George Washington was in a fix. The British had chased Washington and his ragged Continental Army off Manhattan Island and across the Hudson River to what is now Fort Lee. Enlistments were ending...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/shore-travel/a-new-jersey-road-trip-for-the-history-buff/
A new exhibit at the New Jersey State Museum introduces the work of a prolific photographer more than 100 years after he documented ordinary people and places in the state. “Discovering Grant C...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/arts-entertainment/discovering-grant-castner-new-jersey-state-museum/
DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. IS SEEN AT THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON IN AUGUST OF 1963. Photo: Alamy Stock Photo/Pictorial Press LTD February is Black History Month, and there is no better time to thi...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/news/black-history-month-martin-luther-king-new-jersey/
Garden State history buffs have two reasons to pick up Duel in the Deep (Naval Institute Press). The new book by David Sears vividly portrays real-life military events, and those battles depende...
BEVERLY LEE (FAR LEFT) AND THE SHIRELLES WERE PASSAIC CLASSMATES. Photo: Pictorial Press Limited/Alamy Stock Photo In many ways, the girl groups that ruled the airwaves six decades ago—from t...
There are a lot of iconic towns here in the Garden State, each with its own allure. Asbury Park has the Boss and New Brunswick’s got the Big Ten. Trenton honors history , while Atlantic City’...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/news/how-todays-glitzy-hoboken-obscures-the-citys-dark-history/
The Ellis Island hospital is only a few steps from the main immigration building, a magnificent brick-and-limestone structure bustling with tourists. Built by the same architect at the same time,...
MASARU NAKAWATASE, 79, CAME TO SEABROOK FARMS AT THREE YEARS OLD. Photo: Dave Moser In 1944, a farm in a quiet corner of South Jersey was looking for more workers to help with its crops. Seabr...
In 1831, James Howe was deeded 6 acres and a small house on Claremont Avenue in Montclair. That house still stands. For many years, the worn clapboard house was known locally as the slave house. ...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/towns-schools/history/montclair-howe-house/
There is something curious at Chester’s Highlands Ridge Park: nearly 700 abandoned telephone poles standing like trees. For almost 50 years, the park, often called the telephone pole farm, se...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/towns-schools/history/chester-telephone-poles-highlands-ridge-park/
Woodstock wasn’t the only three-day music festival during August of 1969. The Atlantic City Pop Festival, which was held two weeks before music fans camped out at Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel ...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/jersey-shore/atlantic-city-pop-festival-1969/
Even lifelong New Jerseyans can still be surprised by our state: the beauty of a sunset at the Shore, the sight of sea life off the coast, the architecture of a building. Then there are the inter...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/news/things-you-dont-know-about-new-jersey/
Seventy-nine years ago, on D-Day, Leonard G. “Bud” Lomell was speeding across the dark, icy Atlantic Ocean toward the coast of France, hoping to take out a bank of Nazi artillery. He and a ...
Growing up, Dionne Ford knew from a young age that her family was descended from slaves. But when she discovered the identity of her great-great-grandmother, Tempy, who was enslaved, she realized...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/arts-entertainment/memoir-explores-trauma-slavery-sexual-violence/
Once upon a time, a king lived in Bordentown. Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s older brother and the ex-king of Naples and Spain, fled Europe after the Battle of Waterloo and improbably settled i...
New Jersey is the birthplace of many inventions and innovations that Americans couldn’t imagine living without today. FIRST BASEBALL GAME Hoboken is the birthplace of modern baseball (about ...
Working as a naturalist primarily from her Vineland home, Mary Treat was a groundbreaking scientist who discovered new flora and fauna, including three species of ants that were named in her hono...
Illustration by James O'Brien When I learned last year that there was an artists retreat in Lambertville, I jumped at the opportunity. During the decade I’d spent writing a book about the en...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/towns-schools/history/burlington-county-ties-to-slavery-freedom/
While location is always paramount in real estate, when the owners of this modern Haddonfield home were house shopping, they had more than a nice neighborhood in mind. “Their goal was to be nea...
