. Written by Deborah Brevoort, the play recently was presented by Ford’s Theatre. The play’s title is derived from Anderson’s 1956 autobiography, My Lord, What a Morning.

Anderson’s autobiography, in turn, takes its title from a spiritual whose text includes the line, “To wake the nations underground.” Given the singer’s eventual impact on the civil rights movement, the line is striking.

When Brevoort was 7, her mother gave her a copy of Anderson’s book. “I remember loving that autobiography,” she says. When the singer was on a list of subjects for a commission, Brevoort eagerly welcomed the idea of writing about her, in part because the research process would provide an opportunity to reread the volume. The playwright was particularly fascinated by the story of Einstein opening his home to Anderson, an act that “launched this lifelong friendship.” more