#ThrowbackThursday: Princeton’s Spirit of ’76

PAW’s 1976 Reunions issue, appropriately dated July 4, featured photos of a uniquely colorful P-rade that blended orange and black with red, white, and blue, in honor of the nation’s bicentennial year.

The Class of 1946 — Princeton’s bicentennial class — was particularly fond of the Spirit of ’76. The class was led by an Uncle Sam stilt-walker and a colonial-themed marching band. At least four different bands in the procession donned tri-cornered caps, along with a small contingent of “Yankee Doodle Dandy Tigers.” James M. Banner Jr., then a professor in Princeton’s history department, delivered a lecture about the American Revolution for alumni and their families in the faculty room at Nassau Hall, where British forces had taken refuge during the Battle of Princeton, 199 years earlier.