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The Jersey City Free Public Library (JCFPL) is the largest municipal library in the State of New Jersey, serving one of the most diverse cities in the country. The Library meets the needs of the community by providing a wide array of programming and resources, and access to a broad range of print, digital, and audiovisual collections. The Library has been a cornerstone of Jersey City’s growing and changing community for more than 120 years.

In 1889, Mayor Orestes Cleveland appointed a board of trustees to found the Jersey City Free Public Library. In 1901, the library opened with 15,515 books, ready to serve Jersey City’s residents. At present, the JCFPL consists of ten locations and a Bookmobile, offering physical and digital collections exceeding one million items. The library staff of 140+ provides the nearly 300,000 residents with information, programs, services, events, and resources for entertainment and lifelong learning. The JCFPL continues to evolve in order to best serve Jersey City’s racially, economically, and socially (incredibly) diverse population.

The New Jersey Room is the local history department of the library, located on the third floor of the Priscilla Gardner Main Library Branch. It contains an extensive collection of books, images, maps, research files and more documenting the history of Jersey City and Hudson County, as well as the state and region.

Formed as a department in 1964 to incorporate the collections of the Hudson County Historical Society and the research collection of William H. Richardson into the existing historical materials collected by the library, the New Jersey Room has served generations of genealogists, students of all levels, historians, creative writers, and casual researchers alike. Whether it be the history of a family, a building, street, or neighborhood, social issues, or the perpetual cycles of redevelopment, the New Jersey Room collection and its dedicated staff are here as a resource to all who have an interest in Jersey City and Hudson County.

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 New Jersey State Normal School at Montclair was established in 1908, approximately 5 years after the initial planning of the school. Charles Sumner Chapin served as the first principal. The first building constructed was College Hall, and it still stands today. At the time, the campus was around 25 acres (100,000 m2), had 8 faculty members and 187 students. The first graduating class, which numbered at 45 students, contained William O. Trapp, who would then go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for journalism in 1929. The first dormitory was built five years later, in 1915, and is known as Russ Hall.

In 1924, Harry Sprague was the first president of Montclair, and shortly afterwards the school began being more inclusive of extracurricular activities such as athletics. In 1927, however, after studies had emerged concerning the number of high school teachers in the state of New Jersey (only 10% of all high school teachers received their degrees from New Jersey), the institution became Montclair State Teachers College and developed a four-year (Bachelor of Arts) program in pedagogy, becoming the first US institute to do so. In 1937 it became the first teachers college accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.

In 1958 the school merged with the Panzer College of Physical Education and Hygiene to become Montclair State College. The school became a comprehensive multi-purpose institution in 1966. The Board of Higher Education designated the school a teaching university on April 27, 1994, and in the same year the school became Montclair State University. It has offered Master of Arts programs since 1932, Master of Business Administration since 1981, Master of Education since 1985, Master of Science since 1992, Master of Fine Arts since 1998, Doctor of Education since 1999, and Doctor of Environmental Management in 2003 (now the PhD in Environmental Science and Management). PhD degrees were added in Teacher Education and Teacher Development in 2008, Counselor Education, Family Studies, Mathematics Education, Communications Sciences and Disorders by 2014, and most recently Clinical as well as Industrial/Organizational Psychology (2021). In 2018, Montclair State University graduated more than 30 doctoral students.

"While New Jersey City University throughout its history has held fast to its founding principles of access and excellence, it has grown and evolved over the years to become the institution of great opportunity that it is today.

Chartered in 1927, what is now New Jersey City University opened in 1929 as the New Jersey State Normal School at Jersey City. It was renamed New Jersey State Teachers College at Jersey City in 1935 and Jersey City State College in 1958 before adopting its present-day status and name in 1998.

NJCU began its history as the country's only teacher-training college with a three-year program. In a single building situated on 10 acres along what was then Hudson Boulevard, it taught 330 women and one man, most of whom were residents of Hudson County. In 1958 the school was authorized to award the Bachelor of Arts degree, and an M.A. in education was added the following year. In 1962, it became one of the few colleges in the United States with a special-education demonstration school when it began administering the A. Harry Moore School, with which it officially merged in 1963. In 1968, Jersey City State College developed a liberal arts program.

