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• 1 2019-05-10T18:25:03+00:00 Glassboro Was Well-Established Early On and What It Meant for the Town 7 plain 2019-05-10T19:22:48+00:00
  

  Glassboro was a wealthy town; obviously it was well-known for its presence and influence within the glass-blowing industry. This provided many people opportunities to work, so it became a popular place at the time.

  Nowadays, I don’t think many would consider Glassboro to be a major New Jersey town (aside from it being a college town) akin to Trenton, Atlantic City, or Newark. In other words, I doubt it’s one of the first places that come to mind when one would ponder about locations in the state.  However, it was still a part of the itinerary of three former Presidents! Not only that, but those Presidents stood on or near the front steps of the Auditorium.

  Democrat Woodrow Wilson, governor at the time, spoke on the Auditorium steps on November 1, 1911 (Walton 1980).

  A few months later, on May 24, 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt arrived in Glassboro. There was a platform erected in front of the Auditorium on which he spoke form (Walton 1980).

  Lastly, a few days later, Republican William Taft also spoke in front of the building on May 28, 1912 (Walton 1980).

  These visits were surely a huge morale booster for citizens; perhaps the visits are comparable to well-respected political or religious figures visiting our major local city Philadelphia (i.e. someone like the Pope or Obama). It likely created a sense of excitement and pride. I think it did mean more than this, though. This paved the way for Glassboro to develop even more and be an established, well-respected place. For instance, the town developed Glassboro State College and now Rowan, which not every town can boast about. It also famously hosted the Summit Conference between President Lyndon B. Johnson and Premier Alexei Kosygin. Without some of the prior history I have mentioned, I am unsure whether Glassboro would’ve been considered a good candidate for having these types of things. It is interesting to question if this town would have developed as well as it did without the backbone of the glass industry, exposure from Presidential visits, the schools, and so on. I would argue that the Presidential visits had a huge impact on getting the name of Glassboro out there even more. The newspaper was a pivotal part of life back then -- when people read the itineraries of these candidates and saw our name on there, that had to invoke some sense of respect and importance for this town in those readers.