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The
written history of New Jersey began with the
exploration of the Jersey
Coast by
Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524, though the
region had been settled for millennia by
Native Americans. At the time of European
contact, the area was populated by tribes of
Lenape. The
New Jersey region soon
came under the control of the
Swedes and the Dutch
resulting in a struggle in which the Dutch were
victorious. However, the Dutch colony of
New Netherland was
seized by the English in
1664. New Jersey was one of the original 13 colonies
that joined the
American
Revolutionary War in 1776. It signed the
Articles of
Confederation in 1779 with
Princeton
acting as the nation's capital for four months in
1783. New Jersey became independent after the
American Revolutionary War, in which several crucial
battles were fought in New Jersey resulting in
American victories. In 1787, New Jersey was the
third state to ratify the newly drafted
United States
Constitution.
In the
nineteenth century, New Jersey cities led the nation into
the Industrial Revolution
and provided soldiers for many of the wars the United States
fought, including 88,000 soldiers for the
American Civil War. The
state became a component of the
Underground Railroad.
The state's transportation system continued to improve with
the construction of canals and more rail lines that helped
industrialization further develop. During the early 1900s,
New Jersey prospered but weakened in the
Great Depression in the
1930s. During World War II and
the Cold War New Jersey's shipyards
and military bases played an important role in the defense
of the United States. In the 1960s New Jersey was the site
of several race riots and of the
Glassboro Summit
Conference, between American President
Lyndon Johnson and Soviet
Premier Aleksei Kosygin.
Prehistory
Around 180
million years ago, during the
Jurassic Period, New Jersey bordered
North Africa. The pressure of
the collision between North America and Africa gave rise to
the Appalachian Mountains.
During this period, Pangaea broke
apart into Laurasia and
Gondwana, and the North American
continent became separated from the North African continent.
Around 18,000 years ago, the Ice Age
resulted in glaciers that reached New
Jersey. As the glaciers retreated, they left behind
Lake Passaic, as well as
many rivers, swamps, and gorges.
New Jersey
was first settled by a
Native
American group known as the
Lenni-Lenape, but called the Delaware Indians by
European settlers. The Lenape were loosely organized groups
that practiced small-scale agriculture (mainly based on
corn) in order to increase their
largely mobile hunter-gatherer society in the region
surrounding the Delaware River,
the lower Hudson River, and
western Long Island Sound.
The Lenape society was divided into
matrilinear clans that were based upon common female
ancestors. These clans were organized into three distinct
phratries identified by their animal
sign: Turtle,
Turkey, and Wolf. They first
encountered the Dutch in the early 1600s, and their primary
relationship with the Europeans was through
fur trade.
Colonial history
In 1524,
Giovanni da Verrazzano,
sailing in the service of France,
explored the Jersey Coast. New
Jersey's Cape May was discovered in
1609 by Sir Henry Hudson in
the service of the Dutch
East India Company. Captain
Cornelius Jacobsen Mey,
a Dutch explorer, also explored the New Jersey and
Delaware Bay area. Cape May was
named after Mey, as were the
town and county of the
same name.
New Netherland
Much of New
Jersey was claimed by the Dutch
before the arrival of the British.
The Dutch colony of New Netherland
consisted of parts of modern New York
and New Jersey. Although the European principle of land
ownership was not recognized by the Lenape, Dutch policy
required formal purchase of all land settled upon, and the
first such purchase was of Manhattan,
by Peter Minuit. The first
settlement on land that was to become modern New Jersey was
at Pavonia (now
Jersey City) in 1629. The last
Dutch governor was Peter
Stuyvesant, who was unpopular with his subjects because
he tried to restrict religious freedom: the
Flushing
Remonstrance of 1657 objected to his ban on
Quakers as an
infringement on the residents as
Christians and as Dutch citizens. Stuyvesant used
military coercion in order to accomplish some of his goals,
which only made him more disliked. At New Netherland's
height, 6,000 inhabitants resided in the colony.
New Sweden
In
addition, part of southwestern New Jersey was settled by the
Swedes by the mid-1600s.
New Sweden, founded in 1638, rose
to its height under governor
Johan Björnsson Printz
(1643–1653). Led by Printz, the settlement extended as far
north as Fort Christina, on
both sides of the Delaware River.
