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Clara L Scudder
1874-1930 Clara L Scudder was very accomplished on the piano and organ. She learned from her father David Scudder who was a member of Craig’s Orchestra. She went to Scotland and Europe to play in 1901-1902 (she appears on the 1901 Scotland Census as a visitor to Mary Jane Cargill in Glasgow) and William Ashby…
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Amanda Minnie Douglas
1831-1916 Amanda Douglas was a children’s author who wrote dozens of published books, with some sources saying 92! The Newark News wrote, “Young and old enjoy her writings” and she “had been a favorite author among thousands of readers.” Amanda was born in New York City, but moved to Newark by 1850, when she appears…
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Augusta Levine Parsonnet
1870-1949 Augusta Parsonnet was president of the Women’s Political Union of New Jersey. She was the first President of the League of Women Voters of Newark. She was also first President of the Ladie’s Guild of Beth Israel, a founder of Haddasah’s Newark Chapter and first President the Newark Council of Jewish Women. She also…
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Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge
1831-1905 Mary Mapes Dodge was a children’s author best known for Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates. She was the founding editor of St. Nicholas Magazine. Mary was born in New York. Sources vary for when she first came to Newark, however, her father, a chemist, agriculturist and professor, is shown in New York on…
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Alice Bunce
1893-1970 Alice E. Bunce was the first African American woman to graduate from the New Jersey College of Pharmacy in Newark. However, she lived in Asbury Park at the time of graduation in 1927. She owned a pharmacy in Asbury Park for many years, opening it with her brother in 1923 and operating it until…
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Mildred Preen
1918 – 1979 Mildred Preen, graduate of West Side High in Newark was the first woman to graduate in Electrical Engineering at Newark College of Engineering, was an Assemblywoman (the first woman to do so in Hunterdon County), private pilot, and served with the WAVES in WWII. Mildred graduated Newark College of Engineering in 1938.…
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Mabel Irene Gilman
c. 1897?-1943 Miss Mabel Irene Gilman who lived on Clinton Ave., was the first female detective appointed by Essex County in 1929, investigating various cases including desertions. She attended Barringer High School, and lived in Newark from 1906. She was a member of the Alma House Missionary Society of Grace Church. In her youth, she…
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Mary Colson Woody
c. 1877-1966 Mary C. Woody became the first licensed female funeral director in NJ in Newark in 1913. She opened a funeral home that bears her name in Orange, which is open to this day. Mary was born in Virginia and moved to Washington DC and then Newark with her husband, where her husband established…
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Adelaide Wilson
1902-Unknown Adelaide Wilson was raised in Newark and worked as a reporter, as early as 1920, when she lived on Hawthorne Avenue. In 1921 and 1922 she hiked 10,000 miles to San Francisco & back. She became engaged to a rancher in Denver and worked with movie star Dorothy Dalton, among other adventures. As a…
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Miriam Studley
1899-1984 Miriam Van Arsdale Studley was the first director of the New Jersey room at the Newark Public Library from 1951-1966. She also ran the NJ collections from 1943, when Julia Sabine went to graduate school. That’s a total of 23 years in charge of the library’s New Jersey materials. Miriam Studley was born Jul…