The exhibition commemorates the 250th anniversary of Newark's charter and is scheduled to coincide with city-wide events hosted by the Office of the Mayor and the University in 2008. An events calendar is online at the city of Newark Web site at [http://www.cityofnewarkde.us].
By the mid-18th century, Newark's landholders wished to foster trade and transportation through the busy crossroads of their burgeoning village. In response to a petition from the landholders, King George II signed Newark's charter on April 13, 1758, granting privileges to hold a weekly market and a biannual fair on the site of what will soon be the Washington House Condominiums, adjacent to the Academy Lawn on Main Street.
Newark's centrality of location, natural setting and growth and development are major themes of the exhibit. Other topics include a review of the town's industry, agriculture and businesses; landmark architecture and suburban development; environmental stewardship; and civic and social organizations. Early families, religious groups, public and private education and the history of the University of Delaware also are represented in the exhibition.
“Little Known Histories of Newark” highlights the richly varied sources from manuscript and archival collections documenting local history, as well as print sources from the Delaware Collection in Special Collections. The exhibit includes maps, correspondence, photographs, account books, postcards, business ephemera, yearbooks, brochures and other unique items, such as a dandy roll, part of a machine used to make paper, from the now-defunct Curtis Paper Mill, which was given by local historian Robert C. Barnes.
That item and most of the manuscripts in the exhibition are preserved in Special Collections due to the generosity of many individuals, families, businesses and organizations who have donated these sources to the University of Delaware Library. All together, these diverse sources yield details and “little known histories” that convey a fuller sense of Newark's past.
The Lewis family papers, for example, document sales and land swaps on Main Street. They include a 1736 map of Newark, one of the earliest known. Other early Newark families represented in the exhibition include the Cooches, Wilsons, Evans, Hossingers, Powells and Johnsons. Numerous turn-of-the-20th-century maps from Wilbur Wilson, the town surveyor, are included in the exhibit to show property change and urban developments. Photography, postcards and business ephemera relate to landmark architecture.
Later 20th-century growth, influencing housing, transportation and the environment, is illustrated with material from several more recent donors, including the family of real estate developer Hugh Gallagher, city planner William Cohen, environmentalist Dorothy Miller and WILMAPCO (Wilmington Area Planning Council) planning group member Edward Cairns.
The archives of a number of civic and social organizations are housed in Special Collections and are included to represent the major contributions these organizations have made to Newark's quality of life. The New Century Club of Newark, for example, established the town's first lending library and planned regular “community improvement projects.” The League of Women Voters of Newark, the American Association of University Women-Newark Branch, the Robert Kirkwood Chapter of the Children of the American Revolution, Newark Music Society, Lions Club and the Improved Order of Red Men are other organizations represented in the exhibition.
Asher Jackson, affiliate assistant librarian and the Pauline A. Young Resident, contributed a special feature of the exhibition, an audio-visual presentation using original sources from Special Collections that he produced with the assistance of the new library Student Multimedia Design Center. Jackson used images from the library's digital maps collection and photographs from manuscript collections to illustrate the1975 oral history of Louise S. Johnson about growing up in Newark. Daughter of the minister of Welsh Tract Baptist Church and widow of Everett C. Johnson, founder of the Newark Post and the Press of Kells, Johnson graduated from Newark High School in 1897. Johnson's oral history reflects upon the evolution of Main Street in her lifetime which Jackson was able to visually document in his production.
Located in the heart of town, the University of Delaware has an inherently close tie to the history of Newark. Francis Alison's Academy (founded in 1743) moved to Newark in 1769, both following and spurring the growth of the city throughout its history. The University of Delaware Library joins the 250th anniversary celebration by exhibiting its many rich historical sources related to those significant years.
The curators of the exhibition are L. Rebecca Johnson Melvin, associate librarian, and Jaime Margalotti, assistant librarian.
