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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
Following the panic of 1873, the State entered another period of expansion in which the gains began to fit into New Jersey's industrial pattern as it appears today. Bayonne started on its way to becoming one of
the great oil refining centers of the world in 1875 when the Prentice Re-
fining Company established a still there. John D. Rockefeller came next,
and within a decade three other companies followed Standard Oil to the
site so close to the huge oil and kerosene market in New York City. The
steel cable industry was established in Trenton by the Roebling family,
and that city became known as a center of supply for suspension bridge
construction after the Roeblings built Brooklyn Bridge.
The work of Thomas A. Edison at Menlo Park and Edward Weston at
Newark established in New Jersey a vast electrical industry, especially in
light bulbs and phonograph records, dynamos, and power plant supplies.
John Wesley Hyatt's invention of the roller bearing and celluloid and
Hannibal Goodwin's perfection of photographic film introduced important
new manufacturing activities into Newark and its environs. As electricity
replaced steam in industry, the State's manufacturing strength continued
to grow even in the face of depressions. The tremendous rise in immigration from southern and eastern Europe after 1880 brought abundant cheap
labor to factories, mills, and foundries.
The manufacture of paper and paper boxes, slaughtering and meat
packing, and the canning of fruit and vegetables rose in importance after
the turn of the century. The hat industry, which in 1892 had produced
more than 4,000,000 hats, including a $250 sombrero, was beginning to
decline as was the production of ceramics, cast-iron piping, glass, and
jewelry. Paterson, where in the 1880's more than one-third of the Nation's silk factories were situated, began to feel the effects of the industrial
drift southward to cheaper labor. The dyeing and finishing of textiles,
however, increased.
At the outbreak of the World War, New Jersey, along with the rest of
the country, faced a period of industrial uncertainty, despite which economists hoped that the feverish gains and losses of the two previous decades
might balance into some kind of stability. Abuse of the State's easy incorporation laws had made it a legal dumping ground for young and ruthless
corporations, seriously in need of industrial discipline.
The guns of Europe, however, shattered the opportunity for normal
growth by plunging the State into the most intense industrialization in its
history. The production of high explosives, textiles, steel, and ships rocketed to new heights. The Bureau of Statistics reported that expansion in
manufacturing was 400 percent greater in 1916 than in any preceding
year. Chief among the cities that benefited from the industrial resurgence
were Newark, Perth Amboy, Jersey City, and New Brunswick. The chemical industry in New Jersey sprang up almost overnight. Six factories for
the production of aniline, formerly imported from Germany, were set up
within the State, the most important at Kearny. Other towns that became
chemical centers were Carteret, Chrome, Maywood, and Perth Amboy.
The success of aircraft in the war made aeronautical manufacture in
New Jersey a leading industry, chiefly represented by the Wright Aeronautical Corporation of Paterson, one of the world's largest airplane engine factories.
The tide of war prosperity, except for recurrent dips such as that of
1921, continued to rise until 1929. The value of manufactures from 1919
to 1929 increased $165,091,000, whereas workers' wages for the same
period rose only $10,000,000, and in the same decade, through technological improvements, there was a decrease of 60,000 workers. Production
in chemical factories was 450 percent greater in 1929 than in 1914. Electrical supplies multiplied by 700 percent in the same period, foundry
products by 300 percent, and petroleum products by 300 percent.
Building in the middle 1920's prospered to such an extent that the appearance of many New Jersey cities was transformed by the construction
of new skyscrapers, factories, apartment houses, small-home developments,
and public parks.
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