With support from Newark Celebration 350, the Newark Public Library has developed a keyword-searchable website with all 500 of Charles Cummings’ “Knowing Newark” columns which appeared in the Star-Ledger from 1996 to 2005. How cool is that?!
Newark was Charles Cumming’s adopted home, and over more than four decades he developed an enduring love for this city. On his mother’s side, he had deep Southern roots; he attended the University of Alabama and did graduate work in history at Vanderbilt University. When he came North in the early 1960s to work at the Newark Public Library he brought a Southerner’s appreciation of how stories could explain the past and inspire the future in a place like Newark.
No one knew more about the broad sweep of Newark’s history, or was more generous and gracious in sharing his knowledge, than Charles Cummings of the Newark Public Library.
Information on an astonishing variety of topics in Newark history, from the founding in 1666 up to the present day, will be available to be collected for public use for the first time! Information from neighborhood and company data to family genealogy and the social and cultural groups that enriched Newark will be also be available. There are also 5,000 books available at the Newark Public Library so be sure to get your free copy. Check out http://knowingnewark.npl.org/