Glassboro

Maddie De Fino
Revised draft
Comp 1

Glassboro

Nearly every town has some sort of specialty or something important that they’re known for. Each town has their own personal history that makes that particular place unique from the town next it, or the town two hours away. Life in each of these towns is different in today’s world, however, the history behind it will always be important to the town. In Glassboro, New Jersey, besides being known for being the home of Rowan University, it also has a rich history behind the name. The town was originally founded and established in the year 1779. Before it was even called a town or boro, it was called “Glass Works in the Woods” of Gloucester County. After several different ownerships of the glass company throughout the years, the glass industry in Glassboro began to die away away after a good run of over a hundred years. Of course, the town is still known as Glassboro, for they would not change the name due to the plentiful history behind it. After the fall out of the glass industry, Glassboro was transforming and started to become known for an important school, which eventually led to where we are today, Rowan University.
In 1779, a man by the name of Solomon Stanger, who originally migrated from Germany, established “Glassworks in the Woods” when he purchased 200 acres of land in what is known today as Glassboro. He was the original owner of the first glass company in the town. He conveniently located his company in today’s Glassboro for a number of reasons. The sand in the area is of good quality, and sand was a very important ingredient to manufacture glass. Also, there are a lot of oak trees in the area, which were used to fuel the glass furnaces. Lastly, the area is close to Philadelphia, which was an important area for commerce so that the company could sell and ship their products out to ports. Although Stanger was the founder, his ownership of the company didn’t end up lasting as long as he had probably expected it to. In 1781, due to the revolutionary war, the value of one dollar became only 2 cents, and Stanger no longer had enough money to keep the company going strong. He had no choice but to sell his company.
The company was bought by two men named Thomas Heston and Thomas Carpenter, and then became known as Heston-Carpenter Glass Works. The company stayed under this name until three brothers that were descendents of the Heston family ran it and eventually took it over. They renamed the company to be the Whitney Brothers Glassworks. According to searchroots.com, the story goes that a man named Ebenezer Whitney was shipwrecked off Cape May in 1806. He was injured by the shipwreck and was sent to Philidelphia by stagecoach for medical help. At some point in the journey, he stayed over at the “Heston House”. At his stay there, he met and fell in love with Bathsheba Heston. The two got married and had three sons named Thomas H., Samuel, and Eben. These three men were the ones who eventually took over the company. Under the brothers, the company led the entire glass industry in New Jersey and was most wide-ranging in the country with many varieties of style and color in the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. The Whitney Brothers Glassworks was then taken over by the Olive works. After the Olive works, it was re-owned and re-named several other times over the course of the years. It became the Harmony Glass Works, the Temperanceville Glass Works, Owens Bottle-Machine Company and lastly the Owens-Illinois Glass Company. Today, the last company still exists, but the products produced by the company are no longer glass based on sand. The company now produces metal tops for bottles and jars.
A little before the 1920’s, the glass industry in Glassboro was no longer as big as it had once been. At this time, Glassboro now had South Jersey’s first Normal School. According to Rowan’s school website, other towns in the county had been competing to be the home of the new school, however Glassboro had won the title. The school was a two-year training school for teachers. Many teachers in New Jersey at the time hadn’t acquired training to the extent that they should have, and adding the school to South Jersey was to fix this issue in South Jersey. A little over ten years later, the school was made a four-year school, and 3 years after that the name of the school was changed to New Jersey State Teachers College at Glassboro. Eventually the school was expanded beyond teaching, and became bigger. In 1992, an extremely generous Henry and Betty Rowan donated $100 million to the school, and the school then changed its name to Rowan to honor the donation.
Over the years, Glassboro had evolved from a town known for huge glass making companies to being known for schooling. It all began with the small purchase of 200 acres for a company, and is now a college town where many citizens live. Glassboro’s name derived from the glass making, and this history will never be forgotten, especially due to the proper name of the town. Today, there is a glass museum in Glassboro called “Heritage Glass Museum” to keep the town’s history in tact.
Works Cited
www.Glassboroonline.com
www.nj.searchroots.com
Heritage Glass museum

The Rowan Contribution

The Rowan Contribution

Rowan University of Glassboro has a unique history of transition. Since its
establishment as normal school in 1923, to becoming Glassboro State College
in 1958, no change has had a greater effect than the generous donation
made by the Rowan’s. A donation of one hundred million dollars was made to then
Glassboro State College by industrialist Henry Rowan and his wife, Betty
Rowan, becoming the catalyst for a huge move forward to university-status
in 1997. At the time, their donation to the school was the largest sum of
money ever awarded to a college or university. The school was immediately
named after the noble donor’s name. Due to this great monetary gain, vast
expansion in courses, majors, and broader array of education were possible.
Rowan University has changed drastically since its modest beginnings as a
normal school. From the time the donation by Henry Rowan and his wife was
conferred, Rowan University has made monumental strides in academic growth
befitting a university.

The Rowan donation was made in 1992 to Glassboro State College, allowing
many possible changes. Michele Daily wrote a published article of Henry
Rowan in Rowan magazine in the spring of 1997, the same year it had
become recognized as a university. Henry Rowan had always been an entrepreneur
and businessman, and took upon himself a challenge: donating one hundred
million dollars to a college. According to Henry Rowan himself, “I was
intrigued with a small college in South Jersey that had limited stature in
educational hierarchy because I knew it [the gift] could make a difference”.
With the donation came one of two academic-related conditions
Rowan appealed to the college: introducing an engineering school. Following
the formation of the engineering school, rapid changes followed boosting
Rowan University’s reputation.

Although the focal interest of the pledge was to start an engineering
school and a scholarship fund program for South Jersey residents for Rowan
University, progress had yet to begin. Following a fast trend of
renovations, Rowan University caught considerable notice of the nation due
to its endowment, and received many contributions from organizations such
as the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the New Jersey Commission
on Science and Technology, and the Rowan University Foundation. These
groups have given approximately eight million dollars to the school.
Ultimately, these transformations facilitate the students’ capacity to
receive an education. New commuter parking lots, modernized education
buildings, and increase in scholastic selection have been introduced in
the last decade.

Entering the twenty first century, Rowan University exhibited six
competitive schools, as well as the Cooper Medical School of Rowan
projected to open in 2012. Utilizing the funds from the Rowan pledge,
as well as local and government contributors, the school boards initiated
multitudes of increased academics. For example, Rowan University boasts its
upcoming medical school to be the only establishment in New Jersey
other than the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey to provide
medical degrees. Rowan University has quickly gained tread within the
upper tiers of state colleges. College Board has listed Rowan University as a
school that “consistently appears on the Best Colleges lists of U.S. News
and World Report, Kiplinger's and Princeton Review”. In less than twenty
five years, radical improvements have lifted the local Glassboro State
College into a choice higher learning institution with a growing
reputation.

Numerous educational improvements for Rowan University in approximately the last
few decades are trailed back to the jumpstart Henry and Betty Rowan’s one
hundred million dollar contribution. The school considers itself a
“selective, highly ranked, medium-sized public institution”. Currently,
Rowan University encompasses over eleven thousand total students and over
twelve hundred total school staff and faculty members. Future
advancements can be accredited to the efforts of students, college staff, and
overall school-body, but the initiator of all the progress made today may not
have been feasible without Henry and Betty Rowan’s contribution.