Research Resources

Rutgers Library Guides: The Newark Experience

The Charles F. Cummings New Jersey Information Center (New Jersey Room) at The Newark Public Library
A research-level collection of materials relating to New Jersey, with a special focus on Essex County and Newark. The collection includes books, maps, clippings, more than 2 million photos, over 1,000 linear feet of manuscripts, and a growing digital archive. The Information Center is used by genealogists, authors, filmmakers, and scholars. CFCNJIC answers more than 4,000 questions each year. To arrange assistance at another time, please contact CFCNJIC at: (973) 733-7775 or njreference@npl.org. Newark Public Library is located at 5 Washington Street, Newark, NJ 07102

Knowing Newark: Charles F. Cummings Star Ledger Columns
From March 1996 through December 2005, Charles Cummings wrote weekly Knowing Newark columns for The Star-Ledger. He wrote about Newark’s ethnic groups, its industries, its neighborhoods, its festivals, its parks, its music groups, its river, its founding, its contributions to the nation, its high points, and its low points—all this and more. The columns show Newark in all its diversity and complexity, and together they provide an unrivaled account of its 350 year history.

Krueger Scott Oral History Collection
The largest collection of oral history interviews conducted with African-American residents of Newark who came to the city during the Great Migration, as well as those whose local roots stretch back generations. The faculty, staff and graduate students at Rutgers University-Newark who have worked on the collection in collaboration with local cultural institutions are proud to have helped preserve, archive, and make public these remarkable oral narratives which describe a yet unwritten history of twentieth century African-American life.

Berg Collection Photographs
Contains more than 2700 photographs, mostly Newark street scenes, taken by Samuel Berg, MD between 1959 and 1968. Most of the photographs are street scenes of residential (houses), commercial (stores), and factory sites all over Newark. There are many images of old buildings, schools, parks, cemeteries, and churches. Some images are of Newark Airport, the Morris Canal, and the railroads.

Latino Oral History Collection
A curated collection compiled by the New Jersey Hispanic Resource and Information Center (NJHRIC). The current selection focuses on the histories related to Newark, and the city’s communities and major events.

Newark Archives Project
A comprehensive online source of information about primary materials for all periods and all aspects of Newark history, from Colonial times to the 21st Century.

New Jersey Historical Society
Collects, preserves, teaches and interprets New Jersey history through our archives, research library and educational programs. We do so in the belief that an understanding and appreciation of historical issues, decisions and actions can inform and inspire the people of New Jersey.

The Newark Museum | Library and Archives
The Library contains more than 50,000 volumes on the fine arts, the decorative arts, and the natural sciences.  It is particularly strong in the following areas:  American painting and sculpture; African art; Asian art, including a special collection on Tibet; Native American art; Oceanic art; the decorative arts of the United States and Europe; the Classical cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world; numismatics; the Natural Sciences; and astronomy. The Library and Archives are open to the public by appointment, Monday through Friday from 9 am to 5 pm.

Newark Queer Oral History Project
As a community-based and directed initiative supported by Rutgers University-Newark, QNOHP is dedicated to preserving the history of LGBTQ people and communities in Newark, New Jersey.

Rise Up North Newark Website
“The North” is a new educational tool for all people, but primarily for youth in grade school through college and beyond, to enable research and preserve the record of those people who were “foot soldiers” in the Civil Rights, Black Power and other Movements in the North. It is a means to teach social justice issues through the history of the African American struggle for power, and keep these stories alive for generations to come.

Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies
The world's foremost jazz archive and research facility. It was founded in 1952 by Marshall Stearns (1908-1966), a pioneer jazz scholar. The mission of the Institute of Jazz Studies is to collect, preserve, and make accessible the heritage of jazz, an American art form that has been embraced by the world.

Old Newark
"The largest collection of Newark Memories, Images and Information on the Internet!"