He helped to improve the military and commercial status of
the colony by constructing Fort
Nya Elfsborg, near present-day
Salem on the east side of
the Delaware. This action prevented the river from being
easily taken by the English and Dutch, who were also trying
to expand into the New World. The Swedish and Finnish
colonists generally lived in peace with their Dutch and
Lenape neighbors. Under the last governor of New Sweden,
Johan Rising, the Swedes
captured Fort Casimir (now
New Castle, Delaware), which was close to Fort Christina
and later named Fort Trinity by the Swedes.
This action
provoked a furious Governor Stuyvesant, who, in revenge,
sent seven armed Dutch ships and 317 soldiers to the
Delaware River the next summer. Realizing it was hopeless,
the outnumbered Swedes surrendered Fort Trinity, and
surrendered Fort Christina two weeks later. In 1655, the
Dutch completely took over these lands and annexed them to
New Netherland.
Province
From the
colony of New Netherland, the Dutch interfered with
Britain's transatlantic trade
with its North American colonies. Insisting that
John Cabot had been the first to
discover North America, the British granted the land that
now encompasses New Jersey to the
Duke of York, who ordered Colonel
Richard Nicolls to take over
the area. In September 1664, a British fleet under Nicolls'
command sailed into what is now
New York Harbor and seized the colony. The British
encountered little resistance, perhaps due to the
unpopularity of the Dutch governor,
Peter Stuyvesant. After
capturing the colony, Nicolls became deputy-governor of
New Amsterdam and the rest of
New Netherland, and guaranteed colonists' property rights,
laws of inheritance, and the enjoyment of
religious freedom. New
Netherland was renamed New Jersey (after the
English Channel Island of
Jersey on which
Charles II of England
was proclaimed king in 1649) and
New Amsterdam was renamed New
York (after the Duke of York).
Charles II
gave the region between New England
and Maryland to his brother, the
Duke of York (later King
James II), as a
proprietary colony. Later James granted the land between
the Hudson River and the
Delaware River that would
become New Jersey to two friends who had been loyal to him
through the English Civil War:
Sir George Carteret and
Lord Berkeley of Stratton.
The two proprietors of New Jersey tried to entice more
settlers to New Jersey by granting land to settlers and by
passing Concession and
Agreement, a document granting religious freedom to all
inhabitants of New Jersey; the British
Church of England allowed
no such religious freedom. In return for land, settlers paid
annual fees known as quitrents. The proprietors appointed
Philip Carteret as
the first governor of New Jersey, who designated
Elizabethtown as the
colony's capital. However, the two proprietors found
collecting the quitrents difficult, and on
March 18, 1673
Berkeley sold his share of New Jersey to the
Quakers.
This sale
divided the province into East Jersey
and West Jersey. The
exact
border between West and East Jersey generally
corresponded to the border between
present day South and
North Jersey and was created by
George Keith. However, the line
was constantly the subject of disputes. With the 1676
Quintipartite Deed more
accurate surveys and maps were made resulting in the
Thornton line, drawn around 1696, and the Lawrence line,
drawn around 1743, which was adopted as the final line for
legal purposes.
Many of the
colonists of New Jersey became farmers. However, despite the
fertility of the soil, farmers were forced to struggle due
to the dearth of English money.
Some owned slaves or had
indentured servants work
for them. The majority of the colonists lived in simple log
cabins, coming from the original Dutch settlers. Since New
Jersey was ideally located next to the
Atlantic Ocean, colonists
farmed, fished, and traded by sea. Transportation was slow
and difficult usually on either foot or horseback. Education
came through small religious schools, private academies, or
tutors.
On
April 15, 1702,
under the reign of Queen
Anne, West and East Jersey were reunited as a
royal colony.
Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury became
the first governor of the colony as a royal colony. Lord
Cornbury was an ineffective and corrupt ruler, taking bribes
and speculating on land, so in 1708 he was recalled to
England. New Jersey was then ruled by the governors of
New York, but this infuriated the
settlers of New Jersey, who accused those governors of
favoritism to New York.
Judge Lewis Morris led the case for a separate governor,
and was appointed governor by
King George II in
1738. From 1701 to 1765, New Jersey's border with New York
was in dispute, resulting in a
series of skirmishes
and raids.
In 1746
The College of New Jersey (now
Princeton University)
was founded in Elizabethtown by a group of
Great Awakening "New
Lighters" that included
Jonathan
Dickinson, Aaron Burr, Sr.
and Peter Van Brugh
Livingston. In 1756 the school moved to Princeton.
