Newark's Last Fifteen Years, 1904-1919. The Story in Outline

Transcriber Note
Newark's Last Fifteen Years, 1904-1919. The Story in Outline.

Newark's Last Fifteen Years, 1904-1919.
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.