Elsmere School

Text

This is a photograph of the Elsmere School, built for the Elsmere neighborhood. In the 1920s, the Elsmere neighborhood was explicitly developed for black families. It was created to encourage families to move to the area and to work in farming and factories.

The Elsmere school served as the grammar school for grades 1 through 8. The school was located at 801 Ellis St, Glassboro, NJ 08028, on the corner of Ellis Street and Higgins Drive, which was named after Mr. J. C. Higgins, a Boy Scout leader who worked in the Elsmere School as a custodian. Mr. Higgins was a widely respected community member of Elsmere. The schools' map coordinates 39.696884, -75.135342) 

Before Elsmere School was built, students from this neighborhood attended the Academy Street School or the South Glassboro School. Though Glassboro did not have an official policy of segregating students based on race, most families were essentially segregated because of where they lived. Most black families lived in Elsmere, the Lawns, or the 80-acre neighborhoods; however, a few families did live in town closer to work. 

It seems that the Academy Street School was always integrated. In the 1920s and 1930s, students from Elsmere, the Lawns, and 80 Acres walked (there was no sidewalk) to the Academy Street School daily, which was a substantial distance. After complaints from the parents, the Board of Education hired a farmer with an open-back truck to bus the students to the Academy Street school. Eventually, the Board of Education voted to build the Elsmere School. Though the Academy Street School was integrated, due to the location of the schools, it seems only black students attended Elsmere and the South Glassboro School for many years.

After the Elsmere School was closed, it was used for various purposes, including meeting space, a recreation center, and currently as the Boys and Girls Club. For more information on Elsmere and the Elsmere School, please explore local historian Robert P. Tucker's The History of Elsmere: African American Life in Glassboro, New Jersey.

Additional schools in the area:
The Lawns School was a two-room schoolhouse and is thought to have been the first school in the area for black students.

South Glassboro School was located in the approximate area of South Academy and Washington Avenue. This school was located on Washington Avenue near the map coordinates 39.691561 and -75.108214. 

Help support the project:

The Glassboro Memory Mapping Project is made possible through the kindness of our community volunteers. Please get in touch with us to contribute information or to help with the project.