American Revolution
New Jersey
was one of the original thirteen colonies that joined in the
struggle for independence
from Great Britain. Many of the New Jersey settlers still
felt ties of
loyalty to the British crown, and many
slaves sided with the British in
exchange for freedom. The loyalists included the governor of
New Jersey, William Franklin.
On
July 2, 1776, the
first Constitution
of New Jersey was drafted, creating a basic framework
for the state government. The
New Jersey
Constitution of 1776 allowed "all inhabitants of this
Colony, of full age, who are worth fifty pounds proclamation
money" to vote, including nonwhites and widows; married
women could not own property under the
common law. The Constitution declared itself temporary
and to be void if there was reconciliation with
Great Britain. Both political
parties in elections mocked the other for relying on
"petticoat electors" for allowing women to vote. Only two
days after the new constitution was enacted, on
July 4, 1776, the
Declaration of Independence was endorsed by five
representatives from New Jersey.
New Jersey
is referred to as the "Crossroads of the Revolution" because
the British and Continental armies fought several crucial
battles there. Throughout the war 296 engagements occurred
in New Jersey, more than in any other colony. Four major
battles were fought at Trenton,
Princeton,
Monmouth, and
Springfield. The
Battles of Trenton and Princeton are collectively referred
to as the Ten Crucial Days because these desperately needed
victories bolstered the morale of the nation.
On
Christmas night of 1776, the
Continental Army, commanded
by General George Washington,
made the famous crossing of the
Delaware River. The scene was immortalized in
Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze's
painting
Washington Crossing the Delaware, and displayed on
the New Jersey State Quarter.
In the Battle of Trenton
which followed the crossing, the American soldiers surprised
the Hessians, capturing nearly 900
prisoners in 90 minutes and taking supplies that had been
for the British army. After the victory, George Washington
led the army back across the Delaware River into
Pennsylvania.
A few days
later, British General
Charles Cornwallis hoped to engage Washington's army at
Trenton after Washington
recrossed the Delaware River, resulting in the
Second Battle of Trenton.
After recapturing Trenton, he ordered charges on fortified
defenses at Assunpink Creek.
The Americans inflicted heavy casualties on the British from
their defenses. Later, the Continental army slipped past
Cornwallis’s stalled army and launched an attack on British
soldiers stationed at
Princeton in the Battle
of Princeton on January 3,
1777. The British at Princeton were
forced to surrender. Cornwallis immediately ordered his army
to engage the Americans at Princeton, but was prevented by
snipers. These victories forced the British to leave New
Jersey.
On
June 28, 1778,
the Continental Army under
George Washington met a British column under Sir
Henry Clinton at the
Battle of Monmouth. Washington hoped to surprise and
overwhelm the rear of the British army. General
Charles Lee led the
American attack on the British rear but retreated
prematurely when the British attempted to flank the
Americans. The retreat nearly led to disorder, but
Washington managed to rally the troops to withstand two
British counterattacks, both of which failed. As
temperatures increased to over 100o
Fahrenheit, many soldiers fell to
sunstroke. After the battle,
Charles Lee was court-martialed for his poor command. Over
1,000 British casualties were incurred while the Americans
lost 452 men. It was during this battle that the legendary "Molly
Pitcher" is said to have fought.
The last
major battle to take place in New Jersey during the
Revolutionary War (and for the rest of the history of New
Jersey) was the
Battle of Springfield.
Baron von Knyphausen, the Hessian general, hoped to
invade New Jersey and expected support from colonists of New
Jersey who were tired of the war. He hoped to secure
Hobart Gap, from which he could
attack the American headquarters in
Morristown. On
June 23, 1780,
the British attacked soldiers under the command of
Nathanael Greene. General
Greene successfully stopped a two-pronged attack from
entrenchments held across the
Raritan River, preventing the British invasion.
New Jersey
ratified and then signed the
Articles of
Confederation on November 26,
1779. In the summer of 1783, the
Continental Congress met in Nassau Hall of
Princeton University. It
had originally convened in
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, but mutinous troops prevented the meeting
from taking place. Princeton became the temporary capital
for the nation for four months. During the brief stay in
Princeton, the Continental Congress was informed of the end
of the war by the signing of the
Treaty of Paris on
September 3, 1783.
On December 18,
1787, New Jersey became the third state to ratify the
Constitution, and
on November 20,
1789, New Jersey became the first state in the Nation to
ratify the Bill of
Rights.
