Charles F. Cummings New Jersey Information Center – Our Collections
Click through the tabs to read about the various components of our Charles F. Cummings New Jersey Information Center collections.
New Jersey archives are one of the Division’s most interesting areas. They includes traditional papers such as those of the Newark Eagles Papers, the Newark Public Library Archives (“Librariana”), and several hundred scrapbooks!
Some examples of archives material are records of Newark’s 250th anniversary celebration in 1916, the Flanigan Scrapbooks on theater, and scrapbooks of the Griffith Music Foundation. We also have collections dedicated to past mayors and other local officials, company records, and memorabilia including invitations, business cards, bumper stickers, posters, restaurant place mats and menus, seals, and buttons.
Many of our African American and Hispanic related archives, as well as some general Newark material are now digital at http://digital.npl.org!
Recent additions to our archives collections include the papers of former Star-Ledger editor Barbara J. Kukla, civil rights activist Robert Curvin, and magazine publisher Tiny Prince; as well as the records of the Newark Preservation and Landmarks Committee, and the committee marking Newark’s 350th anniversary.
Click here to Search our Archival Collections
Collection Guidelines:
Some of the most frequently requested books in our collections.
The book collection (searched via the catalog) includes popular as well as scholarly items, including theses and dissertations. The backbone of the historical collection includes municipal, county, local and regional histories covering all parts of the state. Enriching the materials are bibliographies, an author and imprint collection, and fiction set in New Jersey. We are particularly strong in the 300s and 900s: social science and history. We also carry the New Jersey Statutes Annotated for people doing basic legal research.
Digital yearbooks (direct link): Click here.
Click here to Search our Book & Periodical Collection
There are several databases which index smaller parts of our book collection in more detail.
- The NJ Author, and Imprint (RAI) Collection mainly a collection of books by NJ authors that are not primarily about NJ.
- The NJ Ref Fiction Collection fiction books set in NJ
- Inventory of Physical Yearbooks owned by CFCNJIC
A clip from the 1935 Newark City Directory. addresses and occupations.
City directories often give
City directories through 1964 are now available on http://digital.npl.org.
The CFCNJIC has city directories in both print and microfilm for selected locations statewide, with an emphasis on northern New Jersey. In addition, we have a collection of New Jersey phone books on microfilm covering the years from 1908 to 1990. Hard copy Newark phone books back to 1972, and recent hard copy books for nearby areas, are kept in the Division.
Index of statewide city directories
Newark City Directories through 1964 (digital)
Please place requests for non-Newark directories at least two days before coming to the room, as these are kept in another area of the library. Requests can be made by e-mail or phone.
Some documents from our City Documents collection. Left: 1954, Commission on Group Relations. Right: 1961, Central Planning Board.
The CFCNJIC has Newark city, Essex County, and New Jersey state documents, as well as quasi-official documents from non-governmental non-profit agencies, including many community groups. The CFCNJIC, part of the New Jersey document depository system since 1968, automatically receives all non-legislative state publications. Newark and Essex County documents are added as they are received. We have documents from all city departments, including the Newark Housing Authority, the Central Planning Board, the Mayor’s Office, and the Board of Education.
Only certain recent documents appear in our catalog. A comprehensive search of documents must be done via a card file in the library. Most of the departments / organizations for which we have documents (Essex, quasi-Essex, Newark, quasi-Newark and quasi-NJ) are now listed here.
A selection of city documents are digital at http://digital.npl.org.
CFCNJIC does not have vital records. See Genealogy Guide for information about obtaining these via city or state.
While the CFNJIC does have state censuses, there is no index to the records. They are by ward. It is easier to search for relatives via FamilySearch or Ancestry (from 1855-1915). The library is a FamilySearch research center and therefore, census images and viewable on-site.
The Newark New’s microfilmed file on Dr. John Kenney.
