1.
Synthesizer
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A synthesizer is an electronic musical instrument that generates electric signals that are converted to sound through instrument amplifiers and loudspeakers or headphones. Synthesizers may either imitate instruments like piano, Hammond organ, flute, vocals, natural sounds like ocean waves, etc. or generate new electronic timbres. Synthesizers without built-in controllers are called sound modules, and are controlled via USB, MIDI or CV/gate using a controller device. Synthesizers use various methods to generate electronic signals, synthesizers were first used in pop music in the 1960s. In the 1970s, synths were used in disco, especially in the late 1970s, in the 1980s, the invention of the relatively inexpensive, mass market Yamaha DX7 synth made synthesizers widely available. 1980s pop and dance music often made use of synthesizers. In the 2010s, synthesizers are used in genres of pop, rock. Contemporary classical music composers from the 20th and 21st century write compositions for synthesizer, the beginnings of the synthesizer are difficult to trace, as it is difficult to draw a distinction between synthesizers and some early electric or electronic musical instruments. One of the earliest electric musical instruments, the telegraph, was invented in 1876 by American electrical engineer Elisha Gray. He accidentally discovered the sound generation from a self-vibrating electromechanical circuit and this musical telegraph used steel reeds with oscillations created by electromagnets transmitted over a telegraph line. Gray also built a simple loudspeaker device into later models, consisting of a diaphragm in a magnetic field. This instrument was a remote electromechanical musical instrument that used telegraphy, though it lacked an arbitrary sound-synthesis function, some have erroneously called it the first synthesizer. In 1897, Thaddeus Cahill invented the Teleharmonium, which used dynamos, and was capable of additive synthesis like the Hammond organ, however, Cahills business was unsuccessful for various reasons, and similar but more compact instruments were subsequently developed, such as electronic and tonewheel organs. In 1906, American engineer, Lee De Forest ushered in the electronics age and he invented the first amplifying vacuum tube, called the Audion tube. This led to new entertainment technologies, including radio and sound films, ondes Martenot and Trautonium were continuously developed for several decades, finally developing qualities similar to later synthesizers. In the 1920s, Arseny Avraamov developed various systems of graphic sonic art, in 1938, USSR engineer Yevgeny Murzin designed a compositional tool called ANS, one of the earliest real-time additive synthesizers using optoelectronics. The earliest polyphonic synthesizers were developed in Germany and the United States, during the three years that Hammond manufactured this model,1,069 units were shipped, but production was discontinued at the start of World War II. Both instruments were the forerunners of the electronic organs and polyphonic synthesizers
2.
Computer Music Center
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The Computer Music Center at Columbia University is the oldest center for electronic and computer music research in the United States. The Center was founded in the 1950s as the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, the CMC is housed in Prentis Hall,632 West 125th Street, New York City, across the street from Columbias new 17-acre Manhattanville campus. The facility consists of a graduate research facility specializing in computer music and multimedia research, as well as a number of composition. Projects to come out of the CMC since the 1990s include, originally concerned with experiments in music composition involving the new technology of reel-to-reel tape, the studio soon branched out into all areas of electronic music research. The Center was officially established with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1959 which was used to finance the acquisition of the RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer from its owner, RCA. The flagship piece of Center equipment, the RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer, was delivered to the Center in 1957 after it was developed to Ussachevsky, the RCA were re-housed in Prentis Hall, a building off the main Columbia campus on 125th Street. In 1961 Columbia Records released an album titled simply Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, the Center also acted as a consulting agency for other electronic music studios in the Western Hemisphere, giving them advice on optimum studio design and helping them to purchase equipment, etc. The staff engineers at the Center under Peter Mauzey developed a variety of customized equipment designed to solve the needs of the composers working at the center. These include early prototypes of tape delay machines, quadraphonic mixing consoles, the Center also had a large collection of Buchla, Moog, and Serge Modular synthesizers. By the late 1970s the Electronic Music Center was rapidly nearing obsolescence as the classical analog tape techniques it used were being surpassed by parallel work in the field of computer music. The original Columbia facility was re-organized in 1995 under the leadership of Brad Garton and was renamed the Columbia University Computer Music Center and it is six floors and covers 121,752 square feet. Columbia acquired it in 1949 and had used it for a chemical engineering laboratory. The architect was Frank A. Rooke
3.