New Jersey
played a major role in creating the structure of the new
United States Government.
When Virginia delegates proposed a
plan calling for representation based on the population
of each state, the smaller states refused, fearing that with
such a plan they would no longer have a say in government
affairs. William Paterson, a
New Jersey statesman, introduced the
New Jersey Plan, by which one
vote would be given to each state, providing equal
representation within the legislative body. The
Great Compromise accepted
both plans, creating two separate bodies in the
Congress.
Nineteenth century
Industrial Revolution
The economy
of New Jersey was largely based on agriculture, but crop
failures and poor soil plagued the settlers of New Jersey.
However, New Jersey eventually funded publications in the
early 1850s of accurate agriculture-related surveys through
the effort of George H. Cook.
The publication of this survey helped to increase the
state’s involvement in agricultural research and direct
support to farmers. As agriculture became a less reliable
source of income for New Jerseyans, many began turning
towards more industrialized methods.
Paterson became the
cradle of the Industrial
Revolution in America. Energy was harnessed from the 77 feet
(23 m) high
Great Falls of the Passaic River. The city became an
important site for mills and other industries. These include
the textile,
firearms, silk, and
railroad locomotive manufacturing
industries. Because of its high silk production, it became
nicknamed the "Silk City". In 1835,
Samuel Colt began producing firearms in the city.
The second
version of the New
Jersey State Constitution was written in 1844. The
constitution provided suffrage only to white males, removing
it from all women and from people of other races. Suffrage
had been awarded to those groups under the original New
Jersey State Constitution of 1776. Some important components
of the second State Constitution include the separation of
the powers of the executive, legislative, and judicial
branches. The new constitution also provided a
bill of rights. Underneath the
constitution, the people had the right to elect the
governor.
The famous
inventor Thomas Edison was born
in 1847. Edison worked in
Menlo Park, and was known as "the Wizard of Menlo Park"
for his many inventions; over the course of his life, he was
granted 1,093 patents. His most famous inventions included
the phonograph, the
kinetoscope, the
stock ticker, the
Dictaphone and the
tattoo gun. He also is credited
with improving the designs of the
incandescent light bulb,
radio, the
telegraph, and the telephone.
He started the
Motion Picture Patents Company. One of his famous
sayings was, "Genius is one percent inspiration and 99%
perspiration", as his efforts consisted of research and
testing.
The
agricultural products from New Jersey usually were
transported to larger markets in New York City and
Philadelphia, requiring better transportation. The first
oceangoing steamboat went from
Hoboken, New Jersey,
sailed around southern New Jersey, and ended in
Philadelphia. Later, systems of canals were built, the first
of which is called the Morris Canal
and ran from
Phillipsburg, New Jersey, on the
Delaware River to
Jersey City, New Jersey,
on the Hudson River. The
Delaware and Raritan
canal ran from New
Brunswick, New Jersey, on the
Raritan River, to
Bordentown, New Jersey, on the Delaware River.
Locomotion was also improved;
Hoboken-born inventor
John Stevens built a 10 ton locomotive and his son
Robert L. Stevens started
constructing iron railroads. By 1833,
The Camden &
Amboy Railroad had been completed, allowing a 7 hour
passage between Philadelphia and New York City. Through the
1800s, over a dozen companies were operating railroad lines.
War and slavery
During the
Mexican-American War, a
battalion of volunteers from New Jersey, in four companies,
was active from September 1847 to July 1848.
Philip Kearny, an officer who
led a cavalry unit, followed General
Winfield Scott and fought in
the Battle of Contreras
and Battle of Churubusco.
After the war, Kearny made his home in the state of New
Jersey.
The
Quaker
population was especially intolerant of slavery, and the
state was a major part of the
Underground Railroad.
Though New Jersey passed an act for the gradual abolition of
slavery in 1804, it was not until 1830 that most blacks were
free in the state. New Jersey was the last northern state to
abolish slavery completely, and by the close of the
Civil War, about a dozen
African-Americans in New Jersey were still apprenticed
freedmen. New Jersey at first refused to ratify the
Constitutional Amendment banning slavery.
Although no
Civil War battles were fought within New Jersey, the state
sent over 88,000 soldiers as part of some 31 infantry and
cavalry regiments, and over 6,000 died in the war. 23,116 of
those soldiers served in the
Army of the Potomac. Soldiers from New Jersey fought
generally in the War's Eastern theater.
