The Morris Junior College was established in 1933. It was created by County officials and residents in order to provide graduating high school students additional education and job alternatives to the unemployment so prevalent during the Great Depression. The school was established with the assistance of the federally mandated Emergency Relief Act measure and it operated with funding from the Work Projects Administration on a temporary basis. The college, with an original student body of 240, was housed in the Morristown High School building. Tuition was free, and the only expenses the students incurred were the purchase of books and incidentals. An increased enrollment testified to the fact that the high school graduates of the county recognized the worth of the project. To reduce overcrowding in the high school building and to provide the Junior College with more freedom, the college was moved to the Maple Avenue School in 1935.
The school operated with Federal assistance for three years after which it was incorporated in the summer of 1936 in an attempt to establish a permanent Junior College. The school's boards and executive committees reasoned that, in so far as the college had proven itself worthy during the three years of its existence, it should be established on a permanent basis in order that future Morris County youth would have the opportunity of continuing their education at an affordable institution. Under this agenda the school was incorporated in 1936. The school was renamed Morris Junior College midway through the 1937 school year.
Morris Junior College was never able to achieve financial stability without the backing of the federal government. The school was consistently forced to operate under extreme economic hardship, each year barely able to raise the operating costs for the college. On several occasions the faculty was asked to take a reduction in pay in an effort to finish the academic year. After ten years of providing education for the county residents the school permanently closed in 1943.
The records of the Morris Junior College are housed in five boxes and comprise 2.5 linear feet of material. The collection covers the entire period of the school's operation, from 1933-1943, with the bulk of the material comprising the years 1935-1943. The collection is arranged in four series.
Series I, 1931-1943, covers the creation of the school, its operating procedures, it's boards and committees, and financial difficulties. The series includes budgets, minutes and correspondence from the Board of Trustees, Board of Governors, and the Executive Committee, petitions from the local community advocating for the creation of a Junior college, bylaws for Morris Junior College, correspondence, public relations, blank administrative forms, and a listing of all the courses offered throughout the history of the school. After the school closed there were issues with several former students attempting to transfer grades to four year institutions. The former administrators provided some documentation for these students and this is in this series as well.
Series II, 1934-1943, covers the teachers at the college from the years 1934-1943. The series includes a faculty list, notes from faculty meetings, finals, syllabi, correspondence between college and teacher, contracts signed by school president and teachers. In the school's leanest years faculty were given the choice of either accepting a significant pay cut or they would be permitted to break their contract. In the collection there are references to those teachers who wanted to be released from their contract. The series is arranged alphabetically by faculty name.
Series III is composed of a variety of student records, 1933- 1943. The series covers the academic, social, and athletic aspects of the Morris Junior College education and it has both text and photographic material. It includes class lists, student addresses, lists of graduates, grades, Dean's list, attendance lists, student council minutes and committees, Alumni lists and association, both college newspapers
Series IV, 1934-1943, includes mostly ephemera created by the school to include invitations to various school activities, theatrical programs and Play Bills, a school pennant, varsity letter, and correspondence concerning school activities and events.
This material is open for research without restriction under the conditions of the North Jersey History Center archives access policy. Records may be copied for use in individual scholarly or personal research, however, as with all materials in the History Center, researchers are responsible for obtaining copyright permission to use material from the collection. The suggested citation to this collection is: Records of the Morris Junior College. Material in the Records of the Morris Junior College may be photocopied, but because this material is a permanent part of the History Center's collections, researchers are advised to photocopy with care, using only the edge copier for bound material.
Most of the material in the Morris Junior College collection was acquired by the North Jersey History Center from Helen Clark Frances, a student at Morris Junior College from 1935-1937. Helen Clark participated in theatrical productions, and was Circulation Manager of the school newspaper, the "College Times", during the 1935-36 academic year.
Morris Junior College Records. North Jersey History Center, The Morristown and Morris Township Library.
Arranged by Virginia Kowalski, revised by Lawrence T. Greene.