RCA
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RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. General Electric took over the company in late 1985 and split it up the following year, after World War I began in August 1914, radio traffic across the Atlantic Ocean increased dramatically after the western Allies cut the German transatlantic telegraph cables. In 1917 the government of the United States took charge of the owned by the major companies involved in radio manufacture in the United States to devote radio technology to the war effort. All production of equipment was allocated to the U. S. Army, U. S. Navy, U. S. Marine Corps. The War Department and the Navy Department sought to maintain a monopoly of all uses of radio technology. The wartime takeover of all radio systems ended late in 1918, the war ended in November of that year. The ending of the governments monopoly in radio communications did not prevent the War. On 8 April 1919, naval Admiral W. H. G. Bullard, the proposal presented by the government was that if GE created an American-owned radio company, then the Army and Navy would effect a monopoly of long-distance radio communications via this company. This marked the beginning of a series of negotiations through which GE would buy the American Marconi company, the Army and the Navy granted RCA the former American Marconi radio terminals that had been confiscated during the War. Admiral Bullard received a seat on the Board of Directors of RCA for his efforts in establishing RCA, the result was federally-created monopolies in radio for GE and the Westinghouse Corporation and in telephone systems for the American Telephone & Telegraph Company. The first chief officer of RCA was Owen D. Young. RCAs incorporation papers required that a majority of its stock be held by American citizens, as the years went on, RCA either took over, or produced for itself, a large number of patents, including that of the superheterodyne receiver invented by Edwin Armstrong. Over the years, RCA continued to operate international services, under its subsidiary RCA Communications, Inc. GE used RCA as its retail arm for radio sales from 1919, Westinghouse also marketed home radios through RCA until 1930. In 1929, RCA purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company, then the worlds largest manufacturer of phonographs and this included a majority ownership of the Victor Company of Japan. The new subsidiary then became RCA Victor, with Victor, RCA acquired New World rights to the Nipper His Masters Voice trademark. This trademark is used by the British music & entertainment company HMV. RCA began selling the first electronic turntable in 1930, in 1931, RCA Victor began selling 33⅓ rpm records
4.
Columbia University
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Columbia University is a private Ivy League research university in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It was established in 1754 as Kings College by royal charter of George II of Great Britain, after the American Revolutionary War, Kings College briefly became a state entity, and was renamed Columbia College in 1784. Columbia is one of the fourteen founding members of the Association of American Universities and was the first school in the United States to grant the M. D. degree. The university also has global research outposts in Amman, Beijing, Istanbul, Paris, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Asunción, Columbia administers annually the Pulitzer Prize. Additionally,100 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Columbia as students, researchers, faculty, Columbia is second only to Harvard University in the number of Nobel Prize-winning affiliates, with over 100 recipients of the award as of 2016. In 1746 an act was passed by the assembly of New York to raise funds for the foundation of a new college. Classes were initially held in July 1754 and were presided over by the colleges first president, Dr. Johnson was the only instructor of the colleges first class, which consisted of a mere eight students. Instruction was held in a new schoolhouse adjoining Trinity Church, located on what is now lower Broadway in Manhattan, in 1763, Dr. Johnson was succeeded in the presidency by Myles Cooper, a graduate of The Queens College, Oxford, and an ardent Tory. In the charged political climate of the American Revolution, his opponent in discussions at the college was an undergraduate of the class of 1777. The suspension continued through the occupation of New York City by British troops until their departure in 1783. The colleges library was looted and its sole building requisitioned for use as a hospital first by American. Loyalists were forced to abandon their Kings College in New York, the Loyalists, led by Bishop Charles Inglis fled to Windsor, Nova Scotia, where they founded Kings Collegiate School. After the Revolution, the college turned to the State of New York in order to restore its vitality, the Legislature agreed to assist the college, and on May 1,1784, it passed an Act for granting certain privileges to the College heretofore called Kings College. The Regents finally became aware of the colleges defective constitution in February 1787 and appointed a revision committee, in April of that same year, a new charter was adopted for the college, still in use today, granting power to a private board of 24 Trustees. On May 21,1787, William Samuel Johnson, the son of Dr. Samuel Johnson, was unanimously elected President of Columbia College, prior to serving at the university, Johnson had participated in the First Continental Congress and been chosen as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. The colleges enrollment, structure, and academics stagnated for the majority of the 19th century, with many of the college presidents doing little to change the way that the college functioned. In 1857, the college moved from the Kings College campus at Park Place to a primarily Gothic Revival campus on 49th Street and Madison Avenue, during the last half of the 19th century, under the leadership of President F. A. P. Barnard, the institution assumed the shape of a modern university
5.