The Division’s own “Information Files” offer more than 4,000 folders from a variety of newspapers statewide on historical as well as current topics, see Index of Information (Clippings) Files. The file has been added to for more than 50 years and is updated daily by the Division’s staff.
We also have the Newark New’s own clipping files “The Morgue” on microfilm, an index to which is available here:
|A-C|D-H|I-New Jersey|Newark|Neway to Rogers| Roget-S|T-Z| (see: Newspapers tab for instructions for use)
An 1873 map of Newark from our collections.
Click here to View Digitized Newark Maps
Flat and folded maps
The Newark Library has now digitized the majority of its historical Newark maps, click here to see them.
The Newark Public Library has many historical Newark Maps. A full index of the library’s Newark maps is here and the majority have been digitized here.
The library also has many historical maps of New Jersey which are searchable via card file in the New Jersey room.
Sanborn Maps & Atlases
The library has Sanborn maps for the state on microfilm (Index of Sanborn Maps, includes two lists, be sure to check both lists! Reels #13-24 and 41 are missing), along with other fire insurance atlases for Newark and Essex County in hard copy. We have city atlases from 1868, 1873, 1889, 1901, 1906, 1912 and 1926 that show every house (plus a county atlas from 1906 that only shows a small section of the city). All our Newark atlases have now been digitized, click below [the grey arrow in the top right hand corner of the image must be clicked to zoom in and out on images]
Other maps owned by the library
- Misc. non-Newark county and city folded maps, most from 1970s-1990s, some older (Maps Drawer, NJ Room, Offsite)
- Misc. non-Newark atlases (wooden cabinet, NJ Room, offsite), some lists of that material (not up to date): 1. 2
Other online sources of maps
Newark maps from our collection have been digitized by NJIT here and here, including some atlases and Sanborn maps. The Newark Library in partnership with the Newark City Archives has digitized Newark’s historical ward maps. A limited collection of Sanborn maps of Newark and NJ is available online for free through Princeton University. If you have access through a university, library, or workplace Digital Sanborn Maps is generally the best way to access Sanborn maps. Other digitized NJ and Newark maps can be found through Rutgers digital collection. See Also: New Jersey’s Civil Boundaries (book) which shows the boundaries overtime of NJ towns.
Newark News headlines, Jan 12, 1911
There is some newspaper coverage for New Jersey from 1791 to the present.
We have daily newspapers for Newark beginning in 1832. The biggest Newark papers are the Daily Advertiser (1832-1907), the Newark Evening News (1883-1972), and the Star-Ledger (1939-present). We also have several non-daily papers published in Newark, including the New Jersey Afro-American (1941-1988), the New Jersey Jewish News (1946-present), and the Italian Tribune (1934-present). Papers not published in Newark include the Jersey Journal (1957-2011) and Bergen Record (1962-2010).
Many of our newspapers are now digitized. For microfilm newspapers the public is able to print and e-mail scans of microfilmed articles or pages at the library. If you are unable to come in to the library submit your question here or obituary request here. A fee ($15 for up to three obits, or 10 pages of copies, and 30 minutes research) will apply for out-of-state residents.
There is a limit of three (3) obituary, death notice, or article lookups per month per patron. For obit requests please include: date of death (if possible) and full name of deceased. If you have a project that requires more than 30 minutes research please see our Gateway Service fees. We also recommend using a professional researcher.
Digitized Newspapers
- Newark Evening News (1883-1972)
- Newark Sunday Call (1872-1946)
- Smaller papers digitized by Newark Public Library
- Star Ledger: Available digitally back to 1945 on-site.
NPL Holdings:
- Inventory of Newspapers on Microfilm in the CFCNJIC
- Search our holdings of Newspapers and Periodicals by title
- Periodical Index (search magazine articles by title, 1950-2000)
- Clippings Files
- Handwritten yearly indices to the Newark Evening News on-site.
- Cummings index to the Star Ledger 1971-1982 (not complete)
Other NJ Newspaper Resources
- Statewide Digitized Newspapers
- Find out what newspapers existed for each town: Directory of New Jersey newspapers by Paul Stellhorn.
