"Introduction"

New Jersey Historical Society, Newark, NJ

Welcome to The New Jersey Historical Society, a private statewide non-profit historical museum and library dedicated to preserving and interpreting the many facets of New Jersey's past.

Before we leave the front desk, let us take a moment to orient ourselves to the tour and locate our destination within the building. The five-story stone townhouse you are in once belonged to a private club. It has been the museum's home since its renovation in 1997. The upper floors contain three galleries with changing exhibitions that feature some thousands of items-from furniture to diaries-from the Historical Society's collections.

The exhibition we will tour today is entitled "Resource-Full New Jersey," that is, "resource- hyphen -full New Jersey." It surveys six different natural resources which geography has generously bestowed upon New Jersey, and how the inventive genius of people have harnessed these resources, and developed the agricultural and industrial products for which New Jersey is known. The exhibit is located on the third floor, and can be accessed by a small, four-to-six person elevator, or by a sweeping spiral staircase.

After listening to the following directions, you will be asked to pause the tape and proceed to the exhibition area or you may wish to follow these directions as you hear them.

Beginning on the ground floor, facing the front desk, turn 90o (or a quarter-turn) to your left. Guiding yourself by the front edge of the counter, walk twenty feet (about seven paces) straight ahead until you reach the wall at the far end of the lobby. (You may encounter a cylindrical donation box about two-thirds of the way across.) Along that far wall will be a single elevator, three feet to your left, with call buttons about waist height to the left of the door.

Restrooms are located a few steps past the elevator, around a corner to the right, and eight feet along the wall: the ladies' room is on the right wall; the men's room is directly across the hall.

For those who want to use the elevator, the control panel inside the elevator will be on the front wall to the left of the door-at about waist height. When exiting on the third floor, walk sixteen feet straight ahead as you leave the elevator (about seven or eight paces)-across the broad, carpeted hallway-to a pair of double glass doors at the entrance to the exhibit. Enter the room, turn to your right, and you will almost immediately arrive at a wooden stand, about waist height, where our tour will begin.

For those who prefer, you may walk up two flights on a wide, carpeted, spiral staircase that begins directly to your right when you reach the far wall of the lobby. Follow the upper handrail on your right-there are two: take the upper, flat one made of brass, because it is continuous-and navigate past a few chairs that may be in your path on the second floor. The staircase ends on the third floor. Find the wall on your left and follow it less than six feet (about two paces) to the double glass entrance doors to the exhibit on your left. Then pass through the double doors and turn to your right, where you will find the wooden stand, from which our audio described tour will begin.