Theremin
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The theremin is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the thereminist. It is named after the Westernized name of its Russian inventor, Léon Theremin, the electric signals from the theremin are amplified and sent to a loudspeaker. The theremin was used in soundtracks such as Miklós Rózsas Spellbound, The Lost Weekend. It has also used in theme songs for television shows such as the ITV drama Midsomer Murders. This has led to its association with eerie situations, Theremins are also used in concert music and in popular music genres such as rock. The theremin was originally the product of Soviet government-sponsored research into proximity sensors, the instrument was invented by a young Russian physicist named Lev Sergeyevich Termen in October 1920 after the outbreak of the Russian Civil War. After a lengthy tour of Europe, during which time he demonstrated his invention to packed houses, Theremin moved to the United States, subsequently, Theremin granted commercial production rights to RCA. Although the RCA Thereminvox, was not a success, it fascinated audiences in America. Clara Rockmore, a well-known thereminist, toured to wide acclaim, performing a repertoire in concert halls around the United States. In 1938, Theremin left the United States, though the circumstances related to his departure are in dispute. Many accounts claim he was taken from his New York City apartment by NKVD agents, taken back to the Soviet Union and made to work in a sharashka laboratory prison camp at Magadan, in any case, Theremin did not return to the United States until 1991. However, a niche interest in the theremin persisted, mostly among electronics enthusiasts, one of these electronics enthusiasts, Robert Moog, began building theremins in the 1950s, while he was a high-school student. Moog subsequently published a number of articles about building theremins, Moog credited what he learned from the experience as leading directly to his groundbreaking synthesizer, the Moog. Since the release of the film Theremin, An Electronic Odyssey in 1994, even though many theremin sounds can be approximated on many modern synthesizers, some musicians continue to appreciate the expressiveness, novelty, and uniqueness of using an actual theremin. The film itself has garnered excellent reviews, both theremin instruments and kits are available from manufacturers such as Moog Music Inc. Burns Theremins, Harrison Instruments, Inc. Theremaniacs LLC, PAiA Corporation USA, and Jaycar Electronics, the theremin is distinguished among musical instruments in that it is played without physical contact. The thereminist stands in front of the instrument and moves his or her hands in the proximity of two metal antennas, the distance from one antenna determines frequency, and the distance from the other controls amplitude. Higher notes are played by moving the hand closer to the pitch antenna, louder notes are played by moving the hand away from the volume antenna
6.
Music sequencer
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This software also improved on the quality of the earlier sequencers which tended to be mechanical sounding and were only able to play back notes of exactly equal duration. Software-based sequencers allowed musicians to program performances that were more expressive and these new sequencers could also be used to control external synthesizers, especially rackmounted sound modules, and it was no longer necessary for each synthesizer to have its own devoted keyboard. As the technology matured, sequencers gained more features, such as the ability to record multitrack audio, Sequencers used for audio recording are called digital audio workstations. Many modern sequencers can be used to control virtual instruments implemented as software plug-ins and this allows musicians to replace expensive and cumbersome standalone synthesizers with their software equivalents. Today the term sequencer is used to describe software. Workstation keyboards have their own proprietary built-in MIDI sequencers, drum machines and some older synthesizers have their own step sequencer built in. There are still also standalone hardware MIDI sequencers, although the demand for those has diminished greatly due to the greater feature set of their software counterparts. Music sequencers are often categorized by handling data types, as following, or, the phrase samplers including Groove machines, etc. Also, music sequencer can be categorized by its construction and supporting modes, realtime sequencers record the musical notes in real-time as on audio recorders, and play back musical notes with designated tempo, quantizations, and pitch. For editing, usually punch in/punch out feature originated in the recording is provided. For detailed editing, possibly another visual editing modes under graphical user interface may be more suitable, anyway, this mode provides usability similar to the audio recorder already familiarized by musicians, and it is widely supported on software sequencer, DAW, and built-in hardware sequencers. Analog sequencers are typically implemented with analog electronics, and play the musical notes designated by a series of knobs or sliders corresponding to each musical note and it is designed for both composition and live performance, users can change the musical notes at any time without regarding recording mode. And also possibly, the time-interval between each note can be independently adjustable. Typically, analog sequencer is used to generate the repeated minimalistic phrases which is reminiscent of Tangerine Dream, on the bass machines, select a step note from a chromatic keypads, then select a step duration from a group of length-buttons, sequentially. In general, step mode, along with roughly quantized semi-realtime mode, is supported on the analog drum machines, bass machines. Software sequencer is a class of application software providing a functionality of music sequencer, the features provided as sequencers vary widely depending on the software, even an analog sequencer can be simulated. The user may control the software sequencer either by using the user interfaces or a specialized input devices. The early music sequencers were sound producing devices such as musical instruments, music boxes, mechanical organs, player pianos
7.
