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New Jersey Historical Society
The New Jersey Historical
Society and museum is located in Newark, New Jersey and was started
in 1845 at Trenton, when business and intellectual leaders of the
state met; with the most prominent members being Joseph C.
Hornblower, William Whitehead and Peter D. Vroom. In Newark, the
first meeting place was on Market Street in downtown Newark, but
left that area in 1931, for a much bigger colonial style house that
was partly paid for by Louis Bamberger in Broadway, that was east of
the Branch Brook Park. In 1997, it would again move downtown, into
52 Park Place, on Military Park and was a Georgian house that had
been the site of the Essex Club that was designed by Betelle and
Guilbert. By moving to the downtown location, the amount of visitors
had increased by nearly 500%. Their library is located in the old
squash courts of the club, with two floors of display space, a hall
for lecturing and a gift shop. The society does offer Newark walking
tours on occasion, and publishes the academic journal, New Jersey
History. Admission to the society's building is free, but a donation
would be greatly appreciated in this time of economic hardships. The
society has a great website, where you can find out just about
anything you want to know about the state's history, and the site is
user friendly and interactive so you can learn how to do whatever it
is that you want to do. One of the best features for many is the
genealogist's guide that helps anyone who thinks that they have
ancestors from the state, or other relations that they don't know
about. There are thousands of photographs that showcase the history
of the state, with one being shown on their site presently that is
of a house that was lifted off its foundation by a tornado in 1895,
by a full ten feet and then let it drop, which unfortunately wasn't
lined up correctly with the foundation and crumbled it. All this,
while the family hung to each other for dear life. The
society's collections include the physical records of the people of
the state that were here in the past, the present and their dreams
of the future. They are the stories, the trials and tribulations,
the triumphs and the losses, from everyday to every year to the
extraordinary. There is the scrawling of an 18 year soldier from
Singac, New Jersey, who tells of the horrible frightening
experiences of WWII, or the silver tankard that was hand crafted in
1767 that showcases the craftsmanship of those early settlers, with
huge piles of photographs and memories of a lifetime of people that
made a state better, as well as an enormous collection that contains
ceramics, books, rare books, paintings, furniture, costumes, prints,
maps, pamphlets, maps and manuscripts. It is the best collection of
diversity of New Jersey in the world, with a marvelous changing
exhibit system that allows the visitor to see something new from
their archives every time they visit.
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