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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2002
Shortly after the rise of leather Newark developed another manufacture
which has remained one of its leaders. In 1801 Epaphras Hinsdale opened
on Broad Street a jewelry factory which soon became a fashionable gathering place for the ladies of the town. By 1836 the industry numbered
four establishments, with an annual output valued at $225,000 and 800
workers employed. Many years, however, had to pass before the general
public would accept articles known to have been made in America. Believed to be products of Paris or London, Newark jewelry, remarkable for
its workmanship, found a market in the largest cities here and abroad.
The influx of European immigrants in the 1840's supplied needed man
power to the State's growing factories. Paterson gradually shifted from
cotton to silk manufacture after 1840, when John Ryle devised a way of
winding silk on a spool. A decade later New Jersey ranked second only
to Connecticut in the national production of spool silk, and Paterson was
already known as "The Silk City."
In the same period, potteries were founded at Trenton, brick works
expanded enormously at Perth Amboy, and in 1852 Edward Balback established America's first smelting and refining plant, on the Passaic River
near Newark, where he refined the floor sweepings from local jewelry factories. Woolen mills, formerly situated chiefly in the south at Mount Holly
and Bridgeton, began to move north to Passaic.
Old industries yielded to this amazing variety of new occupations. Between 184o and 1850 Newark alone had been producing more than 2,000,000 pairs of shoes annually. On the eve of the Civil War, however, the
industry there as well as in Orange and Burlington revealed the strain of
New England competition. Similarly the discovery of rich iron deposits in
Michigan and Minnesota began to reduce the State's mining importance.
During the next 20 years the State rode the waves of prosperity born
of the Civil War. Although the conflict severely cut trade with the agricultural South, compensations were found in Union Army orders, and improved transportation facilities opened new world markets.
Textiles, locomotives (the first in the State had been built at the Rogers
Works in Paterson in 1837), carriages, and machinery achieved wide domestic and foreign sale. Although iron mining was headed downward, the
manufacture of heavy machinery in Newark, Jersey City, and Paterson (the
latter a center for railroad construction) appeared to make up the loss.
Railroads spread all over the State and linked New Jersey more firmly
with the rest of the Nation.
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