- Newark/NJ Public Notices 2002-Current: https://www.njpublicnotices.com/ (You must click Archives search to search anything prior to the current year.
Places to look for a date of death when requesting obituaries:
- US Social Security Death Index
- FindAGrave
- New Jersey Death Index (some years missing, may give month only)
- Catholic Cemetery Search
- Jewish Cemetery Search
- Rosedale / Rosehill Cemetery (Linden)
- Mount Pleasant Cemetery: the library has internment records c.1844-2000
- Call the cemetery of burial if known.
- Obtain a death certificate from the city or state. See: Genealogy Guide
Newark, 1957 from our photo collections.
The CFCNJIC owns hundreds of thousands of photographs. The vast majority of them are uncatalogued.
The catalogued picture collection consists of approximately 35,000 photographs and illustrations, mostly black and white, searchable in the library catalog. Included also is a large collection of color postcards. These onsite pictures only are searchable via the Illustration Index.
The uncatalogued pictures include the photo archives of two of New Jersey’s most important newspapers. The Newark Evening News photo archive contains approximately 800,000 black and white images of people and places in New Jersey and around the world, dating from the early 20th century until 1972. The photo archive of the Star-Ledger, contained in 36 filing cabinets and more than 200 boxes, spans the 1970s to the 1990s.
The library owns many other image collections, including the Al Henderson Collection of negatives, 38,000 mostly studio portrait images of African Americans taken in the mid-20th century 1950-1987. Here is an index to the Al Henderson photos. The indexed name is the person who ORDERED the photo.
All of these collections are stored off site and are available by appointment. Searches of these photos can be requested by e-mail or phone.
Additionally, the library owns a photo collection of many Newark streets (mostly Central Newark) during the 1960s. The Samuel Berg Photograph Collection has recently been digitized and is available here. The website Newark Changing also allows you to browse the Berg photos using maps.
Several other collections of photos have also been digitized and are available at http://digital.npl.org.
Items owned by the Library may be copied for publication subject to institutional copy fees. The Star Ledger must approve requests for use of Star Ledger photos. Note that it is the patron’s responsibility to determine copyright of images.
Search cataloged photographs (majority are not cataloged)
Index to SOME of our uncatalogued Newark News photo files: Newark uncatalogued photos
The homepage for NPL’s digital collections.
The Newark Public Library now has a DIGITAL COLLECTION, click here to see digitized photos and documents.
Other Online Materials
- Ankner, T. (2013). Libraries & Repositories: The Charles F. Cummings New Jersey Information Center at the Newark Public Library. GSNJ Newsletter, 22(1) 6–7.
- Full-text articles about the 1967 Newark Riots from the Newark Evening News, July 13 – 16, 1967
- Knowing Newark: Selected Star-Ledger Columns by Charles F. Cummings, features over 500+ columns written about Newark by noted librarian, historian, and author Charles F. Cummings and originally published in the Star-Ledger
- LGBT Resources at CFCNJIC
- Newark History and Genealogy Web Guide (First see: Genealogy Guide)
- New Jersey History and Genealogy Web Guide (First see: Genealogy Guide)
- Primary and Secondary Sources in the CFCNJIC by George Hawley
- Read About Newark’s Literary Lights (pdf of original 2002 publication)
- Read about Newark’s Literary Lights (pdf of the 2016 publication, updated for the 350th Anniversary of the Founding of the City of Newark, NJ)
- Ethnic Groups Timeline
- Online Databases
NPL’s Youtube Account at youtube.com/NewarkPublicLibrary contains recordings out our historical programs, some programs co-sponsored by the Newark History Society can be found on their Youtube at youtube.com/NewarkHistorySocietyOrg .
For reference questions, research services, and to order copies, call the New Jersey Information Center at (973) 733-7775, request an obit, or click here to contact us with a question.