The Princeton University campus is riddled with the names and other symbols of countless people. Sure, many of these markers have been placed to note a donation that made possible a walkway, a building, or even an entire college. However, the campus is just as full — if not more full — of reminders of people simply there for historical reasons. This includes halls named after former University presidents, countless portraits of famous University community members, and even small, plain stars honoring those who sacrificed their life in service of the nation.

Why Pogue’s Story?

There are so many of these markers to be discovered that it is likely impossible for any individual to fully take stock of the history behind every last corner of the University campus. But taking note of just one of these markers can open a window into lives lived in days way gone by yet still very much present today.

For me, it was Samuel Franklin Pogue, Class of 1904, who caught my attention when I received an email a while back from the University’s Office of Donor Relations. Following a link in the email, I learned that a scholarship established in his memory was helping make my time at Princeton possible. This led me down a rabbit hole of sorts through which I learned more about Pogue’s continued presence on campus by way of various memorials as well as about his family’s history in my hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.

As I learned more about Pogue, I was particularly struck by just how much our lives have crossed. Of course, I’ll never meet him since he died eight decades before I was born. But our paths have quite literally crossed with my frequenting places today that he almost certainly frequented over a century ago. Almost every specific location in the StoryMap below is one I have been to — either the still extant locations or the places where a building once stood.

In telling a fraction of Pogue’s life through the places plotted in the StoryMaps below, one of the primary aims is to recognize how richly infused with history the places that make up our everyday lives can be. But it’s not just general history with which these places are infused; it can very well be history that’s much closer connected to us than how it may seem at first.

For example, the city block where the 1916 flagship H. & S. Pogue Company store once stood is a city block my family frequented for one of its restaurants well before I ever applied to Princeton. I had been dining yards from where a family once built their business — a family that now plays a not insignificant role in my life.

The StoryMap below tells the story of just one Princeton alumnus. Pogue’s story may not leave such a personal impression on most people, but it’s worth noting that Pogue is just one of the thousands upon thousands of people who have been associated with the University. Each one of these people, even those long dead and mostly forgotten, have their own story which may just, unexpectedly, connect with someone today on a personal level.

Below, is just a slice of Samuel Franklin Pogue’s life.

Pogue at Princeton StoryMap

Making the StoryMap

Sourcing Pogue’s Life

As I set out to produce the StoryMap above, the first priority was to simply find biographical information on Pogue. He’s not a very prominent public figure, so I was not expecting to find much at first. However, I discovered that while individual members of the Pogue family may not be very prominent, the H. & S. Pogue Company had been a huge Cincinnati staple for much of the 20th century. Thus, sources about the Pogue family business were my launching off point as I researched Pogue himself. In fact, I found lots of incredible research previously carried out by others that was critical to understanding Pogue’s life beyond the University.

The next natural sources were those related to Princeton like campus publications, historical collections, and University records. There weren’t many University records available online regarding Pogue. Thus, I had to turn to the other sources. For information on the University as it was in the early 20th century and for events after Pogue’s death, historical collections like those found in the Princetoniana Museum were the most helpful. Campus publications, especially The Daily Princetonian, where the richest source for reconstructing a portion of Pogue’s time as an undergraduate student because the newspaper at the time recorded both the noteworthy campus events like the Princeton Triangle Club’s performances and the minutiae of campus life like which students had advanced in the audition process and needed to report to a rehearsal on a particular day.

Key Information

With the limited information available on Pogue, there really weren’t too many options in terms of which dates or which places to highlight. The defining periods throughout Pogue’s life almost naturally preserved themselves in the historical record. His childhood home, his time at Princeton, his adult life back in Cincinnati, his war service, his death — all of these things make up most of what survives in the historical record and for good reason, since they do seem like the major points in Pogue’s life. As for the handful of things after Pogue’s death, the essential things were those that quite literally had left a mark on the University: the two memorials, the dormitory, and the scholarship. These things are those which have the power to render Pogue’s life so relevant today and potentially so personally important for someone.

Constructing the Narrative

Of course, all the information presented in the StoryMap above could very well be left to a written biography. And such a text may contain much more detail. However, constructing a spatial and temporal narrative of Pogue’s life greatly emphasizes the notion of history infused in the spaces around us. It’s one thing to write that a dormitory was built in Pogue’s memory. It’s another to visualize the size and prominence and effect of a dormitory as large and magnificent as Henry Hall.

A fair amount of the information presented in the StoryMaps is not like that out of a diary or field journal, tethered to a precise time and location. Instead, it’s simply sorted into the various periods of Pogue’s life that can then be centered around one place, making the place symbolic of these things. This gets to the notion of a monument, except at a much more quotidian level. It’s not a towering obelisk monumentalizing a hero. It’s mostly ordinary places holding history, having borne witness to previous generations.

Again, with limited information and also limited images, composing the narrative in the above StoryMaps was more an exercise in fitting newly discovered puzzle pieces together in order to develop an engaging story than it was having a narrative in mind and seeking information or images to help support it. For example, finding only one photo of Pogue in which he is dressed in what appears to be his war uniform really limited the photo’s use. Such a photo wouldn’t have made much sense attached to text about Pogue’s childhood. In turn, pairing an image to text was a critical part of making the aforementioned connection between a place and the history.

Conclusion

Overall, Pogue’s life is yet one more that’s woven into the larger fabric of Princeton history. His story could easily be lost among the University’s most famous and more recent alumni. But what has the power to keep his story alive and present today are the many marks he left during his life and were made to remember him after his death. There are the places his family built in Cincinnati. There are the places etched with his name on the University campus. And, of course, there’s the scholarship in his memory.

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Bibliography

Not including the numerous articles from The Daily Princetonian which are cited in a following section for ease of reading.

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