The brownstone-and-brick First National Bank building has dominated the main downtown intersection of the little Salem County borough of Woodstown since it was erected in 1892. Unlike New Jer...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/eat-drink/nj-couple-turned-a-vacant-bank-into-a-brewery/
Downtown banks used to be where eager home buyers applied for mortgages, workers cashed hard-earned paychecks, and youngsters watched nickels and dimes grow in their first savings accounts. But i...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/news/nj-downtowns-are-breathing-new-life-into-empty-old-banks/
Though there’s more to Italian cooking than this vibrant fruit, it’s difficult to imagine our favorite NJ Italian restaurants without it. Below, a brief history lesson about the iconic Je...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/eat-drink/how-the-beloved-jersey-tomato-came-to-be/
If your beloved sled was a Flexible Flyer, you’re likely to see one just like it, no matter the style or year, at the Flexible Flyer Sled Museum in Moorestown. Located in the vestibule betw...
It’s been 87 years since the state of New Jersey executed an unemployed German immigrant from the Bronx for kidnapping and killing famous aviator Charles Lindbergh’s 20-month-old son. Bruno...
Illustration by Nadia Radic Over seventy years ago, a little-known confrontation between the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the gun-wielding owner of a modest Maple Shade tavern changed w...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/towns-schools/history/martin-luther-king-jr-new-jersey-maple-shade/
New Jersey has recently become a shocking case study for hate crimes . But long before groups like the Proud Boys showed up, historians say 60,000 Jerseyans joined the Ku Klux Klan between Worl...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/news/racism-and-hate-have-disturbing-roots-in-nj/
Thanksgiving is a time to reunite with family over food. Princeton University helped add a third F—football—to the holiday nearly 150 years ago. Princeton and Yale universities squared off ...
East Orange architect Edward Bowser Jr. is not widely recognized, but his buildings are hard to forget. Their glass walls, flat roofs and minimalist design stand apart and invite comparisons to F...
One-hundred and thirty years ago, Annie Oakley, the gun-toting superstar of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, decided to settle in Nutley. At the height of her international fame, the petite, Oh...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/towns-schools/history/annie-oakley-nutley-new-jersey/
In the early morning hours of June 29, 1776, Captain John Barry, in command of the American frigate Lexington, which was anchored in the waters off Cape May, received a message that the brigantin...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/towns-schools/history/when-war-came-to-cape-may-county/
SINCE THE 1950S, LAND OF MAKE BELIEVE HAS BEEN A PLACE WHERE “STORIES AND SONGS COME TO LIFE.” Photo courtesy of Land of Make Believe As a kid, Christopher Maier didn’t plan on making a c...
Drive west on Route 22 from Mountainside to North Plainfield, and you’ll pass through a patchwork of brushy woods, gas stations, chain stores, diners, tire shops and shopping malls. It wasn’t...
Steve Sweeney served 12 years as president of the state Senate. An ironworker by trade, Sweeney, in the eyes of many political observers, has never forgotten his working-class roots and has a wel...
After nearly a decade of living in Maplewood, Frank McGehee was taken aback by the discord that occurred in his town last election cycle. McGehee, who was mayor at the time, watched as constitu...
Long before Springsteen, boardwalks and debates over breakfast meats, the likes of Dryptosaurus, Grallator and Hadrosaurus dominated the Garden State . A variety of massive mosasaurs, plesiosaurs...
Childcare is critically important for the development and well-being of our children. It is also directly correlated with economic recovery in New Jersey, since without access to affordable and q...
The political world was turned upside down on November 2. In a state with over 1 million more registered Democrats than Republicans, Governor Phil Murphy (D) won a second term by a much narrower ...
https://njmonthly.com/articles/politics-public-affairs/what-new-jerseys-leaders-must-do-in-2022/
While food-insecurity rates have diminished since the height of the pandemic, the Community FoodBank of New Jersey continues to distribute more food than ever before—about 50% more during any g...
If you have cherished childhood memories of unwrapping that toy you wanted so desperately, or of watching a child or grandchild open a gift box with a new doll or board game inside, there’s goo...
The first three years of a child’s life are crucial for development, setting the foundation for later success. HealthySteps—an evidence- and team-based pediatric primary care program that ...