Composer
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A composer is a person who creates or writes music, which can be vocal music, instrumental music or music which combines both instruments and voices. The core meaning of the term refers to individuals who have contributed to the tradition of Western classical music through creation of works expressed in written musical notation, many composers are also skilled performers, either as singers, instrumentalists, and/or conductors. Examples of composers who are well known for their ability as performers include J. S. Bach, Mozart. In many popular genres, such as rock and country. For a singer or instrumental performer, the process of deciding how to perform music that has previously composed and notated is termed interpretation. Different performers interpretations of the work of music can vary widely, in terms of the tempos that are chosen. Composers and songwriters who present their own music are interpreting, just as much as those who perform the music of others, although a musical composition often has a single author, this is not always the case. A piece of music can also be composed with words, images, or, in the 20th and 21st century, a culture eventually developed whereby faithfulness to the composers written intention came to be highly valued. This musical culture is almost certainly related to the esteem in which the leading classical composers are often held by performers. The movement might be considered a way of creating greater faithfulness to the original in works composed at a time that expected performers to improvise. In Classical music, the composer typically orchestrates her own compositions, in some cases, a pop songwriter may not use notation at all, and instead compose the song in her mind and then play or record it from memory. In jazz and popular music, notable recordings by influential performers are given the weight that written scores play in classical music. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of music. In the development of European classical music, the function of composing music initially did not have greater importance than that of performing it. The preservation of individual compositions did not receive attention and musicians generally had no qualms about modifying compositions for performance. In as much as the role of the composer in western art music has seen continued solidification, for instance, in certain contexts the line between composer and performer, sound designer, arranger, producer, and other roles, can be quite blurred. The term composer is often used to refer to composers of music, such as those found in classical, jazz or other forms of art. In popular and folk music, the composer is usually called a songwriter and this is distinct from a 19th-century conception of instrumental composition, where the work was represented solely by a musical score to be interpreted by performers
8.
Magnetic tape
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Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany, based on magnetic wire recording, devices that record and play back audio and video using magnetic tape are tape recorders and video tape recorders. A device that stores data on magnetic tape is a tape drive. Magnetic tape revolutionized broadcast and recording, when all radio was live, it allowed programming to be recorded. At a time when gramophone records were recorded in one take, it allowed recordings to be made in multiple parts, which were then mixed and edited with tolerable loss in quality. It was a key technology in computer development, allowing unparalleled amounts of data to be mechanically created, stored for long periods. Nowadays, other technologies can perform the functions of magnetic tape, in many cases, these technologies are replacing tape. Despite this, innovation in the technology continues, and Sony, over years, magnetic tape made in the 1970s and 1980s can suffer from a type of deterioration called sticky-shed syndrome. Caused by hydrolysis of the binder of the tape, it can render the tape unusable, the oxide side of a tape is the surface that can be magnetically manipulated by a tape head. This is the side that stores the information, the side is simply a substrate to hold the tape together. The name originates from the fact that the side of most tapes is made of an oxide of iron. Magnetic tape was invented for recording sound by Fritz Pfleumer in 1928 in Germany, based on the invention of magnetic wire recording by Oberlin Smith in 1888, pfleumers invention used a ferric oxide powder coating on a long strip of paper. This invention was developed by the German electronics company AEG, which manufactured the recording machines and BASF. In 1933, working for AEG, Eduard Schuller developed the ring-shaped tape head, previous head designs were needle-shaped and tended to shred the tape. An important discovery made in this period was the technique of AC biasing, due to the escalating political tensions, and the outbreak of World War II, these developments were largely kept secret. A wide variety of recorders and formats have developed since, most significantly reel-to-reel, the practice of recording and editing audio using magnetic tape rapidly established itself as an obvious improvement over previous methods. Many saw the potential of making the same improvements in recording television, television signals are similar to audio signals. A major difference is that video signals use more bandwidth than audio signals, existing audio tape recorders could not practically capture a video signal
9.
