John Fuyuume, Seabrook Educational and Cultural Center (SECC) trustee and former Project Director, was honored with the Order of the Rising Sun, with Gold and Silver Rays at a joint SECC and Japanese American Citizens League Boards and Volunteers Dinner on September 7, 2011. SECC is a valued NJDH partner.

The Order of the Rising Sun is the highest decoration awarded by the Japanese Government. It is reserved for civilians and non-heads of state. Mr. Fuyuume was conferred the award for his outstanding contributions to preserving and promoting the history and culture of the Japanese American community and for promoting mutual understanding between Japan and the United States.

All Aboard: Railroads in New Jersey, 1812-1930 , a major exhibition at the Rutgers University Libraries, will open on Thursday, October 27 , 2011, and will be on display at the Special Collections and University Archives Gallery until January 6, 2012.

The exhibition features rare broadsides, pamphlets, and images documenting the history of railroads in the Garden State from Rutgers University Libraries’ collections. Lorett Treese, author of Railroads of New Jersey (2006) will speak at the exhibition opening, which will be held at 5:00 p.m. in the Remigio U. Pane Room at the Archibald S. Alexander Library in New Brunswick.

For more details about the exhibition and program or to RSVP, see http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/news/11/09_nj_railroads.shtml

The impact of the Civil War was felt throughout New Jersey, profoundly affecting communities, politics, schools, businesses, neighborhoods and families. On November 19, 2011, the New Jersey Historical Commission will commemorate the 150th anniversary of the war with its 28th Annual Conference. The event will be held at Princeton University. Keynote speaker Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, will examine the events and experiences that shaped Lincoln and his attitudes toward slavery. Exhibits, lectures, and panel sessions will explore the effects of the conflict throughout the state. To end the day, Nell Irvin Painter, Princeton University’s Edwards Professor of History, Emerita, will present a plenary lecture titled “Black American Artists Limn Slavery and the Civil War.”

Program and Registration Information are available at www.newjerseyhistory.org.

Co-Sponsors:
Historical Society of Princeton
Rutgers Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience
New Jersey Civil War Heritage Association
New Jersey Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee

On Rutgers Day, April 30, 2011 from 10am-4pm , bring up to 5 photographs of your family, house, community or local events to the 4th floor, Alexander Library, 169 College Avenue  for inclusion in  MyJerseyRoots (see Spotlight at left), a digital collection offering  New Jersey citizens an opportunity to document the everyday life of our cities, small towns and rural communities from past to present. The first 25 participants will take home a free USB flash drive with their digital images, and as part of the formal launch of MyJerseyRoots, members of the Libraries staff will select the three most striking photos brought in on Rutgers Day. The owners of these photos will each receive a free framed print of their image.  Visit the Rutgers Day website to find out more about this and other events.

Read the exciting and heartbreaking saga of Peter Still and his family who fled slavery in Maryland for freedom in New Jersey. First Peter’s parents and younger sisters, and then many years afterward Peter, and then his wife and children,  escaped or bought their freedom and made their way north.   Read the full article here in New Jersey History e-journal.

The Peter Still Papers Collection in the Rutgers Special Collection and University Archives (an NJDH partner) contains letters, including one from Harriet Beecher Stowe, relating to Peter’s efforts to raise funds to purchase his family’s freedom.

After a 3-year publishing hiatus, New Jersey History  (NJH), the state’s venerable, peer-reviewed journal, is back – relaunched as an open access e-journal.

New Jersey History: Studies in State and Regional History was founded as the Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society in 1845 and published under the direction of the Society until 2005.    The new NJH provides immediate and open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.  

NJH is supported by the New Jersey Digital Highway, which will provide an additional access point for the journal from its website, and will preserve the digital version of the journal articles via the RUcore preservation platform.   NJH  will be published online twice a year by the Rutgers University Libraries, using its customized version of Open Journal System (OJS), a journal management and publishing system that supports open access scholarly journal development. 

John Beekman, Jersey City Free Public Library, comments on his experience creating a digital collection in NJDH…

The implication that digitization is a form of or substitute for preservation, or that there is a zero-sum game in which digitization are in conflict, does not match our experience with NJDH.

Read the article in: New Jersey Libraries, Fall 2008.