1954 Echo
- SIGNED
- Bordentown, New Jersey: Manual Training School, 1954
Bordentown, New Jersey: Manual Training School, 1954. Very good -. 10¾” x 8”. Vinyl blue wraps, embossed in blind, cover title gilt. Pp. [60]. Very good minus: wrappers moderately creased, lightly soiled and edgeworn; first two leaves with 3” tear from bottom edge; light creases and soil spots throughout; a few red inked notations.
This is a rare yearbook documenting the penultimate year of a school for Black youth in New Jersey referred to as the “Tuskegee of the North.”
The Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth, known also as the Ironsides Normal School, Bordentown School and a few other names, was founded in 1886 by the formerly enslaved Rev. Walter A. Rice, a minister in the AME Church. The year-round, residential school earned a reputation for its elite vocational and academic training, as well as the successful careers of its graduates. Visiting lecturers included Mary McLeod Bethune, W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Paul Robeson and Albert Einstein. It opened to students of all races in 1948 but was ordered to close in June 1955 by New Jersey Governor Robert B. Meyner, who cited its failure to recruit and retain white students. The property transitioned into a controversial youth prison for girls; as of November 2024 New Jersey social justice groups were working toward its closure.
This yearbook features large, lovely images of the school and its very nearly all-Black faculty and administration, along with individual portraits listing involvements and “ambition” of the graduating class, their baby photos, superlatives and a charming “Class Will.” There are group shots of the lower classes, student clubs, sports teams and groups such as band, the “Library Council,” “Majorettes” and “Modern Dance Group.” It also ran the “Alma Mater Song” and a terrific two-page photo montage showing school and student life. Along with several pages of ads at the rear, there is a great two-page printed assemblage of hand-drawn calling cards for local shops and services.
A few inked circles and arrows in this yearbook point out William Tolliver of the sophomore class; he served as “Acting President” and on the “Ironsides Improvement League.” While we can't be sure it's him, we did find an obituary online for a New Jersey-born man whose name and age match up; he was an Air Force medic for 27 years (with a tour in Vietnam), graduated from the Defense Race Relations Institute and served as an instructor to Defense and Pentagon staff. He then moved to California, where he was Equal Opportunity Officer and Director of Mental Health for Merced County, as well as president of his NAACP chapter.
A rare yearbook for a noted Black school in New Jersey, issued one year before its closure. Not found in OCLC, which shows two entries for earlier yearbooks (called Ironsides) with only three total issues at two institutions. We also note an entry for The Ironsides Echo, apparently a monthly periodical, with limited holdings at three institutions.
This is a rare yearbook documenting the penultimate year of a school for Black youth in New Jersey referred to as the “Tuskegee of the North.”
The Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth, known also as the Ironsides Normal School, Bordentown School and a few other names, was founded in 1886 by the formerly enslaved Rev. Walter A. Rice, a minister in the AME Church. The year-round, residential school earned a reputation for its elite vocational and academic training, as well as the successful careers of its graduates. Visiting lecturers included Mary McLeod Bethune, W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Paul Robeson and Albert Einstein. It opened to students of all races in 1948 but was ordered to close in June 1955 by New Jersey Governor Robert B. Meyner, who cited its failure to recruit and retain white students. The property transitioned into a controversial youth prison for girls; as of November 2024 New Jersey social justice groups were working toward its closure.
This yearbook features large, lovely images of the school and its very nearly all-Black faculty and administration, along with individual portraits listing involvements and “ambition” of the graduating class, their baby photos, superlatives and a charming “Class Will.” There are group shots of the lower classes, student clubs, sports teams and groups such as band, the “Library Council,” “Majorettes” and “Modern Dance Group.” It also ran the “Alma Mater Song” and a terrific two-page photo montage showing school and student life. Along with several pages of ads at the rear, there is a great two-page printed assemblage of hand-drawn calling cards for local shops and services.
A few inked circles and arrows in this yearbook point out William Tolliver of the sophomore class; he served as “Acting President” and on the “Ironsides Improvement League.” While we can't be sure it's him, we did find an obituary online for a New Jersey-born man whose name and age match up; he was an Air Force medic for 27 years (with a tour in Vietnam), graduated from the Defense Race Relations Institute and served as an instructor to Defense and Pentagon staff. He then moved to California, where he was Equal Opportunity Officer and Director of Mental Health for Merced County, as well as president of his NAACP chapter.
A rare yearbook for a noted Black school in New Jersey, issued one year before its closure. Not found in OCLC, which shows two entries for earlier yearbooks (called Ironsides) with only three total issues at two institutions. We also note an entry for The Ironsides Echo, apparently a monthly periodical, with limited holdings at three institutions.