Philip Kearny, an officer from
the Mexican-American War,
led a brigade of New Jersey regiments under Brigadier
General William B. Franklin.
Kearny distinguished himself as a brilliant officer during
the Peninsula Campaign,
and was promoted to the position of
major general.
New Jersey
was one of the few states to favor
Stephen Douglas over
Abraham Lincoln in the
Presidential Election of 1860.
The people of New Jersey also cast its
electoral votes to
George B. McClellan when
he ran for President against
Abraham Lincoln in the election of 1864, being the only
free state that rejected Lincoln twice. McClellan was later
elected governor, serving from 1878 to 1881.
Many
industrial cities like
Paterson and Camden
grew extremely strong through the duration of the Civil War.
They produced many necessities, including clothing and war
materials like ammunition. These
cities prospered through heavy production even after the end
of the war.
Twentieth century
Early 1900s and World War I
The
Standard Oil Company of
New Jersey was a large integrated oil producing,
transporting, refining, and marketing organization, founded
by Henry H. Rogers,
William Rockefeller, and
John D. Rockefeller. In
1911, the United
States Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of the
Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, viewing it as violating
the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Standard Oil had controlled nearly 90% of refined oil flows
into the United States, having a near complete monopoly upon
it. Standard Oil Company was split into 34 smaller companies
as a result of the dissolution.
New Jersey
was a center of shipbuilding and manufacturing during
World War I. Existing factories
such as the Singer Company in
Elizabeth, New Jersey
were converted to making weapon parts. New
refineries and
ammunition factories were built by
companies like DuPont Engineering.
After the war, many of these companies and plants shifted to
chemicals, making New Jersey one of the world's leading
chemical producers. Several
Allied ships were
sunk off the New Jersey coast.
Camp Merritt, in
Cresskill, was
activated for use in World War I.
It was from there that many soldiers were deployed to
Hoboken, New Jersey
before shipping off to Europe. Camp Merritt was
decommissioned in November 1919. Fort
Dix, in
Pemberton Township, New Jersey, was also constructed in
1917 to help in the war effort. It was used as a training
and staging ground throughout the war. After the war, it was
converted into a demobilization center.
Roaring Twenties
Like much
of the rest of the United States, New Jersey entered a
prosperous state through the
1920s. Through this period, New Jersey's population and
employment rate increased greatly. Though
factory production decreased after the end of World War
I, production lines still remained in relatively high
production.
Transportation became much easier through the 1920s.
Cars became easily affordable and roads
were paved and improved such that they incorporated new road
features, including jughandle
turns. As a result, people who had never been farther than
the outskirts of their hometown now could travel around the
state. The Jersey Shore became
extremely popular as an attraction. Many bridges and tunnels
were built for the ease of interstate traveling. The
Benjamin Franklin Bridge
was completed linking Camden
and Philadelphia
in 1926. The Holland Tunnel,
under the Hudson River, was
completed in 1927, providing a means of easy transportation
between New Jersey and New York
City. Before, ferries were required
to travel across the Hudson River. Later on, the
George Washington Bridge
(1931) and the Lincoln Tunnel
(1937) were completed, making access to
Manhattan even easier.[24]
All of the tunnels and bridges linking New York and New
Jersey are managed by the
Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey, established on
April 30, 1921.
New Jersey
was also the first state in the United States to ratify
Prohibition, which restricted the
purchasing and selling of alcohol.
However, the
Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,
which banned alcohol consumption, was later repealed by the
Twenty-first Amendment in December 1933.
Newark's
breweries reopened almost immediately.
Great Depression era
Like the
rest of the United States, the people of New Jersey were hit
hard by the Great Depression.
By 1933, one-tenth of the population was dependent upon
Franklin D. Roosevelt's
New Deal. In fact, New Jersey issued
begging licenses to the poor people because the New Jersey
government funds were being exhausted. Under the
Works Progress
Administration, part of the Second New Deal by FDR, many
new jobs were provided in order to support the poor,
including the expansion of
Fort Dix, Roosevelt Park
in Edison, and
Rutgers Stadium in
Piscataway.
Strikes also grew common during
the Great Depression; in 1937 a group of gravediggers from
New Jersey went on strike.
