North Jersey Legacies

North Jersey Legacies PDF

Author: Gordon Bond

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2012-03-18

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 1614238316

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Did you know that the Dust Bowl hit New Jersey? Twice? How about that a mysterious experiment in "subliminal advertising" was conducted at a Fort Lee, New Jersey movie theater? Or that railroad communication was advanced on a northwest New Jersey railroad line? Or that America first heard about the Russians launch of Sputnik 2 (with a dog onboard) thanks to a Ukrainian refugee in Perth Amboy, New Jersey? Or that prisons could buy a custom electric chair from a Trenton, New Jersey electrician? Or that aviation matured into an industry thanks to Newark Airport? This book is a collection of articles from www.GardenStateLegacy.com, an online quarterly magazine devoted to New Jersey history that the author began in 2008. The Garden State features to some degree even as a footnote in larger historical stories far more often than one might think. It could just be a matter of someone from the state going on to something of historic importance somewhere else; or that by dumb luck something just happened to occur within its borders. New Jersey may be a footnote in these tangential tales, but they are the kind of unexpected connections that makes exploring New Jersey's history so delightful.

The Roebling Legacy

The Roebling Legacy PDF

Author: Clifford W. Zink

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780615428055

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THE ROEBLING LEGACY portrays the story of the Roeblings, from the great immigrant engineer John A. Roebling and his quest to design the Brooklyn Bridge, to his son Washington A. Roebling, who built the bridge with help from his wife Emily Warren Roebling, and since it opened in 1883 has become became the universal symbol of New York. The story spans four generations of the Roeblings through their bridge building and the family business, the John A. Roebling's Sons Company of Trenton, N.J., that developed and produced innovative wire rope and wire products for many emerging technologies over a 125 year period. The Roeblings built the great cables of many landmark suspension bridges, including the George Washington andGolden Gate Bridges, and they built the town of Roebling, N.J., which David McCullough has called "one of the best planned industrial towns ever built in America, a model in every respect." Today the town is thriving with a new Roebling Museum and Roebling factory buildings in Trenton have been adapted for new a variety of new uses.

Hidden History of South Jersey

Hidden History of South Jersey PDF

Author: Gordon Bond

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2013-07-09

Total Pages: 167

ISBN-13: 162584087X

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South Jersey is perhaps best known for its beachside boardwalks, glitzy Atlantic City hotels and blueberry farms, but behind these iconic symbols are the overlooked tales that are unique to New Jersey. While much of Harriet Tubman's life is well known, her time in Cape May is usually overlooked by biographers. Few know that the classic American drive-in movie theaters were born in South Jersey. Even the famous Wildwood, with its distinctive Doo-Wop architecture, hides forgotten stories: at the height of its popularity, this shore town was hosting some of the country's first rock-and-roll acts. Often overshadowed by its more urban northern counterpart, South Jersey nonetheless has a hidden past. In this collection, author Gordon Bond uncovers the most intriguing of these tales.

The Jersey Brothers

The Jersey Brothers PDF

Author: Sally Mott Freeman

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2017-05-09

Total Pages: 608

ISBN-13: 1501104144

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"They are three brothers, all navy men, who end up coincidentally and extraordinarily at the epicenter of three of World War II's most crucial moments. Bill is tapped by Franklin D. Roosevelt to run the first Map Room in Washington. Benny is the gunnery and antiaircraft officer on the USS Enterprise, one of the only ships to escape Pearl Harbor and, by the end of 1942, the last aircraft carrier left in the Pacific to defend against the Japanese. Barton, the youngest, gets a plum commission in the Navy Supply Corps because his mother wants him out of harm's way. But this protection plan backfires when Barton is sent to the Philippines and listed as missing-in-action after a Japanese attack. Now it is up to Bill and Benny to rescue him. Based on ten years of research drawn from archives around the world, interviews with fellow shipmates and POWs, and letters half-forgotten in basements, The Jersey Brothers whisks readers from America's front porches to Roosevelt's White House, from Pearl Harbor to Midway and Bataan, and from the Pacific battlefronts to the stately home of a fierce New Jersey mother. At its heart The Jersey Brothers is a family story, written by one of its own in intimate, novelistic detail. It is a remarkable tale of agony and triumph; of an ordinary young man who shows extraordinary courage as the enemy does everything short of killing him; and of brotherly love tested under the tortures of war."--Jacket.

Greenbelt, Maryland

Greenbelt, Maryland PDF

Author: Cathy D. Knepper

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9780801864902

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Built in the 1930s on worn-out tobacco land between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., the planned community of Greenbelt, Maryland, was designed to provide homes for low-income families as well as jobs for its builders. In keeping with the spirit of the New Deal, the physical design of the town contributed to cooperation among its residents, and the government further encouraged cooperation by helping residents form business cooperatives and social organizations. In Greenbelt, Maryland, Cathy D. Knepper offers the first comprehensive look at this important social experiment. Knepper describes the origins of Greenbelt, the ideology of its founders, and their struggle to create a cooperative planned community in the capitalist United States. She tells how the town, saved at one point by the intervention of Eleanor Roosevelt, struggled through the McCarthy years, when it was branded "socialistic" and even "communistic." In conclusion, she provides a timely analysis of those qualities that not only helped the town survive but also served as the model for currents in urban development that have once again come into vogue in such movements as the new urbanism and traditional neighborhood development.

Jersey Blue

Jersey Blue PDF

Author: William Gillette

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 9780813526942

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This political history of New Jersey during the Civil War and the years immediately before and after invites us to rethink New Jersey's role and in particular its relationship to the border states. William Gillette argues that there is little evidence supporting the idea that New Jersey's residents were pro-southern before the war, or even antiwar during it, although attitudes toward the abolition of slavery were more ambivalent. The perspectives Gillette offers in Jersey Blue, from the recruiting ground, the battlefield, and the home front, cast new light on New Jersey's wartime activities, state identity, and our understanding of the interrelationships between New Jersey's national, regional, and state developments. Gillette takes a broader view of the politics of the Civil War as he touches on the economy, geography, demography, immigration, nativism, conscription, and law. The result is a pioneering history of New Jersey that deepens our understanding of the Civil War.

To Cast a Freedman's Vote

To Cast a Freedman's Vote PDF

Author: Gordon Bond

Publisher:

Published: 2020-03-20

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9780578652092

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On March 31, 1870, Thomas Peterson became the first African American in the United States to cast a ballot under the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The opportunity to become that first voter came to Peterson by luck, with the encouragement and celebration of his white neighbors in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. The city's unusually progressive community stood in contrast with what was happening elsewhere in the country, especially the rise of Jim Crow in the former Confederacy. As such, Peterson's story has been retold since mostly through a white lens, where the man becomes a prop. Looking beyond the moment that made him famous, however, reveals a more complicated and relevant narrative. His post-vote embrace of civic life as a citizen reflected the hope felt by many Black people during Reconstruction - a hope that would be largely killed within Peterson's lifetime, from the "Compromise of 1877" that ended Reconstruction to the "separate but equal" of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. Indeed, it resonates with 21st century conversations about race and suffrage. These days, Peterson's story is presented as a step in an evolution towards a more perfect union. Yet, by attempting to recenter him in the narrative, the story becomes more complicated, more fascinating, and more relevant. At the same time, that context makes what happened in that New Jersey port city 150 years ago all the more remarkable. Thomas Peterson sits at the intersection of suffrage, citizenship, and Civil Rights history.