Inclusivity at Princeton's Eating Clubs

Class has long been a major issue at Princeton and a method of exclusion, not just at eating clubs but university wide. And the issue of financial burden has long been a topic of discussion and contention for undergraduates on campus. So, it comes as no surprise that eating clubs have historically been crucial to upholding class and economic divides on campus.

A Short History of Class in Eating Clubs

Eating clubs were founded on the notion of exclusion, creating spaces for select members that could pay for a certain standard of eating and boarding. In his book, A Princeton Companion, Alexander Leitch ‘24, described “these associates” of the eating clubs as “tend[ing] to be of a like position and condition in life,” thereby explicitly cementing the link between eating clubs and class. The original members thus enact a system in which they leave similarly privilege, elite members of the Princeton undergraduate population to continue their legacy. In fact, Maria Graham Synnott notes in her book, The Half-Opened Door, that by the 1920s 80% of members in the five most popular clubs (Tiger Inn, Ivy, Cap and Gown, Colonial, and Cottage) came from larger and reputed preparatory schools, which were attended by affluent students.

Beyond the selectivity, members also have to pay fees for their eating clubs. For example, in the first years of its operation, Cottage Club required its members to pay several dollars a week for rent, which today would translate to hundreds of dollars, simply unaffordable for the less affluent at the university. Additionally, the first treasurer of the eating club secured the house through his father, speaking to a willingness by the wealthy to invest and create sumptuous spaces for affluent undergrads.

This issue is one that continues through the eating clubs’ histories. In a February 8, 1940 editorial in the Daily Princetonian titled “Princeton’s Caste System”, the authors lament the exorbitant costs of the eating clubs, estimated at the time to amount to $600 annually. And, they add, “it is a rare member who obtains benefits commensurate with his investment.”

• “Well-to-do undergraduates who take checkbooks for granted scarcely glance at their term bills. But for men who already have to budget their expenses, two dollars a day for food is an excessive burden. It is a burden which has often needlessly caused men to graduate with a mortgage on their next five years’ earnings. It is a burden which falls heavily on many middle-class parents who are forced to make financial sacrifices so that their sons may ‘belong.’” This not only shows the burden placed upon less affluent students, but the need to take part in eating clubs for the social life. The editorial continues to say that eating clubs do not want to reduce their fees, as their prestige is explicitly tied to the rates they charge for membership. In the mid-1920s, undergraduate students tried to introduce a cooperative buying system for eating clubs so as to reduce food costs, but no eating club wanted to “because the clubs were and still are afraid of losing their ‘social individuality’.” So, prestige and identity is explicitly classed in eating clubs.

But eating clubs’ influence did not stop in social live and in their clubhouses. Around the same time as this piece in the Daily Princetonian, Yeiichi ‘Kelly’ Kuwayama ‘40 attended Princeton as one of the first Asian-American students. In an interview for the Princetoniana Committee Oral History Project, he stated that “it’s not a racial thing the eating clubs do. But it’s an economic thing. And, you know, a class thing.” During his time at Princeton, the university only had three non-white enrolled undergraduate students (all three being Asian-American) and no women as well. This is important to note because race becomes an aspect of social life and eating club exclusion as the University integrates. Kuwayama came from a poor family and so this very much influenced his social life on campus as well. He recalls that even dormitory halls were classed. The ones closer to eating clubs were more expensive and those further away were cheaper, according to Kuwayama. Very literally, eating clubs created a class divide among the student body on the physical campus. And, like other poor students at the time, Kuwayama tried to get into an eating club on a “managerial basis”. An October 8, 1941 article from the Daily Prince notes that it was common to for “men, notably waiters in the Commons” to be unable to join an eating club solely because of the cost. So, Kuwayama and these other students were forced to live a very different social life than affluent students.

Reactions to Privilege and Excess

The same October 8, 1941 article, titled “A Problem Solved?”, details the operation of the Prospect Cooperative Club, founded in the spring of 1941 by members of the class of 1943 and whose first year of operation was the 1941-1942 academic year.

• “Now finally it seems that a definite solution for the problem has been found in the Prospect Club, where members actually pay $50 less than they did to eat in Commons during their first two years. At first it was thought that the plan could never be brought to fruition. Even though all work such as waiting and dishwashing was to be done by the students with the exception of the cooking, it seemed impossible that the problem of finances which has plagued the clubs for so long could be solved on such a simple basis. Yet now after the organization has been functioning for three weeks, steward Robert A. Buntz ‘43 reports that the club is running about ten per cent under its estimated budget.” As detailed in the article, the students created this club as a space for less affluent students to gather, eat meals, and create a social group identity for themselves.

Photo of Prospect Cooperative Club from the 1943 Bric-A-Brac

Unfortunately, Prospect Cooperative Club disbanded in 1959 due to a lack of interest and a dwindling membership. Because prestige was, and continues to be, an important factor of eating clubs and Prospect Club explicitly classed students and the club given its nature, it is then not surprising that this eating club was held among the less prestigious - and so less desired.

Still today, the issue of class remains an important one in eating clubs. Just this past year on December 9, 2020, the Board of Trustees of the Cap and Gown Club unanimously voted to pass a policy that would provide a grant for club membership to any member on financial aid and makes sure that no member on full financial aid would pay out-of-pocket costs for their membership at Cap and Gown. No other club as of yet has implemented this policy, but it is an important step to create social spaces free from financial burden.