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Due to budget cuts, NJHS library staff is very limited.
Please bear in mind that the response time for all requests may be up to 12 weeks.
Manuscripts
The Society's manuscript collection consists of approximately 1,700 manuscript groups totaling
over 3,200 linear feet of material. Materials include diaries, ledgers, correspondence, family and
personal papers, architectural drawings, church records, receipt books, business records, social
welfare agency records, women's organization materials, and other records. In the collection is the
original charter from Charles II deeding the lands that became New Jersey. Another treasure is the
first trans-Atlantic cable (1858). The Society holds the papers of Justice Joseph P. Bradley;
activist Mary Philbrook; steamship and locomotive pioneer Colonel John Stevens; African-American civic
leader, Anna Monroe; 19th-century obstetrician Dr. Marietta H. Crane Woodruff; and politicians such
as Mahlon Dickerson, Maureen Odgen, and Walter Edge. Documents also relate to urban life,
agriculture, slavery, military affairs, architecture, early health care, political movements and
social life in the state.
To browse manuscript collections, go to Browse the Archives
Recently processed manuscript collections:
MG 1156 Pluma Batten Papers, ca. 1940s-1950s
MG 1683 Theron L. Marsh Papers, 1865-1996
MG 1684 Kenneth Gibson Papers, 1955-1984
MG 1685 Weymer J. Mills Collection, 1899-1923
MG 1686 John A. Larter Civil War Papers, 1862-1899
MG 1688 Doris Cohn Grossman Collection, ca. 1920-1939
Photographs
The library's vast photograph collection encompasses the entire state of New Jersey with images
of parades and May Pole celebrations, pre-World War I business districts, the evolution of
transportation (roads, canals, bridges, trains and airports), prominent people, African-American
communities, scores of localities, immigrant communities, education, military events, recreation
along the Jersey shore, the evolution of urban neighborhoods, and panoramic views of towns such as
Newark and Atlantic City in the early 20th-century. The collection consists of approximately 100,000
images and is organized by subject. Included are glass plate negatives, matted prints, postcards,
daguerreotypes, tintypes, ambrotypes, carte de visites, cabinet cards, slides, lantern slides,
stereocards, and 19th-century photograph albums.
Searching for digitized images?
Visit the New Jersey Digital Highway for a sampling of some of the Historical Society's photographic and manuscript collections.
The New Jersey Historical Society
52 Park Place - Newark, NJ 07102
(973) 596-8500 - Fax: (973) 596-6957
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