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The Correspondence Series contains her first teaching recommendation letter in 1915, a teaching appointment notice, and a few personal letters ending in 1954.

The collection contains autobiographical information including a curriculum vitae-like document composed after Bray’s retirement. She also jotted down notes for a “Typical day at retirement home” that might have been for an article in the home’s newsletter or other publication.

Series 1 comprises two issues of volume 1 of So to Speak, an early college magazine. Both the November and December issues contain book reviews, short stories, music reviews of swing bands, poetry, drawings, humor, gossip, sports, and play reviews. Other material includes a letter from Vernetta Decker and a dating bureau (early singles classifieds). Notably, the publication describes the pre-World War II climate of the campus. The tone is light-hearted, however the gossipy nature of the publication is criticized in feedback published in the December issue.

These two are the only issues in the Archives and Special Collections, however, the magazine continued to publish until the end of 1941. The Signal newspaper reported in the November 29, 1941 issue that the very high cost of paper prohibited publishing further.

Annual Reports of the State Normal School Board of Trustees to the State Senate and General Assembly provide a yearly review of both the Normal School and Model School operations. The information provided varies from year to year but generally includes a Report of the Principal [a position that became President of the College], Treasurer’s Reports, a list of officers and instructors, descriptions of courses of instruction and names of graduates.

Clara Wolverton’s “Grades Book” is a handwritten notebook documenting her teachers’ names and the grades she earned in each subject from Centennial Grammar School 1892 - 1894, Trenton High School 1894 - 1898, through New Jersey State Normal School 1898 - February 1901. There are some additional loose pages with calculations and class lists also housed with the book.

There are two scrapbooks in this series: The older scrapbook (c. 1873-1921) contains ephemera related to Commencement such as invitations, tickets, and programs for Senior class activities and the Commencement ceremony from the era of the Normal School.

In the 1908-1932 scrapbook, many of the Commencement programs only have the page with the events of the day and do not have the cover and/or a page listing the graduate’s names. Starting in 1918, some of them have the page with graduates’ names, but they were at one time pasted into a notebook that has since been disassembled but the back pages of the brochures may not be accessible and/or readable.

Series 1 - Faculty Registers, 1856-1961
The Payroll (spelled “Pay Roll” on cover) Register contains the monthly wages of faculty and administrators of the New Jersey State Normal School from May/June 1856, through January 1873. The register lists the faculty names and amounts due with their signature arranged in order of highest to lowest salaries per month. Beginning in 1857, there was no pay during the summer months of July and August.

The Faculty Book is a combination of a register and scrapbook. It was likely begun by Principal James Green or his secretary around 1895, to record information about faculty members. It contains a handwritten index of faculty names (all of whom appear to be employed by the school by 1902) corresponding to brief handwritten biographies. It also has pasted-in recommendation letters and clippings about faculty members up to 1907, handwritten and pasted-in clippings about Normal School trustees and officers, legislation approving new residence halls in 1890, and New Jersey State Board of Education minutes. Also included in the book was a loose copy of a memo from James Green instructing all teachers to fill out information for a registry.

The Teacher’s Register is a set of 176 cards that appear to be the registry referred to in the memo from James Green in the Faculty Book. Each card records a faculty member’s education background, credentials, and publications, created from 1902-1928. Some cards have additional annotations that date up to 1961 about deaths, name changes, or date a teacher left the Normal School.

The Publications and Ephemera Series comprises materials specific to the Class of 1911 and Gamma Sigma Nu. The Class of 1911 materials include Normal School publications such as The Signal newspaper and The Seal yearbook, as well as ephemera related to Commencement and Class Day activities. The Gamma Sigma Nu materials include newsletters and reunion booklets. The date span is 1911-2000.

Her diary begins in 1913 with a daily account of camping in Shawmont, Pennsylvania (now Roxborough, Northwest Philadelphia), before going off to New Jersey State Normal School at Trenton where she then writes of her classroom and social activities to 1915.

Annual group portraits of graduating classes of the Model School. New Jersey State Normal School at Trenton students applied their newly learned teaching practices at the Model School. Many of the Model School graduates later attended the Normal School.