In 1998, the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education approved the school's request for university status and a change in name to New Jersey City University, and the institution was restructured to include:

• The College of Arts and Sciences, dedicated as the William J. Maxwell College of Arts and Sciences in 2006 in honor of the 1958 alumnus, president emeritus, and distinguished service professor of history and education
• The College of Education, dedicated in 2007 as the Deborah Cannon Partridge Wolfe College of Education in honor of the 1937 alumna, teacher, theologian and humanitarian
• The College of Professional Studies"

(From the New Jersey City University website)

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 College of New Jersey’s academic tradition reaches back to 1855 when it was established by the state legislature as the New Jersey State Normal School. It was the first state-established teacher training school in the state and the ninth in the nation. Governor Rodman Price promoted the idea of a training institute for New Jersey’s teachers and mobilized support among influential state leaders. Located on Clinton Avenue in Trenton from 1855 until the early 1930s, the Normal School flourished in the latter 1800s, expanding both its academic offerings and physical facilities.
The Model School was founded within the Normal School shortly after opening to serve as a teacher training laboratory for primary, secondary, grammar, and high school students. Additional affiliated teacher training and specialty schools operated outside of Trenton such as The Farnum Preparatory School of New Jersey (1856-1912) and Rural School Observation Centers at Hart’s Corner, Harbourton, and Plainsboro (1917-1930). A variety of partnerships were established with schools around the state for teacher training. The Model School closed in 1917 and was replaced by the Training School, which served grades 1-6 and was tuition-free. Once the Normal School planned to move to the Hillwood Lakes campus, the Training School closed. In 1931, the Normal School entered into an agreement with Ewing Township to use the Lanning School for teacher training. This arrangement lasted until the late 1950s.

In 1925, the first four-year baccalaureate degree program was established. This change marked the beginning of TCNJ’s transition from a normal school to a teachers’ college and was accompanied by a change in physical surroundings. In 1928, a 210-acre tract of land in Ewing Township, then known as Hillwood Lakes, was purchased as a new site for the College.
Graduate study was instituted at the College in 1947, and accreditation from various national associations was forthcoming in the 1950s. The enactment of the Higher Education Act of 1966 paved the way for then Trenton State College to become a multipurpose institution by expanding its degree programs into a variety of fields other than education. By 1972, 70% of entering students selected non-teaching majors..

The College of New Jersey emphasizes the undergraduate experience. A strong liberal arts core forms the foundation for a wealth of degree programs offered through TCNJ’s seven schools — Arts and Communication; Business; Humanities & Social Sciences; Education; Science; Nursing, Health, and Exercise Science; and Engineering.

In addition, the college experienced five name changes over its history:
1855 New Jersey State Normal School
1908 New Jersey State Normal School at Trenton
1929 New Jersey State Teachers College and State Normal School at Trenton
1937 New Jersey State Teachers College at Trenton
1958 Trenton State College
1996 The College of New Jersey

According to the New-York Historical Society, the Pach brothers, Gustavus (1848-1904), Gotthelf (1852-1925), and Morris (1837-?) lived and photographed people and subjects for over a century in New York and New Jersey.

The College of New Jersey’s academic tradition reaches back to 1855 when it was established by the state legislature as the New Jersey State Normal School. It was the first state-established teacher training school in the state and the ninth in the nation. Governor Rodman Price promoted the idea of a training institute for New Jersey’s teachers and mobilized support among influential state leaders. Located on Clinton Avenue in Trenton from 1855 until the early 1930s, the Normal School flourished in the latter 1800s, expanding both its academic offerings and physical facilities. In 1925, the first four-year baccalaureate degree program was established. This change marked the beginning of TCNJ’s transition from a normal school to a teachers’ college and was accompanied by a change in physical surroundings. In 1928, a beautiful 210-acre tract of land in Ewing Township, then known as Hillwood Lakes, was purchased as a new site for the College.