=This compilation is an attempt by a busy library staff to put
into form convenient for use a large group of such facts and figures
as experience shows are often asked for. The notes which follow tell
how we happen to be so interested in Newark's story, why so many
questions on that story come to us, and what kind of help we hope
Newarkers may get from it.=
About seventeen years ago the Library began to collect information about
Newark. We began with a search for good topical poetry and for historical
stories so written as to appeal to young people. Of these we found very
little; though poor verse and poor history were both abundant.
Then we extended our search to the field of Newark as a going concern. In
this field we found so little in print that was fairly descriptive of the
actual Newark of the time, from water supply to sewers, and from parks to
jails, that we began to write it ourselves.
We were moved to do this largely because certain changes in school work
led many pupils and teachers to come to us for information. Our brief,
typed and multigraphed statements about subjects like the city hospital,
paving and street cleaning, proved to be very welcome. We gathered a vast
deal of Newark information and, in time, cast much of it into convenient
form for use in the Library and for lending. In these days we held in the
Library several annual exhibits illustrative of and calling attention to
events of both early and recent days in Newark's history.
Mr. Frank J. Urquhart, one of the editors of the Newark Sunday Call, had
long been an advocate of the study of Newark by its citizens, both old
and young. At the request of the Library, he wrote a brief history of
Newark for the use of young people, which later the Board of Education
adopted as a text-book in the schools. Mr. Urquhart helped the Library
very materially in the collection of historical data and in exhibits of
Newark life and customs in the past.
Several years ago the schools took over this Newark work and, of course,
vastly expanded it, and made of it a Course, running through all grades,
on the City of Newark, and supplied for it a text-book and more than
forty pamphlets of Newark information.
Dr. A. B. Poland, then Superintendent of our Schools, approved
heartily of all this Newark study work, and at his request Assistant
Superintendent J. Wilmer Kennedy prepared the Course of Study and the
pamphlets just mentioned.
The demand for Newark information which came to the Library was, of
course, rather increased than diminished by this adoption of a Newark
Study Course by the schools.
Moreover, Newark has now a much larger number of persons who are
interested in its development and its character and its recent
self-improvement than it had fifteen years ago. Consequently, the
requests received from adults for facts and figures concerning recent
events in our city are much more numerous than they were formerly.
Looking back over the world's history with the perspective of many years,
you would not find it an easy matter to select any fifteen-year period
about which you might wish to write even the briefest review. That is,
events appear to lose their importance or to produce unexpected results
with the passing years, and only a comparatively few happenings remain
conspicuous for all time and for all peoples.
There is, however, a peculiar fascination about history in the making,
and especially local history within one's own memory. Perhaps it may
be compared to the study of a dead language as an intellectual pursuit
and the study of a live language for the pleasure or profit of human
intercourse. Both are desirable--the one, as a background, the other, as
a foreground of education.
Newark's history from the days of Robert Treat was so thoroughly reviewed
at the time of the 250th Anniversary Celebration, 1916, that we have
elected to treat as background everything prior to 1904 and to concern
ourselves with the story of Newark from that year to the present. This
means that the high school graduate of June, 1919, should find between
the covers of this pamphlet a record of the city from the time he or
she entered the kindergarten. With these dates in mind it was really
astonishing to find how many changes and what material advances had been
made within the fifteen years. As you thought of the building of the
City Hall and Court House; the changed appearance of the "Four Corners";
the opening of the Hudson and Manhattan Tubes; the new Public Service
Terminal; the adaptation of automatic appliances in fire fighting; the
impetus given movements like "Safety First", vacant lot cultivation and
thrift with its school banks; the bigger civic undertakings like City
Plan, Passaic Valley Sewer; Port Newark and the unexpected trend of its
development due to the war; the war itself, representing the effect of
a world event on a city's activities; the 250th Anniversary, a local
celebration, but illustrative of Newark's relations with the outside
world; and, finally, of the change of city administration to Commission
Government--you wonder whether history at close range invariably presents
so much of interest, or whether 1904-1919 happens to be a particularly
progressive period, or whether Newark, suddenly conscious of its
backwardness in many lines, is now making up for lost time.
So many facts presented themselves that the pamphlet soon outgrew our
original conception of it, becoming much larger than was originally
intended. It is still, however, a succession of facts and in no sense a
consecutive history. Because it grew from fact to fact, suggested by one
assistant and perhaps set down by another; and because from the first
day the idea was suggested to the day when work stopped, a lapse of
three months, we were daily expecting that copy must go to the printer
on the morrow, the entries are not as complete, or the whole as well
balanced as we should wish. One consideration which delayed our work, but
which should contribute to any value it may have, was the fixed desire
to avoid loose, indefinite statement and to resist the inclination to
make irrelevant comment when real information is wanting or difficult to
acquire. This determination grew as our own searches and questionings
showed how common is this looseness of statement. For the facts and
information which it was impossible or very difficult to get from records
on file, we wish to make grateful acknowledgment to city departments,
newspapers, societies and individuals who responded promptly and
graciously to our calls for assistance.
August, 1919.