A 1950s pumpkin

[“Alger Hiss at Princeton.” Photograph by Ralph Morse. N.d. From the Life Photo Archive.]

I went looking for a pumpkin last night and found this photograph. The description “Alger Hiss at Princeton” baffled me.

The Life feature “A Look at the World’s Week” (May 7, 1956) reported Alger Hiss’s visit to Princeton University, where he spoke before the American Whig-Cliosophic Society. (Which still exists.) From Life: “There was opposition to his appearance and paper pumpkins were strewn around the campus.” And then I remembered a little history.

[The Life Photo Archive seems unsearchable this morning.]