Over the next three decades, articles chronicling the struggle and satisfaction of producing the 333 would become springtime fixtures in The Exonian. “Every Upper’s Nightmare,” read one headline from 1994 (the year I completed my 333). “The 333 is hell,” the paper’s board opined in 1996. “Do you really think it’s a coincidence that 333 is half of 666?” In a 2005 article headlined “The Terrors and Triumphs of the 333,” Hyan Park ’06 spoke with a number of current seniors who looked back on the paper as “a milestone of their Exeter careers” and “a valuable and meaningful experience.”
When the U.S. history courses were renumbered in 2016 to more accurately reflect their academic rigor, the change didn’t sit well with some students. “I remember we insisted on continuing to call [the term paper] the 333, because the 333 meant something,” says Erickson, who was among the first students to take History 430. “I don’t even remember the number they changed it to.”
“We were all told we had to call [the paper] ‘the 430,’ but students just couldn’t move on from it,” recalls Reference and Instruction Librarian Kate Lennon Walker, who has helped students conduct research for their U.S. history term papers for the past 14 years. “I think they will always write a 333, no matter what the course number is.”
Given how large the 333 has loomed over the years, it’s not surprising that, six years after the course number change, the brand endures. “I remember being a prep and a lot of the uppers in my dorm at the time talking about staying up late nights writing their 333s,” says Keanen Andrews ’23, who wrote his term paper this spring on the rise of the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, known as Black Wall Street, and its destruction at the hands of white rioters in 1921 for History Instructor Nolan Lincoln’s 430 class. “It was in the back of my mind when I was a younger student and, now that it’s done, I know it was difficult and challenging, but I do feel complete. I put everything into the paper, and I enjoyed it.”

The Negley Prize explained
On June 17, 1946, Richard V.W. Negley of the class of 1906 wrote from his home in San Antonio, Texas, to E.S. Wells Kerr, then serving as the Academy’s first dean. The subject of his letter was a somber one: Negley’s two sons, Albert Sidney Burleson Negley ’31 and Richard Van Wyck Negley Jr. ’33, had both died in World War II. Richard Jr. was killed in action in the Pacific, while Albert was reported to have perished while being held as a Japanese prisoner of war.
“When the government was proceeding to the settlement of [Richard Jr.’s] account at the War Department, it seemed to Mrs. Negley that it would be appropriate to use some portion of the money due him to establish a small endowment at Exeter in his memory,” Negley wrote. “Later on, Albert had to be included in the plan … for he was as devoted to Exeter as Dick.”
With the $2,640 in “New York exchange” that was included with the letter, the Negleys endowed the Albert Sidney Burleson Negley 1931 and Richard Van Wyck Negley Jr. 1933 Memorial Fund, to be used for one of three purposes: purchasing books for the Academy Library; rewarding members of the Golden Branch, a literary society that sponsored debates; or as a prize for an outstanding history essay written by an Academy student. The Negley Prize was most likely first awarded in the spring of 1948 to Alan R. Trustman ’48, N. Gair Greene ’48 and F. Garrett Shanklin ’48.
Today the Negley Prize is an annual tradition, awarded for the year’s best essays in American history. Teachers in the History Department submit term papers they find exceptional to be considered for the honor each year. The winning essays — sometimes two or three, sometimes as many as six — are selected by a committee based on writing style, scope and quality of research, and are announced in the fall following the spring in which they are completed.
Prize-winning 333s
Since 1998, the winning Negley Prize papers from each year have been bound in a single volume and stored in the Center for Archives and Special Collections in the Class of 1945 Library. We have chosen 12 intriguing titles that reflect the wide-ranging interests of Exeter students, and their willingness to delve deeply into issues that remain all too relevant in the present day.
“Illusions of Immortality: U.S. Public Health Authorities and the Spanish Flu Pandemic, 1918-1919” — Diana Gentry ’01
“Scandal and Sabotage: Richard Nixon’s Theft of the 1968 Election” — Tom Langer ’04
“From Ambivalence to Acceptance: American Attitudes Towards Linguistic and National Identity” — Sally Pei ’06
“The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: A Medical Experiment Swept Under the Rug” — Hillary Fitzgerald ’07
“They Bit the Hand That Fed Them: How the United States Spawned Global Terrorism During the Soviet-Afghan War” — Kevin Chen ’11
“The Equal Rights Amendment: How the ERA Lost the Ratification Battle and Remained a Triumph for the Women’s Movement Despite Its Death” — Alero Egbe ’13
“‘A Battle Royal’: The Role of Religion and Politics in the Brandeis Confirmation Struggle” — Rohan Pavuluri ’14
“Psychiatry’s Own ‘Wonder Drug’: Chlorpromazine and Its Portrayal in the 1950s Media” — Arianna Serafini ’16
“Medicine as Social Control: Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and the Classification of Homosexuality” — Elliot Diaz ’19
“Packing Heat: How the National Rifle Association Shaped the Interpretation of the Second Amendment” — Sam Farnsworth ’20
“A Legacy of Black Empowerment: The Unseen Triumph of the Harlem Renaissance” — Osiris Russell-Delano ’21
“Guantanamo’s Role in the War on Terror: Exception or the Norm?” — Samantha Moore ’22
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story appeared in the summer 2022 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.