Down Town Boys' Club Scrapbook Collection

Collection

Identifier: MG Nwk Down Town

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection contains materials related to the events and activities of the Down Town Boys’ Club, including invitations, advertisements, tickets, brochures, and programs for events, copies of the club’s newsletters the Gazette and the Porcupine, and newspaper clippings about the club’s activities. Documents related to the day to day functioning of the club are also present, in the form of blank club membership cards, athletic records, savings banks forms, membership dues payment slips, expense vouchers, employment service paperwork and correspondence. Group election ballots and a mock ballot for the 1920 presidential election are included, as well as a summer camp schedule.

The majority of the items in the scrapbook were created by the club and its affiliates between 1918 and 1936, and the scrapbooks themselves were compiled by the Newark Public Library in 1937. The topics that appear most frequently in the collection are boyhood, sports, social and cultural events, summer camp, and birdhouse building competitions, with a geographic focus on New Jersey and New York.

Dates

1918 - 1936
Majority of material found within 1918 - 1927

Conditions Governing Use

Researchers wishing to publish, reproduce, or reprint materials from this collection must obtain permission.

Biographical / Historical

The Down Town Boys’ Club was a social organization for boys, teenagers, and young men in Newark, NJ. Founded in 1918, the club was located in St. Paul’s Methodist Episcopal Church at the corner of Broad and Marshall streets in Newark. It was run by Walter E. Dillon, who had previously founded a similar club in Boston. The club was a social service agency with intentions of getting boys off of the streets. Membership numbered around 1,400 at its peak, with approximately a quarter of the members being identified as “working boys,” whose labor was commissioned by local business and individuals.

The club was part of the national Boys Club Federation, and was affiliated with many fraternal organizations including the Masons, the Rotarians, and various chapters of the Templars, as well as organizations such as the Boy Scouts of America, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the YMCA. Their activities emphasized physical fitness, community service, civic responsibility, moral reform, appreciation of the arts, outdoor recreation, and patriotism. The organization also encouraged intergenerational mentorships. The functions of the club were robust, including the operation of their own savings bank, library, employment bureau, dormitories, movie theater, orchestra, classes, and summer camp, and the publication of a serial newsletter known as The Gazette and later as The Porcupine.

Active until 1939, the Down Town Boys’ Club existed in the interim period between two other similar clubs. It was not connected to the Boys Club run by Mrs. Charles Hedden on Halsey Street in Newark, which operated from 1908-1917, or the Boys Club of Newark founded by the Newark Chamber of Commerce in 1938, which currently exists as the Boys and Girls Club of Newark as part of the national organization Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

Extent

.79 Linear Feet (1 Small Flat Box) : 2 scrapbooks, illustrations

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

The Down Town Boys' Club Scrapbook Collection consists of two scrapbooks filled with materials related to the events and activities of a social organization for boys and young men in Newark, New Jersey.