Showing 186 results

Content warning: The illustration and description of the mural (in Box 1, Folder 3) includes inaccurate, derogatory, and/or offensive depictions of people indigenous to the area.

The Mildred Duncan Warnecke Collection contains student group photographs; photo albums depicting family life, sports and leisure activities, rural scenes, and Normal School students; newsletters and student activities of the class of 1907; and reunion materials related to Gamma Sigma Nu sorority. The collection also contains copies of The Seal yearbook and The Signal newspaper. Warnecke came to acquire the photo albums created by Louise Woodruff Bush, likely through meeting Bush (older Gamma Sigma Nu member) at the sorority annual reunions. The collection spans 1906-2000, with most of the materials created between 1906-1969.

The Clara Wolverton Papers contain materials from her early education beginning in 1892, through Normal School, and her earliest teaching years ending in 1903. It comprises personal items such as her grades book, greeting cards, and notes of affection from her students, as well as professional items such as her teaching contracts and letters of recommendation, and also printed commencement programs and tickets and clippings. There are only a few items after this time period, and they document her involvement in the Red Cross and Botanical Society of Pennsylvania.

There are no materials related to teaching at Trenton Public Schools or attending University of Pennsylvania.

Her collection also initially contained six books, four of which were cataloged and added to the Historical Textbooks and General Collections of Gitenstein Library, and two were deaccessioned due to duplication.

Content warning: Gasn’s diary refers to students in special education classes in derogatory terms.

These four diaries describe the lives and activities of women at the New Jersey State Normal School. They also document their first teaching experiences from the school’s earliest days in 1855 to 1920, when the enrollment and curriculum had significantly expanded and the school would soon become a college.

It is not known whether or not, or where, Ida Totten might have attended a Normal School or received teacher training, but in the fall term of 1883, she began a diary to record her first experience of teaching in Greenville (now called Greendell) School, in Sussex County. She described her frustrations with named children in her class and the challenges of disciplining them, as well as her activities at home on the weekends including attending temperance meetings and church. The final pages of the diary are from May 1884 and contain notes from Page’s Theory and Practice of Teaching, so perhaps she was continuing her teaching education, or had not yet graduated (if she did).

The format of Reba Gasn’s diary has two years on a single page: entries for 1919 are written on the top of the page, and 1920 is on the bottom; the two years are often also delineated by black and blue ink. She documented her day-to-day life in school, her hobbies, social life, meals enjoyed (and not), and activities with family and friends on breaks at home near the shore. She also writes of anti-semitism she experienced in Trenton, as well as her many illnesses.

The diary of Mary Jane Sergeant Larison has a typewritten transcription from 1955 (at the time of the school’s Centennial) and is currently being re-transcribed in digital format. The transcript of the diary of Rosena Craig Foster Whitlock was written and annotated by her granddaughter Susan Whitlock in 2008. Transcripts of the Totten and Gasn diaries will be available in the coming years.

This small booklet records the Class Day exercises for the Model School's Class of 1904, depicting the class roster, the order of exercises, and the names of students performing. A reproduction of the corresponding commencement booklet can be found in "History of the Model Class of 1904" (see related materials below). No transcription.

In this short, messy review (complete with mysterious splotch), Lewis Cochran advises his classmates to use "nails" (straight pins) to simplify their clothing and keep down any loose folds of fabric. Transcription included.

This report spends one third of its brief length defining "critic" before praising the Society for their good performance. Transcription included.

A very short summary of the Thencanic meeting, an uncommon report from Charles Camp. Unfitting with his previous behavior, Camp urgently calls for order in the Society. Transcription included.

The first critic's report by future Thencanic Secretary Benjamin Messler shows the author's love for writing by surpassing in length every known prior report. Messler remains respectful but spares no one in the Society from his criticisms, listing problems with behavior, describing rhetorical and oratorical mistakes, and begging the Society's pardon for his remarks. Transcription included.

The Thencanic's meeting of April 22 occurred the day after Spain severed diplomatic relations with the United States, and between that meeting and the writing of this report, the U.S. declared war on Spain (April 25). So this report emerged from an atmosphere of nationalism, jingoism, and adolescent masculinity, as Ernest Van Dyke's "good and patriotic" oration reveals. Katzenbach also reveals that the Society has inducted Rear Admiral William T. Sampson (soon to direct the U.S. fleet at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba in July) and former U.S. Ambassador to Spain Steward Woodford as honorary members of the Thencanic. Transcription included.

This report focuses on the rhetorical, oratorical, and grammatical missteps of the members who spoke at this meeting. Baumgartner also discusses the generally rowdy behavior of the students. Transcription included.