Showing 2 results

Archival description
2 results with digital objects Show results with digital objects
“The Girl Graduate: Her Own Book," scrapbook by Emma R. Kerns Crofton, Normal School Class of 1916 · Item · ca. 1911-1917
Part of TFPL New Jersey State Normal and Model Schools at Trenton and Successor Institutions Collection

This scrapbook includes photographs, illustrations, commencement and class day booklets, correspondence, report cards, and ephemera collected by Emma R. Kerns, Model School Class of 1916. It offers insight into the daily lives and school careers of the Model students throughout the school's final years before its closure after the 1917 academic year. Later annotations also appear; some are perhaps by Miss Kerns before her death in 1977, but others most likely were added by past Trentoniana librarians following the book's donation ca. 1977. Any additions in a clearly different hand have been rendered in italics. Some of these italicized annotations simply read "index," probably referring to Trentoniana's card catalogue.

Due to the volume's bulky nature, it was not possible to digitize without disbinding the entire volume and scanning pages individually. Two photos of the book before this process are included at the end of the PDF. Pages have been scanned in order, skipping any blank sections; as a result, page numbers may appear to jump. Kerns also pasted many booklets and folded items into these pages, and these items sometimes required multiple scans to entirely capture. Finally, note that file size limits have required a significant amount of compression to host this PDF, and may negatively affect the quality of the images. An unaltered version is available through Trentoniana upon request.

A partial transcription of the handwritten sections is included.

Kerns, Emma R. (Emma Rebecca), 1896-1977
TCNJ003 · Collection · 1913-1980 (bulk 1913-1915)

The bulk of the collection pertains to Mildred’s time at the New Jersey State Normal School at Trenton from 1913-1915. Of special note is her diary, which begins with a daily account of camping in Shawmont, Pennsylvania (now Roxborough, Northwest Philadelphia) before going off to Normal where she writes of her classroom and social activities. Her copy of the Seal yearbook is heavily signed and annotated with alumni information up to 1980. Her photograph collection documents students in their everyday lives on campus including in their dorm rooms, wearing gym uniforms, performing a Japanese Tea ceremony, and a possible inside joke of her and her friends enacting characters based on their teacher William N. Mumper (the yearbook is inscribed to indicate “Mumpers” characters). There also are several photographs of faculty members (before they were pictured in the yearbooks).

There are some additional materials from the late 1970s including Normal School alumni lists and photographs of her paintings from her post-retirement career as an artist.

Pepper, Mildred Bard Charlesworth, 1895-1985