Old Princeton university map, 1932

Jacob Riegel Jr.’s A Map Showing the Campus and Its Buildings with the Dates of Their Construction, published in 1932, is a fascinating historical campus plan documenting the architectural development of Princeton University in New Jersey. Combining cartographic precision with architectural and institutional history, the map provides a detailed visual record of one of America's most distinguished universities during the early twentieth century.

The plan is particularly notable because it does more than identify individual buildings. By recording the dates of construction, it transforms the campus into a chronological architectural record. Viewers can trace Princeton's development from its earliest structures through the expansion of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, observing how successive generations of buildings gradually shaped the university's distinctive Gothic and collegiate character.

Founded in 1746 as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in the United States. The campus evolved considerably after the college moved to its present location in Princeton in the eighteenth century. By 1932, the university had developed into a substantial academic complex containing classrooms, libraries, residential colleges, chapels, administrative buildings, laboratories, and athletic facilities.

The map provides an especially valuable snapshot of Princeton shortly before the major architectural and institutional changes of the later twentieth century. Its arrangement of buildings, paths, roads, lawns, and landscaped spaces illustrates the carefully planned relationship between architecture and the natural environment that became characteristic of the campus.

The historical dating of the buildings also allows the map to be read as a compact history of Princeton's physical growth. Earlier structures stand alongside more recent additions, demonstrating the university's transition from a small colonial college into a major American research institution.

For collectors of American university history, architectural maps, New Jersey cartography, and educational ephemera, Riegel's 1932 campus plan is an unusually informative document. It combines practical mapping with institutional history and provides an authentic portrait of Princeton University at a pivotal moment in its development.