Transcriber Note
An Index has been added at the end to facilitate location of subjects.
Newark's Last Fifteen Years, 1904-1919.
The Story in Outline.
Newark's Last Fifteen Years, 1904-1919.
Interesting Facts, arranged Alphabeticallyby Subjects
This compilation is an attempt by a busy librarystaff to put into form convenient for use a large group ofsuch facts and figures as experience shows are often askedfor. The notes which follow tell how we happen to beso interested in Newark's story, why so many questions onthat story come to us, and what kind of help we hopeNewarkers may get from it.
About seventeen years ago the Library began to collect informationabout Newark. We began with a search for good topical poetryand for historical stories so written as to appeal to young people. Ofthese we found very little; though poor verse and poor history were bothabundant.
Then we extended our search to the field of Newark as a goingconcern. In this field we found so little in print that was fairly descriptiveof 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 schoolwork led many pupils and teachers to come to us for information. Ourbrief, typed and multigraphed statements about subjects like the cityhospital, paving and street cleaning, proved to be very welcome. Wegathered a vast deal of Newark information and, in time, cast much ofit into convenient form for use in the Library and for lending. In thesedays we held in the Library several annual exhibits illustrative of andcalling attention to events of both early and recent days in Newark'shistory.
Mr. Frank J. Urquhart, one of the editors of the Newark SundayCall, 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 briefhistory of Newark for the use of young people, which later the Board of« 2 »Education adopted as a text-book in the schools. Mr. Urquhart helpedthe Library very materially in the collection of historical data and inexhibits of Newark life and customs in the past.
Several years ago the schools took over this Newark work and, ofcourse, vastly expanded it, and made of it a Course, running throughall grades, on the City of Newark, and supplied for it a text-book andmore than forty pamphlets of Newark information.
Dr. A. B. Poland, then Superintendent of our Schools, approvedheartily of all this Newark study work, and at his request AssistantSuperintendent J. Wilmer Kennedy prepared the Course of Study andthe pamphlets just mentioned.
The demand for Newark information which came to the Librarywas, of course, rather increased than diminished by this adoption of aNewark Study Course by the schools.
Moreover, Newark has now a much larger number of persons whoare interested in its development and its character and its recent self-improvementthan it had fifteen years ago. Consequently, the requestsreceived from adults for facts and figures concerning recent events in ourcity are much more numerous than they were formerly.
Looking back over the world's history with the perspective of manyyears, you would not find it an easy matter t