In 1938,
Orson Welles produced
The War of the
Worlds radio broadcast. Listeners were told that a "huge,
flaming object... fell on a farm in the neighborhood of
Grover’s Mill... twenty-two miles from Trenton." It
described
extraterrestrial monsters that were causing much
destruction. Although it was announced in advance that it
was a radio play, the broadcast resulted in widespread panic
into New Jersey and the surrounding areas. Many people had
believed the bulletin to be real, causing them to flee the
New Jersey area or to blockade their homes to ensure safety
from the reported monsters. CBS was
criticized for allowing fictitious bulletins to gain
attention of listeners. Welles and the other broadcasters
were not punished by law, but were held under a brief
informal "house arrest" for a
short period.
During the
Great Depression, 20-month old
Charles Augustus
Lindbergh, Jr., son of famous aviator
Charles Lindbergh, was
abducted from his home near
Hopewell, New Jersey in the
Lindbergh kidnapping.
The police sealed off many roads to prevent the kidnapper's
escape, and interrogated the members of the Lindbergh
household. Federal expert Arthur
Koehler carefully examined the ladder used by the
kidnapper, which he traced to a company in
McCormick, South
Carolina. James J. Finn was
a lieutenant who attempted to capture the kidnapper while he
was passing off ransom bills. Finally, a ransom note was
located and traced to Bruno
Hauptmann; the bill had the license plate number of
Hauptmann's Dodge Saloon that was
written down by a gas attendant. He was tried in
Flemington, New Jersey
in what was known as the "Trial of the Century", and was
convicted. He was electrocuted
in the New Jersey State
Prison in Trenton, New
Jersey. The Lindbergh kidnapping led to passage of the
Federal Kidnapping Act,
also known as the "Lindbergh Law", which made kidnapping a
federal crime.
In 1937,
the German zeppelin
Hindenburg exploded over
Lakehurst, New Jersey.
While approaching a mooring mast in Lakehurst, the zeppelin
suddenly caught fire, and within 34 seconds the entire
hydrogen-filled zeppelin was engulfed in flames; 36 people
died in the disaster, most of them leaping from the burning
ship. Contrary to popular belief, the Hindenburg had flown
an entire year of successful voyages before it caught on
fire. Questions and controversy surround the accident to
this day: theories for the sudden burst of flames include
sabotage against the German Nazis,
static buildup, and flammable fabric.
World War II and the 1940s
New Jersey
shipyards were responsible for the construction of many
naval ships in World War II,
including battleships,
aircraft carriers,
heavy cruisers and
destroyers, receiving 9% of all
allied war-related contracts through the war. Nearly 500,000
residents enlisted for the war, more than 10% of the total
population of New Jersey at the time, causing many women to
take jobs in their husbands’ absences. A German
U-boat (U-689) was sunk off the coast
of New Jersey in 1945.
Camp Kilmer was a staging area
near New Brunswick
serving the port of New York.
Buildings were painted such that they had a camouflage
effect. Camp Kilmer helped to serve troops by offering
medical care and providing them with supplies. Camp Kilmer
was later reactivated for the Korean
War and the 1956
Hungarian Revolution. Fort Dix was reopened for the
training of soldiers for the war effort. During the war,
Naval Weapons Station
Earle in Monmouth County was opened for naval
production, which provided ships with a safe port to take on
ammunition.
Millville Airport opened on
August 2, 1941.
It was called "America's First Defense Airport" because it
was opened as a gunnery training area for fighter pilots.
Over 1,500 pilots were trained for advanced aircraft
fighting at this airport.
Fort Hancock was
also opened in Sandy Hook.
Gunners in the fort prevented German submarines from
entering New York Harbor. The
airfield, currently known as
McGuire Air Force Base,
was opened in 1937 as Rudd Field,
a supporting Army airfield for Fort Dix. It was expanded
during wartime operations and turned over to the Air Force
in 1949.
An
internment camp
housing people of Japanese, German, and Italian descent was
located in Gloucester
City. In addition,
Seabrook Farms took advantage of Japanese labor to
increase productivity when the government allowed small
groups of people from the internment camps to work there. At
the end of World War II, the
government closed down the internment camps, but many people
from the camps continued to work at Seabrook Farms.
In 1947,
the current New
Jersey State Constitution was ratified, reorganizing the
state government. Governors were allowed to serve four years
instead of three, and the
Legislature was constituted with a 40-member
Senate and an 80-member
General Assembly.
The new State Constitution also returned the right of
suffrage to females and non-whites.
