North Jersey Legacies

by Bond, Gordon

• ISBN13: 9781609495565
• ISBN10: 160949556X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-03-18
• Publisher: History Pr

Summary

These little - known tales are the key missing pieces in North Jersey history.

Table of Contents

Introduction and Acknowledgements	p. 9
Dust in the Garden: The Days the Dust Bowl Came to the Garden State	p. 13
1/3,000™ of a Second in Fort Lee: A Mysterious Experiment in Subliminal Advertising	p. 23
Train Talk: How New Jersey's Belvidere-Delaware Branch of the PRR Helped Modernize Rail Communication	p. 39
Scooping Sputnik 2: How America Learned of Sputnik 2 from New Jersey	p. 53
The Constitutional Courant: Was New Jersey's First Printer Responsible for New York's Most Virulent Anti-Stamp Act Broadsides?	p. 61
Newark Airport: Where Aviation Became an Industry	p. 79
"To Cast a Freedman's Vote": How a Handyman from Perth Amboy Made Civil Rights History	p. 115
Bibliography	p. 149
About the Author	p. 159
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

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.