front cover of Camden County, New Jersey
Camden County, New Jersey
The Making of a Metropolitan Community, 1626-2000
Dorwart, Jeffery M
Rutgers University Press, 2001

In this book, Jeffery M. Dorwart chronicles more than three centuries of Camden County history. He takes readers on a journey, from the earliest days as a Native American settlement, to the county's important roles in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, Camden City's booms and busts, the county's increasing suburbanization, and concluding with current inner-city revitalization efforts.

Dorwart details how the earliest European settlers radically changed the local Native American culture and introduced black slavery. In the Revolutionary War, the county's location directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia placed it at the crossroads of the American Revolution. Dorwart examines the county's conflicted roles during the Civil War, when the older agrarian population, which held traditional social and economic ties to the slave-owing South, clashed with the increasingly industrialized interests of the urban waterfront, which showed strong Unionist tendencies. He explores the changing demographics of the area as waves of European immigrants came to work in the factories. He surveys the rise and fall of first Camden City, then of the suburbs, as both areas experienced population ebbs and flows. Finally, Dorwart looks at the revitalization efforts of 2000 when Camden County began efforts to reinvent the riverfront community where it all began.

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front cover of Cape May County, New Jersey
Cape May County, New Jersey
The Making of an American Resort Community
Dorwart, Jeffery M
Rutgers University Press, 1992
Cape May County, at the southern tip of New Jersey, is one of America's most vibrant seashore resorts. Jeffery Dorwart has written a history of this community from its earliest settlement as an Atlantic maritime and farming frontier to its development today as a major regional tourist attraction. From earliest times, Cape May County was a region of cultural ferment, as American Indians, African-American slaves, European Quakers, Baptists, and Presbyterians struggled to coexist on the wild, isolated Jersey Cape. Despite this variety of settlers, a distinct type of resident, known as the whaler yeoman, dominated affairs on the Cape May peninsula for over two hundred years. Railroad development and the arrival during the late nineteenth century of Eastern European, Italian, and Scandinavian immigrants gradually changed Cape May County society. A multiethnic, multicultural community evolved that threatened whaler yeoman domination. New settlements appeared in the pine wilderness of the mainland and on the uninhabited Atlantic Ocean barrier islands. These changes caused social and political conflicts, and new development assaulted the fragile seashore environment. Fishing and shipbuilding were key industries throughout the early history of Cape May County. In addition, familiar industries such as cranberry harvesting and nearly forgotten endeavors such as goldbeating, sugar refining, and cedar shingle mining played vital roles in the county's economic development. Dorwart also traces the origins of the seashore resort industry through the history of the city of Cape May, with its unique architectural styles and heritage, as well as the founding of Wildwood, Ocean City, and the newer resort towns. The story of how Cape May County responded to dramatic change not only illuminates the historical development of a New Jersey seashore community but also enhances our understanding of the American experience with changing social and economic conditions.
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