Cap and Gown Club, founded in 1890, is an eating club at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, in

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

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. Colloquially known as "Cap", the club is one of the "Big Four" eating clubs at Princeton (the others are The Ivy Club, University Cottage Club, and Tiger Inn). Members are selected through a selective process called bicker. Sometimes known as "the Illustrious Cap and Gown Club," it was the first of the currently selective eating clubs to accept women. Though personalities of eating clubs certainly change throughout the years, Cap and Gown is described in F. Scott Fitzgerald's

This Side of Paradise ''This Side of Paradise'' is the debut novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1920. It examines the lives and morality of carefree American youth at the dawn of the Jazz Age. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is an attractive ...

as "anti-alcoholic, faintly religious and politically powerful." Cap was the most bickered eating club in 2011, 2013, 2014, and 2015. It has been the most selective club since 2013, with 287 students bickering in Spring 2019, thirty-five percent of whom were offered membership.

History

Cap is located at 61 Prospect Avenue between Cloister Inn and the University Cottage Club. It is the only Princeton eating club to have stayed in the same geographic location for its entire existence. Three Cap clubhouses have occupied this location. The first was completed in 1892. In 1895 when the club outgrew this clubhouse, the structure was moved across the street, and William Ralph Emerson was commissioned to design the second clubhouse (completed in 1896). Ten years later, Cap was ready to expand again. The Emerson building was moved away, and Raleigh Gildersleeve designed the clubhouse that Cap still occupies today. A major renovation and expansion of the clubhouse to increase the size of the clubhouse in step with its growing membership was completed in February 2011. On December 9, 2020, the Cap and Gown Club Board of Trustees unanimously approved a new financial aid policy that provides a grant to every member of Princeton University financial aid, guaranteeing that no member on full financial aid pays any out-of-pocket costs for club membership. Notable Cap and Gown alumni include Dean Cain '88, Brooke Shields '87, and Donald Rumsfeld '54. Neurosurgeon

Wilder Penfield Wilder Graves Penfield (January 26, 1891April 5, 1976) was an American-Canadian neurosurgeon. He expanded brain surgery's methods and techniques, including mapping the functions of various regions of the brain such as the cortical homunculus. ...

, who pioneered the concept of the brain homunculus, was also a member of Cap and Gown.

References

External links

Official Website
{{Princeton Eating clubs at Princeton University Historic district contributing properties in Mercer County, New Jersey