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Newark's Last Fifteen Years, 19041919.
Interesting Facts, arranged Alphabetically by Subjects
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 desirablethe 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 Governmentyou wonder whether history at close range invariably presents so much of interest, or whether 19041919 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.
C. V. D.
Newark: 19041919.
All-Year School: Established at Belmont Ave. and McKinley schools, June 1, 1912. Each year's work divided into four 12 week terms instead of two 20 week terms. Enables pupil to complete 8 grades' work in 6 years instead of 8, as he ordinarily would. Attendance during summer term is not compulsory.
Almshouse: New home for aged and infirm poor at Ivy Hill, beyond Irvington, erected 191314 and opened Jan. 1916. Accommodates 400 to 500 people. Has farm of 70 acres so those who are able can work and help to support themselves. Surveyed by Russell Sage Foundation, Dept. of Surveys and Exhibits, 191819.
Alternating Plan: Introduced in Cleveland and Madison Schools, 1913. Nov. 1915, Cleveland and Abington Ave. schools organized on complete plan with daily vocational and recreational activities.
