Jersey City

Book excerpt: Patrick Shalhoub has brought together over two hundred fascinating photographs and prints of Jersey City which bring to life the people, places, and events which have created the city's vibrant and colorful history over the centuries. He takes us on a journey into the past. We see the farming communities which dominated the locality from the 1660s through the middle of the nineteenth century, when the area was part of the larger Bergen Township. We then experience the arrival of the immigrants, the advent of industrialization, and the rapid growth of Jersey City from a cluster of farmsteads and villages into the second largest city in New Jersey. Immigration has been the lifeblood of Jersey City's history, and through the images selected here we witness how Jersey City sprang to life with the influx of immigrants between 1830 and 1920-at first, Irish, German, and British, and, later, immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, including Italians, Poles, Russians, and Slovaks. African-Americans were present in Bergen Township from the early days of the city, but their numbers increased with the migration of laborers from the South in the first half of the twentieth century and their important contribution to the city continued. In recent decades, new communities have grown in Jersey City, including Latin American, Asian Indian, Egyptian, Filipino, and Haitian communities.