Digitized Collection of Historic African American Bordentown School Newspaper

The New Jersey Industrial and Manual Training School for Colored Youth, also known simply as the “Bordentown School,” was an African-American boarding school operated by the State of New Jersey. It was founded in 1876 in the Delaware River town of Bordentown, New Jersey, and remained open until December 1954.

Students, as well as many teachers, lived on the school’s sprawling campus. Students were not only required to master a wide variety of academic subjects, such as science and literature, but also took part in maintaining the facilities and learning vocational trades. The school was renowned for the quality and success of its academic programs, and many of its alumni went on to achieve professional success across the country.

The New Jersey State Library digitized a selection of the school’s newspaper, The Ironsides Echo, with issues dating as far back as 1935 and as recent as 1955.

The school’s newspaper contains a wide variety of information about events at the school, including details about famous visitors, sports games, and photos of social gatherings.

To view the entire collection of digitized newspapers, please visit the collection page on the New Jersey State Publication Digital Library page: https://dspace.njstatelib.org/xmlui/handle/10929/42440