The founding of the New Jersey State Normal School in Jersey City was based on legislation in and subsequent amendments to the New Jersey Laws of 1903. Chartered in 1927 and formally opened on September 12, 1929, New Jersey State Normal School in Jersey City was the sixth state normal school established in the state. The first state normal school was established in Trenton in 1855, followed by subsequent state normal schools in Montclair, Newark, Glassboro, Paterson, and finally, Jersey City.
Shortly after 1855, while deliberations were ongoing regarding the establishment of a second state normal school, a local Jersey City-based Saturday Normal School that was run by the Jersey City Board of Education began in 1856, operating for a total of twenty-three years. In 1877, a teacher training school began in a grammar school where student teachers took “training class” to observe and do practice teaching.
By 1886, preparatory work for teaching transferred to the Jersey City Training School for Teachers. In 1896 it relocated to a new building and was institutionally reorganized to have two departments: “Model” and “Practice.” By the end of 1900, the school closed and the Board of Education renewed their 1896 proposal for the Assembly to pass a bill providing a location for a Jersey City-based state normal school.
In 1911, the New Jersey Department of Education attempted to cement jurisdiction of the state, rather than cities and counties, to unify the training and certification of teachers across the entire state. The State Normal School at Trenton started offering a state certificate, which allowed graduates to teach in any part of the state. This contributed to a decline in attendance to existing Jersey City-based training schools that could not offer such a certificate, in addition to the onset of World War I.
While educators and officials in Hudson County long sought to establish a normal school locally, it took nearly twenty-five years since the initial state legislation (1903-1927) before the construction of the state normal school in Jersey City. Various factors led to delays, such as legislative setbacks, funding changes at the state level, difficulties in securing a site in the city for the school, and tense partisan political battles. These challenges were met with the advocacy of Jersey City civic clubs and appeals by various Jersey City education commissioners, ultimately leading to the legislature approving funds for the New Jersey State Normal School at Jersey City in 1927. Two years later, the New Jersey State Normal School in Jersey City opened in 1929.
The New Jersey State Normal School in Jersey City was renamed and restructured throughout the years:
- New Jersey State Normal School in Jersey City, 1927-1935
- New Jersey State Teachers College at Jersey City in 1935, offering bachelor of science degree in education and the country’s only teacher-training college with a three-year program
- Jersey City State College in 1958, offering a bachelor of arts degree and four-year liberal arts program
- New Jersey City University in 1998, establishing a College of Arts and Sciences, College of Education, and College of professional studies
The founding of the New Jersey State Normal School in Jersey City was based on legislation in and subsequent amendments to the New Jersey Laws of 1903. Chartered in 1927 and formally opened on September 12, 1929, New Jersey State Normal School in Jersey City was the sixth state normal school established in the state. The first state normal school was established in Trenton in 1855, followed by subsequent state normal schools in Montclair, Newark, Glassboro, Paterson, and finally, Jersey City.
The New Jersey State Normal School in Jersey City was renamed and restructured throughout the years:
- New Jersey State Normal School in Jersey City, 1927-1935
- New Jersey State Teachers College at Jersey City in 1935, offering bachelor of science degree in education and the country’s only teacher-training college with a three-year program
- Jersey City State College in 1958, offering a bachelor of arts degree and four-year liberal arts program
- New Jersey City University in 1998, establishing a College of Arts and Sciences, College of Education, and College of professional studies
The Jewish sorority Sigma Phi Alpha was founded at The New Jersey State Normal School in 1928. According to the 1933 Seal yearbook, its members were very active in "the promotion of scholarship, the development of friendship, and participation in athletics. ... Before the students' staff was added to the library, members of the sorority held themselves responsible for assisting the librarian." Additionally, the sorority donated children's books to the school library on an annual basis. Sigma Phi Alpha also sponsored many social activities including teas, card games, parties, camping excursions at the school camp, and dances at the Hillwood Inn and other locations. The sorority regularly competed in sports with other school societies. In later years, Sigma Phi Alpha held an annual poetry contest, with the top poems appearing in The Seal.
The April 13, 1946 issue of The Signal announced that the sorority disbanded.
Nellie Hoffman was born on December 18, 1872, to Martha A. Watters and Cyrus A. Hoffman in Califon/Tewksbury, New Jersey. She began her career teaching second and third grades at Hunterdon County Schools before enrolling in the Normal School at Trenton. At the Normal School, she received high grades and the partially disparaging final evaluation in Grade Books and Reports, volume 1, page 38, of “Unattractive in person, but character of real worth. Has a good mind and teaches well.” She graduated in June 1897 with a certificate to teach Intermediate classes. She taught seventh and eighth grades in Oceanic Public Schools, and by 1904, she was Vice Principal of Succassuna Public School in Califon. She later married Robert Beatty Ward, and they settled in Schooley’s Mountain, Washington Township, Morris County. According to the census, she later worked as a stone cutter with her husband’s monument business. She died on October 4, 1962.
Lillie McCaughan was born on October 5, 1876, to Lillia and James McCaughan, who had recently migrated from Ireland to New Jersey, Her older sister, Elizabeth “Lizzie” M. McCaughan attended the Normal School at Trenton as a member of the class of June 1885. Lillie attended the Normal School nearly a decade later, and received the final evaluation of “Quietly animated. Articulation indistinct. Disciplinary power growing. Prepares carefully. Has teaching power,” from Grade Books and Reports, volume 1, page 22. She graduated in June 1896, then went on to teach at Clayton (near Glassboro) and Camden Schools in New Jersey until her retirement in 1939. She married William Young Leuallen in 1904, but divorced him in 1913. She spent her summers at a cottage in Stone Harbor and lived in Audubon, New Jersey where she died on June 20, 1975.
Katharine “Kate” Sarah Colby was born on July 27, 1838, to Lydia Van Dyke and Aaron Colby in Kingston, New Jersey. She was in the first class of the Normal School. Her signature is the fourth one on the first page of the school’s first Teacher Contracts book. She graduated in 1858, and the 1860 census shows that she was working as a schoolteacher and living with her parents in South Brunswick Township, New Jersey. In 1864 she married Presbyterian minister Peter Haverly Brooks, and his work took them to various locations in New York; New Jersey; and Pennsylvania, where they ultimately ended up in the northeastern part of the state. She was active in the church and founded a needlework guild in Wilkes-Barre. She died on October 14, 1923, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.