Margaret Field Asbury Park Press Newspaper Clippings Collection, 1972-2003

Margaret Field clipped articles out of newspapers for many years and sorted them to make researching people, places, events and other topics easier to research.

Margaret Field was born in 1928, in Washington, DC. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin and lived in Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey (Red Bank), and Pennsylvania before moving back to Monmouth County in 1961. After graduating from library school at Rutgers, she began her career with the Monmouth County Library on February 8, 1971.  Her first position was as Branch Librarian at Hazlet.  She was Branch Librarian in Ocean Township from 1973 to 1979, and then Branch Coordinator from 1980 to 1993 at the Monmouth County Library Headquarters in Manalapan.  She concluded her career as Assistant Director (1993 to April 1, 2002).  An oral history interview with Margaret Field is included in Remembering the Twentieth Century: An Oral History of Monmouth County, NJ (2001). In the interview, she mentions keeping a clipping file and her intention to transfer it to the Archives.

Margaret Field’s clippings were derived primarily from the Asbury Park Press with a few from other sources; most date from 1980 to 2000, with a smaller number as late as 2003, after Ms. Field’s retirement. The original folder headings and contents were maintained, except that some unfiled clippings received with the accession were added by the Archives staff to folders that seemed most appropriate. Some of these clippings are about long-deceased persons of historic interest.

The clippings were an extension of a service provided by Doris Handzo, Branch Coordinator for many years until her retirement in 1980: she obtained pamphlets and brochures in bulk from many agencies and organizations for distribution to smaller libraries in the county. As fewer and fewer became available, Ms. Field began the clippings file as an alternative. Those dealing with the rest of New Jersey were sent to the Newark Public Library; those having nothing to do with Monmouth County or New Jersey, per se, were discarded.

The clippings are organized into three series: Subjects, Monmouth County Towns, and People. There is some overlap in topics among the series.

Clippings about the Monmouth County Library donated by Ms. Field are in the other portion of this accession mentioned above. In the inventory, if there is a number in parentheses after the folder number, it indicates the number of folders for one subject.

In 2012, four folders of Asbury Park Press clippings on the topic Beaches: Access and Fees, 1972-2001, were donated to the Archives by Elsalyn Palmisano and added to the Beaches section of the Field collection. These clippings were gathered originally by the Brookdale Learning Center.

This collection is open to researchers.

Researchers may access the clipping folders at the Archives. The Container List below shows which topics are in which folders and boxes. Also, an alphabetical list of names called the “people file” is available in the Archives.

John Drustoica sits at the last carousel in Asbury Park Casino
Asbury Park Press, January 23, 1989

Clippings are arranged into threes series: subjects, Monmouth County towns, and people.
Clippings in the subject file are arranged alphabetically, as they are in the people file and in the towns file. Clippings pertaining to the history of the Monmouth County Library were separated and organized alphabetically.

Monmouth County Archives
125 Symmes Drive
Manalapan, NJ 07726
Phone: 732-308-3771

Margaret Field transferred the clippings about people, places, and events in Monmouth County to the Archives on January 12, 2007 (Accession 2007-01), along with three boxes pertaining to the history of the Monmouth County Library. An additional box was transferred by the Monmouth County Library in March 2010.

The collection was processed by Gary Saretzky with the assistance of Margaret Field, Jade Jandoli, and Kofi Nantwi. A finding aid was created June 25, 2007, revised March 16, 2000, revised April 20, 2011, revised November 19, 2012, and revised July 3, 2015.

See also Red Bank Register Clipping Collection, 1971-1987, at the Monmouth County Archives for other clippings covering some of the same time period.