The Orange Key Society was founded in 1935 with the goal of serving visitors to the campus. A hand-written account from the Office of Communication records explains: “Impressed by the lack f undergraduate arrangements for the reception of visitors to the Princeton campus, a group of interested students set out, in 1935, to examine the services provided by other colleges in the East.” This account differs from the account that Alexander Leitch provides in the Princeton Companion. He explains that President Harold Dodds, arrived late to Dartmouth at 2am and was greeted by a member of their Green Key Society. This Green Key member was apparently “waiting for him with a car, a thermos of hot coffee, and a friendly greeting.” Afterwards, Dodds spurred the program on. Although the exact sequence of events is unclear, Orange Key began with a recognition that Princeton lagged behind its peers in offering hospitality to visitors of all kinds.

This founding occurred at a time when Princeton had a poor reputation among visitors, especially athletic teams. Only a few years after the Key’s founding, the situation was called “hit-or-miss” by the Prince, saying that visiting teams are “shoved about the Campus like so many sheep and are rather generally ignored during their brief stay on the Campus.”

- John Raulston Graham '24

Go here for the full text of John's history of the Orange Key Society

Campus: A Guide to Princeton University 1979

Welcome to Princeton by the Orange Key Society