Category: Education, Museums and Libraries
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Clara McGuire Dasher
1930-1995 Clara Dasher was President of the Essex County College Board of Trustees and a longtime active member and leader of the Newark Teacher’s Union. Clara was a teacher from 1959-1973. She was an assistant to Carole Graves and Vice President, who took over leadership of the Teachers Union while Carole was in jail for…
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Clara Zahn
1870-1953 Clara Zahn was the first woman principal of a co-ed grammar school. There were woman as primary school principals from 1855, the earliest year for which we have a report, but grammar schools were for older children. Grammar schools had a “male” and “female” department and there were women principals of the female department…
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Elitea Bulkley Allison
c. 1913 -2007 Elitea was one of the early African Americans to work professionally at the Newark Public library after Theresa Moore. She was hired by Newark in 1938, according to Who’s Who, though the Newark News suggests 1940. By 1945, a Senior Children’s and Education Librarian, likely the first African American in this position…
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Eleta Caldwell
1945-2017 Eleta Caldwell was principal at Arts High School 1991-2003, previously Chair of Art and teacher at the school. Eleta was an artist who co-founded in the 1980s the “Black Women in Visual Perspective” Group which included Gladys Grauer. She exhibited at City Without Walls, and other galleries across the state and nation including MoMA…
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Gladyce Black Sherman
1908-1995 Gladyce Black Sherman was an artist and educator. She was a member of the faculty of the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts for over 20 years, also graduated from the school. Her work was exhibited at the Newark Museum, Montclair Art Museum, Art Center of the Oranges, and in NYC. Charter member,…
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Mildred Lockett Lipscombe
1922-2025? Mildred Lipscombe was one the library’s first Black librarians (possibly the third), hired 8 years after Theresa Moore, and after Elitea Allison. After graduating Virginia Union University, and then the University of Illinois (MLIS), she became a junior librarian in 1946. In 1949, she took place in a library course on “Great Books” and…
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Theresa Knight Moore
*See below note on surnames 15 Mar 1907 – Feb 16, 1983 Theresa Knight Moore was the first African American employed at Newark Public Library in a professional position. Theresa became a “library assistant” at Springfield Branch in 1937, which was likely a librarian position. The appointment was made with the help of the Urban…
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Louise Connolly
1862-1927 Louise Connolly was longtime educational advisor to the Newark Library and Museum. She wrote many publications and trained museum apprentices. The Newark News wrote, “She made many important contributions to the problems of education…She was considered to be an inspiring teacher, a remarkable organizer of though, a writer and speaker of extraordinary facility and…