New Jersey

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NEW JERSEY

The history of New Jersey is a study in conflicts— geographical, political, social, and economic. One end of the state often seems like a part of New York City; the other end has close ties to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although the state retains a healthy agricultural sector, it is better known as a place where industry developed early and then went into decline for a period of time. High unemployment and urban decay have plagued the cities in New Jersey for several decades. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, better times seemed to be on the horizon for the "Garden State."

In 1524 Italian explorer Giovanni di Verrazano sailed into Newark Bay and became the first known European to reach New Jersey. English Captain Henry Hudson also sailed along the New Jersey shore and established a claim for the Dutch, under whose flag he sailed. Dutch traders founded New Jersey's first town, and Swedish settlers began to settle east of the Delaware River. By the mid-1770s the indigenous Leni-Lanape Indians (whom the English called the Delaware) had exchanged most of their valuable lands for trinkets, guns, and alcohol and had almost disappeared from the area.

England took control in 1664 after King Charles II granted a region from the Connecticut River to the Delaware River to his brother James, Duke of York. The Duke deeded part of the land to his friends Baron John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, making New Jersey a proprietorship (New Jersey was named for one of the British channel islands). The country was later divided into two separate parts, East Jersey and West Jersey, only to be reunited in 1702 by Queen Anne. A royal governor was appointed in 1738. To this day the two areas of New Jersey have quite different characters, with the northeastern section closely identified with New York and the southwestern section looking toward Philadelphia.

New Jersey played an important role in the American Revolution (1775–1783), but it experienced an economic decline in the aftermath of the war. Its trade with New York was interrupted; its towns were left in ruins; and its profitable iron works were shut down. After New Jersey entered the Union in 1787, however, the state began to recover economically; the town of Paterson, for example, developed as a center of silk manufacturing.

In the 1830s railroads and canals helped to set New Jersey on a course toward urbanization and industrialization. One of the greatest engineering feats of its time, the Morris Canal, connected northern New Jersey with the coal fields of Pennsylvania. The canal benefited many businesses along its route, from iron mines to dyeing and weaving mills. A second canal, the Delaware and Raritan, crossed flat land in the middle of the state. The most important town along the Morris Canal was Newark, the first in the state to be incorporated; it developed around breweries, hat factories, and paper manufacturers. Other towns grew with industries as well: Trenton was noted for its iron and paper plants and Jersey City was noted for its steel and soap operations.

Railroads spelled the end of profitability for the canals, which went into decline after the American Civil War (1861–1865). The first railroad, the Camden and Amboy, opened in 1834; it soon began to monopolize the New York-Philadelphia corridor. Coal brought by the railroad provided a new source of power other than water, and industries sprang up along the rail-road's route. After the Camden and Amboy was leased to the Pennsylvania Railroad, numerous other rail lines opened up other areas to development.

Despite much political wrangling over the Civil War in New Jersey, the state benefited economically from the war by providing tons of ammunition and equipment for the Union army. After the war factories continued to make many components used by other manufacturers. In 1873 Isaac Singer (1811–1875) opened a sewing machine plant at Elizabeth; oil refineries grew along the Hudson County waterfront; and pottery manufacturers thrived in Trenton. Newark had a diversified base of manufacturing and a large number of nationally known insurance companies.

New Jersey became the nation's top shipbuilding state during World War I (1914–1918). In addition, New Jersey refined 75 percent of the copper in the country and loaded an equal percentage of U.S. shells. The war, however, did not substantially hinder labor unrest, which had been a part of New Jersey's history since the 1880s. In 1915, at Carteret, a walkout at a fertilizer factory led to the killing of six strikers by guards. In the postwar era, Passaic textile workers stayed off the job for a year in 1926, and in 1933 Paterson silk workers finally gained union recognition and higher wages after another strike.

By that time, however, many other New Jersey workers were experiencing reduced work weeks or unemployment. As the Great Depression (1929–1939) worsened, many expected to take advantage of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's (1933–1945) New Deal programs to provide a measure of relief. Unfortunately for many, these government jobs were almost entirely under the control of Frank Hague, Mayor of Jersey City, a corrupt politician with many ties to the Roosevelt administration. According to Thomas Fleming's history of New Jersey, New Jersey: A Bicentennial History, Harry Hopkins, head of the Works Progress Administration, "ignored stacks of testimony and sworn affidavits from men and women who said that they were forced to vote for Hague's candidates and pay 3 percent of their salaries to the [political] machine in return for their jobs." Fleming painted a sorry picture of the relationship between New Jersey politicians and their constituents during this time: "For the first time politicians had access to huge amounts of legal money and jobs. No longer did they have to rely on padded loyal payrolls and money from illegal gambling and phony real estate deals." The power of Hague's political machine in the state was formidable, lasting until his defeat as mayor in 1947.

World War II (1939–1945) brought a revival of industry in New Jersey, especially in shipbuilding and munitions. Chemical and pharmaceutical companies also thrived, while Paterson became the nation's leading aircraft engine manufacturing center. After the war many people left the older cities to build homes in suburbs like Cherry Hill, Woodbridge, and Middletown Township. Between 1940 and 1950 the population of the state burgeoned by 1.2 million, stretching highway use and housing availability to the limit. New Jersey rapidly became the center for many research laboratories during this time, which helped creation of a number of affluent areas such as Bergen County.

For many in the inner cities, however, postwar hopes of economic opportunity had been crushed. According to Fleming, the many African Americans who had come to Newark seeking jobs after the war "virtually guaranteed tragedy." Only half found employment in the declining industries, and "[s]ome 40 percent of them had to travel to work outside the city every morning while 300,000 suburban workers poured into the central district to work in giant insurance company offices or in the remaining industrial jobs." In 1967 the city of Newark erupted into four days of rioting, looting, and burning, which left the city in shambles, both economically and psychologically.

In the next five years Newark lost 23,000 private jobs. In the 1970s and 1980s, 270,000 people left New Jersey as cities lost manufacturing jobs and retailing moved to suburbia. Unemployment reached nearly 10 percent. By the mid-1980s, however, recovery was on the horizon. With the loss of manufacturing jobs came a resurgence of jobs in the service industries. After another recession in the early 1990s, the state rebounded again. The unemployment rate fell to six percent in 1996 for the first time in six years. The recovery was due at least in part to the presence of a highly skilled workforce, which attracted pharmaceutical, biotechnology, electronics, and other high-technology industries to the state. Along with business incentive programs administered by the state Department of Commerce and Economic Development, the relatively low tax burden in New Jersey has helped to encourage new businesses to come into the state. Per capita personal income in the state in 1996 was over $31,000 and ranked second among all states.

Vitally important to New Jersey's economy are the ports which line New York Harbor. Ports at Elizabeth, with three miles of berthing space, and Newark, with four miles, handle more cargo than New York City ports, benefiting the local economy greatly. Privately owned piers in Jersey City and Bayonne also handle significant cargo. Northern New Jersey port facilities taken together form the largest port in the eastern United States and the second largest in the whole country.

See also: Isaac Singer