John T. Cunningham: An Appreciation

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; margin-left: .5in;">Abstract: A friend and colleague pays tribute to John T. Cunningham, the indefatigable chronicler of New Jersey history.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; margin-left: .5in; line-height: 150%;"> </p>

The Morality of Carelessness: The Montclair Typhoid Epidemic of 1894

As Montclair began to develop from a small town into a prosperous suburb in the late 19th Century, an outbreak of typhoid swept through the community, killing as many as fifty people. An investigation uncovered evidence of carelessness if not outright incompetence, but no officials were held accountable for the tragedy.

"Will I Ever be Fit for Civil Society Again?" The Challenges of Readjustment Through the Prism of the New Jersey Soldier's Home at Newark

The New Jersey Soldier's Home was founded to assist Civil War veterans who returned home scarred by the conflict's frightful scenes of carnage. The Home's records, indeed, its very existence, show that the transition from military to civilian life was no easier 150 years ago than it is today.

Book Reviews

<p>Gerald G. Eggert reviews <em>Forging America: Ironworkers, Adventurers, and the Industrious Revolution </em>by John Bezís-Selfa.</p><p>David M. Stameshkin reviews <em>The Making of Princeton University: From Woodrow Wilson to the Present b</em>y James Axtell</p><p>Herbert Ershkowitz reviews <em>Mysteries of My Father </em>by Thomas Fleming</p>

The Saga of Peter Still

The following is an expanded and footnoted version of the twenty-fourth annual Louis Faugères Bishop III lecture, held Monday, February 23, 2009 at the Alexander Library of Rutgers University in New Brunswick.

Nativists in Newark: Radical Protestant Reaction to the Appointment of a Catholic Bishop

<p><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', times; font-size: small;">Abstract: The appointment of the first Roman Catholic bishop of Newark in 1853 led to ferocious criticism from the city’s newspapers, street preachers, and visiting Catholic dissidents. The visceral anti-Catholic, anti-Vatican rhetoric in Newark foreshadowed the Know Nothing movement’s successes in 1854, the high tide of antebellum nativism in the northeast. </span></p>

Slavery in New Jersey: A Roundtable

<p class="MsoNormal">Abstract: Slavery in New Jersey offers scholars a rich, untapped source for new scholarship about the meaning of freedom and liberty from the Founding Era to the Civil War. Kean University recently sponsored a panel discussion featuring three scholars and their research into the story of slavery in the Garden State. This opening essay offers a summation of the Kean panel’s findings, and offers encouragement to other scholars of slavery in the state.</p>

Book Review

<p class="MsoNormal"><em><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Golden Age of Bicycle Racing in New Jersey</span></em><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">. By Michael C. Gabriele. (Charleston, S.C.: The History Press, 2011), 126 pp., illustrations, bibliography, $19.99.<strong></strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: ";Times New Roman";,";serif";;"> </span></strong></p>

Janus-Faced: Post-Revolutionary Slavery In East and West Jersey, 1784-1804

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: ";Times New Roman";,";serif";;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Abstract: New Jersey was a state divided by slavery. After the Revolution, slavery continued its decline in West Jersey, home of the state’s most-fervent abolitionists. But slavery in East Jersey expanded in the years following independence. This paper examines divisions between east and west in the early Republic</span>.</span></p>

Testing "Liberty" in New Jersey, 1775-1793: The Intersection of Slavery and Select Manumission Supreme Court Cases

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Abstract: Through an examination of materials from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania collections (the Richard Waln Papers and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society Papers) and the New Jersey State Archives, the paper highlights select sample writs of habeas corpus and manumission cases before the New Jersey Supreme Court from 1775-1783. The stories narrated in these documents tells a story of freedom – and lack of freedom – in New Jersey during and after the American Revolution.</span><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></p>