Late twentieth century
In the
1950s, the
Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey planned and built
the Port
Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal in the cities of
Newark and
Elizabeth. This was the
first port in the world to
containerize due to the innovation of
Malcolm McLean and the
founding of the Sea-Land
Corporation. The newly opened port quickly made the
docks of Brooklyn,
Lower Manhattan and
Hoboken obsolete. In
1985, the port was the busiest in the world.
During the
1960s, many African Americans felt disenfranchised, feelings
exacerbated by the police that usually sided against African
Americans and by the poor urban conditions caused by urban
decay. This tension led to race riots, the first of which
occurred in Jersey City
on August 2, 1964,
causing heavy damage to the Jersey City area. 71 stores were
damaged and 46 people were injured. From
August 11 to
August 13, 1964, similar riots
occurred in Paterson and
Elizabeth. In the
Paterson riot, twenty stores and other buildings were
damaged, and eight people were injured. In the Elizabeth
riot, six people were injured and seventeen stores were
damaged. In the aftermath of these riots, 135 people were
arrested.
In the
summer of 1967, urban residents, primarily African
Americans, rioted for 5 days in
Newark and the neighboring
city of Plainfield in
the 1967 Newark riots. 24
people died in the riots, and nearly 1,600 were arrested.
The riots are often cited as a major factor in the decline
of Newark and its neighboring communities, as many residents
fled to the suburbs following the
riots.
In the
middle of the Cold War from
June 23 to June 25,
1967, president
Lyndon Johnson met with Soviet
premier Aleksei Kosygin in
Glassboro, New Jersey
for the Glassboro Summit Conference. at the
Glassboro State College. No
specific agreements were reached, especially in the area of
restrictions on
anti-ballistic missile systems. However, the meeting
helped improve the strained relationships between the Soviet
Union and the US.
Because of
its strategic location on the East Coast, New Jersey played
an important role in the United States'
Cold War defense. 14 Nike
anti-aircraft missile batteries in two groups were
constructed in New Jersey to protect the metropolitan areas
around Philadelphia
and New York City. In addition,
a regional command center was built in New Jersey. By 1974,
the missile sites were deactivated. In addition to these,
air defense radar sites, bases for
interceptor aircraft, anti-aircraft gun batteries,
surface-to-air missile sites, and command and control
facilities were constructed to defend against an attack by
long range, nuclear-armed aircraft of the
Soviet Air Force.
In 1998,
the south side of Ellis Island
came under the jurisdiction of New Jersey following a
US Supreme Court decision.
Before, the island had been governed by the state of
New York. However, after the court
decision, disagreements between New Jersey and New York led
to the sharing of jurisdiction over the island by the two
states.
Twenty-first century
Terrorist attacks
In the
morning of September 11,
2001, hijackers took control of four
domestic U.S. commercial airliners, including
United Airlines Flight
93 which departed from
Newark International
Airport in the
September 11, 2001 attacks. All of the planes crashed,
two of them into the two tallest towers of the
World Trade Center in New
York City which collapsed within two hours and were viewable
from New Jersey. 2,986 deaths occurred in the attacks,
including about 700 residents of New Jersey. Over 160,000
people were evacuated by ferry from the Manhattan area to
New Jersey because the
subway and PATH
station had been closed down.
The
destruction of Lower Manhattan office space accelerated the
pre-2001 trend of moving jobs from Lower Manhattan to
Midtown and New Jersey. The
Goldman Sachs Tower was constructed in
Jersey City as part
of this effect. Towns in New Jersey such as
Middletown
that were especially hard hit suffered from aftereffects of
the attack.
For several
weeks beginning on September 18,
2001, letters bearing a
Trenton, New Jersey
postmark and containing anthrax
bacteria were mailed to several news media offices and two
US Senators. These anthrax
attacks resulted in the deaths of five people and caused
twenty-two people to develop anthrax infections (eleven of
which were life-threatening).
2004–05 gubernatorial vacancy
Former
Governor James E. McGreevey
resigned on November 15,
2004 after charges of
pay-to-play and extortion
scandals involving the impropriety of the appointment of an
unqualified long rumored homosexual love interest. New
Jersey had no Lieutenant Governor position at the time,
leaving a vacancy in the office. Senate President
Richard Codey served as Acting
Governor (then Governor) in McGreevey's place.
Jon Corzine was elected
Governor of New Jersey on
November 8, 2005,
and took office on January 17,
2006. On
Election Day, November 8,
2005, the voters passed an amendment to
the state constitution creating the position of
Lieutenant Governor,
effective with the 2009 elections.
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