New Jersey's Natures: Environmental Histories of the Garden State
New Jersey's Natures: Environmental Histories of the Garden State
edited by Raechel Lutz contributions by Aris Damadian Lindemans, Tina Peabody, Zachary Rouhas, Christopher J. Slaby, Andrew Urban, Christine Woodside, Sevin Yildiz, Melissa Ziobro, Raechel Lutz, Chad Anderson, Erin Becker-Boris, Michael Chiarappa, Dan Druckenbrod II, James J. Gigantino II, Robert Hoberman, Jordan P. Howell and Charlotte Leib foreword by Neil M. Maher
Rutgers University Press, 2026 Cloth: 978-1-9788-3643-3 | Paper: 978-1-9788-3642-6 | eISBN: 978-1-9788-3644-0 (ePub) | eISBN: 978-1-9788-3645-7 (PDF) Library of Congress Classification GE155.N5
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
New Jersey’s Natures takes up the challenge of expanding academic and popular conceptions of New Jersey and its landscapes through the lens of environmental history. Scholars’ essays showcase the ways in which nature is integral to understandings of the state and its past as well as its future. These essays show that New Jersey should no longer solely be known as a place where pollution and suburbanization run amok but rather a place where history happens.
The contributors investigate how nature and history are intertwined within this small but mighty state, covering topics from the colonial period to the present across North, South, and Central Jersey. They investigate natural features like the Delaware River and Bay, the Pinelands, and the unforgettable Jersey Shore. In this book, you will find Indigenous Americans making meaning as settlers threaten their ways of life, Governor William Livingston considering Central Jersey’s features as he fights in the American Revolution, farmers building the state’s industrial agriculture, a foreign diplomat planting an arboretum, squatters in the swampy Meadowlands subverting social and economic norms, activists fighting for parks, forests, and beaches across two centuries, and much more.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
RAECHEL LUTZ is an environmental historian and high school social studies teacher based in Northern New Jersey. Her academic work investigates the intersections of environmental history, the history of technology, energy history, and visual culture. She is a coeditor of American Energy Cinema. Her 2018 Rutgers University history PhD dissertation, "Crude Conservation: Nature, Pollution, and Technology at Standard Oil’s New Jersey Refineries, 1870–1980s” was awarded The Governor Alfred E. Driscoll Dissertation Prize by the New Jersey Historical Commission.
REVIEWS
“New Jersey’s Natures is an exciting and interesting collection. It represents a good mix of authors and historical sub-fields, including essays that engage public history and environmental justice work.”
— Elaine Lafay, Rutgers University
“The essays in New Jersey’s Natures are eye-opening and engagingly written; taken together, they feel very timely. Lutz has gathered a committed set of environmental historians working at the leading edge of the field, and this book should be of interest to environmental historians as a whole, not just scholars of New Jersey.”
— Jack Bouchard, author of Terra Nova: Food, Water, and Work in an Early Atlantic World
“New Jersey’s Natures makes a major contribution to our understanding of the state’s environmental history that moves beyond the industrial landscapes along the northern New Jersey Turnpike. The authors of these essays invite us not only to explore a deeper chronological history that reaches into all regions of the state, but they introduce us to a wide range of historical actors and environments not previously included in the New Jersey story.”
— Paul Israel, director and general editor of the Thomas A. Edison Papers at Rutgers University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword - Neil M. Maher
Introduction - Raechel Lutz
Part 1: North Jersey
Chapter 1 - Sevin Yildiz
Chapter 2 - Erin Becker-Boris
Chapter 3 - Charlotte Leib
Part II: Central Jersey
Chapter 4 - James J. Gigantino II
Chapter 5 - Daniel L. Druckenbrod
Part III: South Jersey
Chapter 6 - Christine Woodside
Chapter 7 - Andy Urban
Chapter 8 - Tina Peabody
Part IV: Delaware Water Gap
Chapter 9 - Chad Anderson
Chapter 10 - Christopher J. Slaby
Chapter 11 - Michael Chiarappa
Part V: The Pinelands
Chapter 12 - Robert Hoberman
Chapter 13 - Jordan P. Howell and Zachary Rouhas
Part VI: The Shore
Chapter 14 - Aris Damadian Lindemans
Chapter 15 - Melissa Ziobro