Player piano
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The rise of the player piano grew with the rise of the mass-produced piano for the home in the late 19th and early 20th century. Sales peaked in 1924, then declined as the improvement in phonograph recordings due to electrical recording methods developed in the mid-1920s. The idea of musical devices can be traced back many centuries. These devices were later extended to operate musical boxes, which contain a set of tuned metal teeth plucked by the player mechanism, an early musical instrument to be automated was the organ, which is comparatively easy to operate automatically. The power for the notes is provided by air from a system. The playing task is performed by a pinned barrel. The piano is an instrument, requiring each note to be struck with a different force to control the dynamics of the performance. The entire force required to sound the note must be given by the hitting the keys. It proved to be difficult for a device to combine a variable percussive force. Barrels do not provide a force, but a relatively gentle switching motion. Early barrel pianos moved the back and forwards continuously as the operator turned the handle. The hammers hit repeatedly until the pin was removed and this played the note, but at a fixed dynamic and with a tremolo action quite unlike a pianist. The development of the piano was the gradual overcoming of the various difficulties of controlled percussive striking. The earliest practical piano playing device was probably the Forneaux Pianista and this bellows struck the piano key and so played the note. The acceleration of developments leading to the player device started in the 1840s. The start of the period can probably be seen as the Centennial Exposition of 1876 in Philadelphia. At this exhibition were a number of automatic devices, including the Pianista. The earliest description of a piano playing device using perforated paper rolls was Claude Seytres French patent of 1842, the concept was sound, but the device described was impractical in the way it read the roll and operated the piano
10.
Modernism
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Among the factors that shaped modernism were the development of modern industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities, followed then by reactions of horror to World War I. Modernism also rejected the certainty of Enlightenment thinking, and many modernists rejected religious belief, the poet Ezra Pounds 1934 injunction to Make it new. Was the touchstone of the approach towards what it saw as the now obsolete culture of the past. In this spirit, its innovations, like the novel, atonal and twelve-tone music, divisionist painting and abstract art. Modernism explicitly rejected the ideology of realism and makes use of the works of the past by the employment of reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision, others focus on modernism as an aesthetic introspection. While J. M. W. Art critic Clement Greenberg describes the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as proto-Modernists, There the proto-Modernists were, of all people, the Pre-Raphaelites actually foreshadowed Manet, with whom Modernist painting most definitely begins. They acted on a dissatisfaction with painting as practiced in their time, rationalism has also had opponents in the philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and later Friedrich Nietzsche, both of whom had significant influence on existentialism. A major 19th-century engineering achievement was The Crystal Palace, the huge cast-iron, Glass and iron were used in a similar monumental style in the construction of major railway terminals in London, such as Paddington Station and Kings Cross Station. These technological advances led to the building of structures like the Brooklyn Bridge. The latter broke all previous limitations on how tall man-made objects could be and these engineering marvels radically altered the 19th-century urban environment and the daily lives of people. Arguments arose that the values of the artist and those of society were not merely different, but that Society was antithetical to Progress, the philosopher Schopenhauer called into question the previous optimism, and his ideas had an important influence on later thinkers, including Nietzsche. Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection undermined religious certainty and the idea of human uniqueness, in particular, the notion that human beings were driven by the same impulses as lower animals proved to be difficult to reconcile with the idea of an ennobling spirituality. Karl Marx argued that there were fundamental contradictions within the capitalist system, historians, and writers in different disciplines, have suggested various dates as starting points for modernism. Everdell also thinks modernism in painting began in 1885–86 with Seurats Divisionism, the poet Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal, and Flauberts novel Madame Bovary were both published in 1857. In the arts and letters, two important approaches developed separately in France, the first was Impressionism, a school of painting that initially focused on work done, not in studios, but outdoors. Impressionist paintings demonstrated that human beings do not see objects, the school gathered adherents despite internal divisions among its leading practitioners, and became increasingly influential. A significant event of 1863 was the Salon des Refusés, created by Emperor Napoleon III to display all of the paintings rejected by the Paris Salon. While most were in standard styles, but by artists, the work of Manet attracted tremendous attention
11.
