The Seal Yearbooks 1911-1917.
1918 - 1920 The Seal Yearbooks, with ephemera removed from 1919 yearbook.
1921 - 1926 The Seal Yearbooks.
1927 - 1930 The Seal Yearbooks, and ephemera removed from yearbooks belonging to Vivian Rolandelli, Kenneth Weber, Jessie R. Turk, and others dating from 1928 - 2008.
The Certificates and Diplomas Series span from her primary school years in 1904 through 1946. They include, among other items, her Normal School diploma and bachelor’s degree, as well as membership certificates to honorary sororities, Red Cross volunteer service, and her marriage certificate to Josiah Haskell.
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.
Predominately contains newsletters and student activities of the class of 1907, and reunion materials related to Gamma Sigma Nu. The collection also contains copies of The Seal yearbook and The Signal newspaper.
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 Final Grades Books are three volumes (Volume 1 - 1871-1889, Volume 2 - 1889-1901, Volume 3 - 1901-1912) which record a student’s final set of grades in each academic subject, similar to today’s transcript. Students’ names are listed alphabetically
by their last name, then chronologically by graduating year. Each entry records the student’s name, date of entrance to the school, final grade average by subject, and remarks. The grading system was either the same as or similar to the numerical scale of 100 used today, or a letter scoring system: E = Excellent, VG = Very Good, G = Good, F = Fair, P = Poor/Failure.
(Blank pages were not scanned which resulted in gaps in the page numbers.)
The Final Grades Books are three volumes (Volume 1 - 1871-1889, Volume 2 - 1889-1901, Volume 3 - 1901-1912) which record a student’s final set of grades in each academic subject, similar to today’s transcript. Students’ names are listed alphabetically
by their last name, then chronologically by graduating year. Each entry records the student’s name, date of entrance to the school, final grade average by subject, and remarks. The grading system was either the same as or similar to the numerical scale of 100 used today, or a letter scoring system: E = Excellent, VG = Very Good, G = Good, F = Fair, P = Poor/Failure.
In the second volume, there is a list of approved schools and their details. Only students from these schools would have been accepted at the Normal School. There are additional columns for student information such as age at entrance, name of preparatory school, and date of graduation from the Normal School. This volume contains more information in the remarks field such as notations about extra work performed or additional special classes attended outside of the regular curriculum. In addition, it appears that the first page of students’ names was originally glued down, likely due to an error of starting names beginning with B on the A pages resulting in the first pages seeming to be out of order.
(Blank pages were not scanned which resulted in gaps in the page numbers.)
