One Library, Many Stories
State Library staff have curated themed collection items that tell a story within each Constitutional era. The New Jersey State Library has existed since 1796, 20 years after our first State Constitution was ratified on July 2, 1776. Our collections capture the social, political, and legal conditions of each of the three state Constitutional eras.
We are delighted to expand beyond our digital exhibit to share these additional stories with you!
The Display on Level 4
Artwork
Librarian Luz Villarreal drew from the State Library’s digitized postcard collection and historical events to create a large scale art piece for our display. Watch the video below to learn more about this work.
“Overall, this artwork is a composite piece which indicates that what we see is romanticized or not always real. We must apply critical thinking to find facts we can trust. The pixelated blue audience indicates that we live in a digital age, with ready access to information, if we want to find it. Below the artwork in the display is actual historic documentation which shows factual records of the past.”
—Luz Villarreal, Artist and Librarian
Items on Display
Each of the three display cases represents a state Constitutional era. Librarians followed a different theme for 1776, 1844, and 1947.
Learn more about the documents on display below.
1776 – 1844: Slavery
- To Charles Read Jun. in Burlington, offering to purchase an enslaved person named Cyrus (1773)
- Reverend Jacob Green Fast Day Sermon (1778)
- New Jersey Gazette February 2, 1780 edition
- Manumission of an enslaved person named Fanny from Trenton, Hunterdon County : manuscript (1799)
- Hutchins Improved: an almanac for the year of our Lord 1804
- Wood’s almanac, for the year 1815 : (memorial to John Williams, a free man) (1815)
- Free Negro owners of slaves in the United States in 1830 : together with Absentee ownership of slaves in the United States in 1830 (1968)
- Legal agreement between James M. Disbrow and N. M. Disbrow to trade a two-wheeled carriage for an enslaved person (1832)
- A study of slavery in New Jersey (1896)
1844 – 1947: Women’s Suffrage
- Report from the Special Committee addressing the petition of Harriet M. Lafetra requesting equality with men (1857)
- New Jersey petition to amend the 1844 constitution to allow women to vote (1869)
- A Supplement to an act entitled ” An Act to establish a System of Public Instruction,” approved March twenty first, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven (1873)
- An Act giving the right of suffrage to all persons, whether male or female, in any school meeting in any school district of the state (1887)
- Allison v. Blake (1894)
- Carpenter v. Cornish (1912)
- Amends article two, section two, of the State Constitution relative to woman’s suffrage (1913)
- Special election returns : constitutional amendments, October 19, 1915 (1916)
1947 – Present: Making of a Constitution
- Proposed constitution (1942): Constitution of 1844, as amended (1942)
- Report of the Commission on Revision of the New Jersey constitution (1942)
- What the proposed new state constitution means to you : a report to the people of New Jersey by their elected delegates to the Constitutional Convention (1947)
- First session of the Constitutional Convention of 1947
- Constitutional Convention of 1947 : concluding session (1947)
- Progress report to the people of New Jersey on the administrative reorganization program under the state Constitution of 1947 (1948)
- Constitutional Convention of 1947 : held at Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey : [proceedings] (1949-1953)
August 2026 – January 2027
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