Computer
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A computer is a device that can be instructed to carry out an arbitrary set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically. The ability of computers to follow a sequence of operations, called a program, such computers are used as control systems for a very wide variety of industrial and consumer devices. The Internet is run on computers and it millions of other computers. Since ancient times, simple manual devices like the abacus aided people in doing calculations, early in the Industrial Revolution, some mechanical devices were built to automate long tedious tasks, such as guiding patterns for looms. More sophisticated electrical machines did specialized analog calculations in the early 20th century, the first digital electronic calculating machines were developed during World War II. The speed, power, and versatility of computers has increased continuously and dramatically since then, conventionally, a modern computer consists of at least one processing element, typically a central processing unit, and some form of memory. The processing element carries out arithmetic and logical operations, and a sequencing, peripheral devices include input devices, output devices, and input/output devices that perform both functions. Peripheral devices allow information to be retrieved from an external source and this usage of the term referred to a person who carried out calculations or computations. The word continued with the same meaning until the middle of the 20th century, from the end of the 19th century the word began to take on its more familiar meaning, a machine that carries out computations. The Online Etymology Dictionary gives the first attested use of computer in the 1640s, one who calculates, the Online Etymology Dictionary states that the use of the term to mean calculating machine is from 1897. The Online Etymology Dictionary indicates that the use of the term. 1945 under this name, theoretical from 1937, as Turing machine, devices have been used to aid computation for thousands of years, mostly using one-to-one correspondence with fingers. The earliest counting device was probably a form of tally stick, later record keeping aids throughout the Fertile Crescent included calculi which represented counts of items, probably livestock or grains, sealed in hollow unbaked clay containers. The use of counting rods is one example, the abacus was initially used for arithmetic tasks. The Roman abacus was developed from used in Babylonia as early as 2400 BC. Since then, many forms of reckoning boards or tables have been invented. In a medieval European counting house, a checkered cloth would be placed on a table, the Antikythera mechanism is believed to be the earliest mechanical analog computer, according to Derek J. de Solla Price. It was designed to calculate astronomical positions and it was discovered in 1901 in the Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete, and has been dated to circa 100 BC
12.
Princeton University
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Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The institution moved to Newark in 1747, then to the current site nine years later, Princeton provides undergraduate and graduate instruction in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. The university has ties with the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton has the largest endowment per student in the United States. The university has graduated many notable alumni, two U. S. Presidents,12 U. S. Supreme Court Justices, and numerous living billionaires and foreign heads of state are all counted among Princetons alumni body. New Light Presbyterians founded the College of New Jersey in 1746 in order to train ministers, the college was the educational and religious capital of Scots-Irish America. In 1754, trustees of the College of New Jersey suggested that, in recognition of Governors interest, gov. Jonathan Belcher replied, What a name that would be. In 1756, the moved to Princeton, New Jersey. Its home in Princeton was Nassau Hall, named for the royal House of Orange-Nassau of William III of England, following the untimely deaths of Princetons first five presidents, John Witherspoon became president in 1768 and remained in that office until his death in 1794. During his presidency, Witherspoon shifted the focus from training ministers to preparing a new generation for leadership in the new American nation. To this end, he tightened academic standards and solicited investment in the college, in 1812, the eighth president the College of New Jersey, Ashbel Green, helped establish the Princeton Theological Seminary next door. The plan to extend the theological curriculum met with approval on the part of the authorities at the College of New Jersey. Today, Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary maintain separate institutions with ties that include such as cross-registration. Before the construction of Stanhope Hall in 1803, Nassau Hall was the sole building. The cornerstone of the building was laid on September 17,1754, during the summer of 1783, the Continental Congress met in Nassau Hall, making Princeton the countrys capital for four months. The class of 1879 donated twin lion sculptures that flanked the entrance until 1911, Nassau Halls bell rang after the halls construction, however, the fire of 1802 melted it. The bell was then recast and melted again in the fire of 1855, James McCosh took office as the colleges president in 1868 and lifted the institution out of a low period that had been brought about by the American Civil War. McCosh Hall is named in his honor, in 1879, the first thesis for a Doctor of Philosophy Ph. D. was submitted by James F. Williamson, Class of 1877. In 1896, the officially changed its name from the College of New Jersey to Princeton University to honor the town in which it resides
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