Omeka is an online collection tool that allows us to put some of our collections online.
These postcards were collected by Jon Schlissel, who was an avid collector of items related to his adopted hometown of Jersey City. His life was tragically cut short in the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. We honor the generosity of spirit that led him to stipulate in his will that his collection be shared by becoming part of the collections of the Jersey City Free Public Library and are proud to make his bequest the first collection shared on Omeka.
Daniel McNulty, 1908-1976, began and ended his professional life as an undertaker, following in the family business that his father and grandfather had practiced. But it was his career as a photographer, a long-standing hobby that increasingly became a professional practice, that has secured his fame among those who love Jersey City and its history to the present day.
For more information, click the link.
Digitized maps will be uploaded and geo-tagged here as they are scanned. The initial collection features real estate advertisement "prospectus" maps that document the development of Jersey City from the mid-19th through early 20th centuries. The second collection features Assessment maps created form the late 19th through early 20th century. Showing short stretches of streets that were improved by the city, the maps list property owners. They also feature many fine examples of creative hand lettering in the titles.
Collection description by J. Owen Grundy, City Historian, written September 1981:
Miss Margaret Jeffers, Director, Division of Assessments, City of Jersey City, took a photographer on a tug boat and photographed the entire Jersey City waterfront from [the] Bayonne line to [the] Hoboken line on November 15, 23, and 30, 1954, in afternoons, from land side and November 16 from water side.
These photos are a wonderful depiction of the working waterfront towards the end of Jersey City's century-long role as a rail shipping and transfer location.
Richard Sinakin (1908-1991) operated a pharmacy at 2 Webster Ave. from 1935 to his retirement in 1969. During the Second World War, Sinakin took photos of local enlistees in the war effort, which he would display in the pharmacy window. In addition to photos taken near the store and around the neighborhood, others seem to have been sent from active duty sites.
After the war he kept the photos in a scrapbook, bound between 18.5” x 24” wooden covers. Photos of service members killed in action were indicated by a gold star.
When Sinakin retired in 1969, he asked local community activist Vince Moore, whose wife’s name is immortalized in Janet Moore Park on Ogden Avenue, to return the photos to the veterans. Those whose subjects Moore was unable to find remained in the scrapbook, later donated to the Jersey City Free Public Library, and are now digitized and made accessible through this website.
The Home Owners' Loan Corporation's notorious maps of housing conditions in the late 1930s have come to define the cycles of discrimination that have reinforced inequality throughout US history. Virtually all of Hudson County was deemed a poor risk by these assessors in 1939, based on the local data provided on these sheets describing small areas - along with stark narrative interpretations.
The database is set up to be searched using a map. Fuller information can be found at the Mapping Inequality site hosted by the University of Richmond, who provided the scanned documents hosted here for easier access.
Between 1861 and 1903, August Will created a series of landscapes documenting his hometown of Jersey City as it was transforming from rural to industrial use. His paintings were donated to the Jersey City Free Public Library and became part of the Jersey City Museum collection as it was split off into a separate institution. The Jersey City Museum closed and the collections were ultimately acquired by the Zimmerli Museum in New Brunswick.
Prior to the collection leaving the library, a series of black and white reference photos were taken of selected items from the collection. Those negatives were recently scanned by the Jersey City Free Public Library's New Jersey Room. The scans were then colorized using YouCam AI. Until such time as the originals are again easily accessible, we share these images to make this invaluable documentation of late 19th century Jersey City available.
The Lutheran Church of Our Savior was formed on January 7, 1900, with the Rev. E.W. Fulper leading the congregation, according to The Jersey Journal. A cornerstone for the church building was laid at Bergen and Clendenny avenues in 1902 and the church was completed in 1903. The photos in this small collection were donated to the Jersey City Free Public Library's New Jersey Room in 2023.
Leonard Miner was a Jersey City photographer specializing in portraits and weddings. This collection of photos currently shows photos of the aftermath of an intense storm, but the location is unknown although it is possibly the Jersey Shore area. If any locations are recognized, please email njroom@jclibrary.org with information. More Miner photos will be added soon.
Cabinet cards are photographic portraits mounted on heavy cardboard backing, popular in the 1880s-1900s, having replaced the smaller cartes de visite. This collection consists of cabinet cards found in the Library's collection. The two most recent additions came via the Genealogical Society of New Jersey.
This database provides access to scanned microfilm of over 87,000 pages from 22 newspapers (some being related titles), starting with the Bergen County Gazette & Advertiser of Sept. 15, 1829 through the Jersey City Argus of March 23, 1891. Many titles only existed for a year or two before changing names or going out of business. The American Standard and its successor the Argus, on the other hand, were continuous from late 1859 to early 1891.
Digitized by the library through Advantage Archives using an automated scanning process, the database provides images of similar quality to the microfilm, unlike the more labor intensive process used for Chronicling America. While a search function is available and useful, we suggest also browsing through the images as humans are, for now, better at reading print that was microfilmed from poor quality originals than the OCR "robots" are.
The newest digital initiative of the New Jersey Room is making collections available through the Internet Archive.
In 2020, the library partnered with the Community Webs program of the Internet Archive to capture web-based local news sources and select statewide news sources related to Covid-19 and its impact on Jersey City and Hudson County, along with community web discussion forums and lifestyle/arts/culture sources. These sources are now archived at this link.
Beginning in 2023 additional collections will be added to the Internet Archive. The initial collection is Master Plans of the city from 1920-2000, along with select supporting documents. These documents will be the subject of scholarly work to place them in context and make them more useful. This project is made possible by a grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a division of the Department of State, and administered by the Hudson County Office of Cultural & Heritage Affairs, Thomas A. DeGise, Hudson County Executive & the Hudson County Board of County Commissioners.
In 2006 the Jersey City Free Public Library received grant funding to identify and digitize materials related to the Dutch immigrant experience. A selection of 112 items ranging from a 17th century deed in the Dutch language through photos from a 1910 celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Dutch village of Bergen.
View the full list of items at this link.