The public-school system comprises 63 elementary, 4 junior and senior high schools, 2 continuation schools and 2 evening schools. There are 25 parochial schools and several private academies, including Newark academy, founded in 1792. The public library and the museum (under the direction of John Cotton Dana) have been pioneers in developing unconventional methods of serving the people of an industrial community. The library has about 540,00o volumes and an annual circulation of 2,254,563. The museum has exhibits valued at over $800,000. There are several special libraries in the city, including the Pru dential Insurance Company's valuable collection on vital statistics. Newark is the seat of the Newark College of Technology (1885) ; the New Jersey College of Pharmacy (1891), now affiliated with Rutgers university ; and the University of Newark (2935). The latter was formed by a merger of : the Newark Institute of Arts and Sciences, the Mercer Beasley Law School, the New Jersey Law School, the Seth Boyden school of business, and Dana College. There are over 114 churches and Newark is the see of both a Roman Catholic and a Protestant Episcopal bishop. The philanthropic institutions and agencies are united in a welfare federation, largely financed by an annual "community chest" cam paign, which raised $885,044 in 1935. The daily newspapers are the Star-Eagle (1796), the News (1883), the Ledger (1914) and the Freie Zeitung (1857). Among the weeklies are one in Italian, one in Yiddish, and the Sunday Call (1872).
Newark has long been one of the leading manufacturing cities of the country. In 1933, with 1,160 establishments, employing together an average of 40,667 workers, and producing goods valued at $227,194,82o, it ranked 12th among the cities of the United States in value of output. Over 400 new plants were established in the Newark district in 1926 and 1927. The indus tries are highly diversified. Among the principal products (meas ured by value in 1929) were electrical machinery, apparatus and supplies ($67,126,441), paints and varnishes leather ($21,830,916), jewellery ($15,818,278), chemicals ($18, 488,560) and meat products ($20,529,788). As an insurance centre also it has long been important. The 15 large life, fire and casualty companies which have their home offices here employ some 12,000 persons in Newark and have assets aggregating $5, 100,000,000. It is an important transportation centre, by rail, highway, air and sea. Development as a seaport is comparatively recent. In 1914 the city began the creation of Port Newark (on Newark bay, south-east of the city, a part of New York harbour) as a shipping terminal and industrial centre. On the entrance of the United States into the World War in 1917 the War Depart ment leased 133 ac. of the newly filled land for one of its largest supply bases, spending $52,000,000 on docks, warehouses and freight-handling equipment; and the U.S. Shipping Board estab lished a $30,000,000 ship-yard, employing 17,00o persons, where 150 steel cargo vessels were constructed by the Submarine Boat Corporation. At the close of the war the city acquired the army base (including 9 warehouses with 2,000,000 ft. of floor space) and resumed its programme. With aid from the Federal Govern ment the channel has been deepened to 3o ft. and widened to
400 feet. Additional land has been reclaimed for industrial sites, and by 1935 fourteen public and 242 private docks and piers had been built. Water-borne commerce in 1935 reached tons of which 2,944,633 were from Port Newark. There were 469 building and loan associations, with total assets of over $325, 000,000 in 1934. The institutions for saving have deposits of over $129,705,000. Bank debits to individual accounts for 1934 aggregated $3,234,781,000.
In 1666 (following the union of the towns of the New Haven Jurisdiction with Connecticut in 1664, and the consequent secu larization of the franchise) a band of about 3o Puritans from Milford, Conn., led by Robert Treat, settled at "Four Corners," and the next year they were joined by an equal number from Branford and Guilford. They bought practically all of what is now Essex county from the Indians for "fifty double hands of powder, one hundred bars of lead, twenty axes, twenty coats, ten gun's, twenty pistols, ten kettles, ten swords, four blankets, four barrels of beer, ten pairs of breeches, fifty knives, twenty horses, 2850 fathoms of wampum, six ankers of liquor (or something equivalent), and three troopers' coats." The name was chosen in honour of their pastor, the Rev. Abraham Pierson (2608-78), who came from Newark-on-Trent. For 5o years or more the town remained essentially Puritan and was governed largely according to the Mosaic Law. About 1730 Presbyterianism superseded Con gregationalism, and in 1734 Col. Josiah Ogden (who had caused a schism by saving his wheat one dry Sunday in a wet season) led in founding the first Episcopal church (Trinity). Newark was incorporated as a township in 1693 and was chartered as a city in 1836. The townships of Orange and Bloomfield were set off from it in 1806 and 181.2 respectively. From 1747 to 1756 the College of New Jersey (now Princeton university) was carried on here, under the presidency after the first few months of the Rev. Aaron Burr, who published in 1752 his famous textbook, the Newark Grammar. The manufacture of leather (especially patent leather) and shoes early became an important industry. There was a tannery here in 1770 and by 1837 there were 155 curriers and patent-leather makers. The jewellery industry dates from about 1830. Until the passage of the Volstead Act the manufacture of malt liquors was one of the leading industries. Newark was the home of Seth Boyden (1788-187o), called by Edison "one of America's greatest inventors," who invented the processes for making patent leather (1818) and malleable cast iron (1826), besides many new machines and many improvements on older apparatus; and of the Rev. Hannibal Goodwin, who in 1887, in the attic of the rectory of the House of Prayer, invented the flexible film which made the motion picture possible. After the European revolutions of 1848 Newark received an influx of foreign-born, notably Germans. The city's population was 38,894 in 185o; 71,941 in 186o; 136,508 in 188o; and 246,070 in 1900. Between 2900 and 1910 it increased 41%; between 1910 and 1920, 19%; and between 1920 and 1930, 6.7%. There has been no important annexation of territory (except at Port Newark) since 1905.