Folklife in New Jersey
Although New Jersey's official name is “the Garden state,”
many people think of it as “the Turnpike state.” Both images
are accurate, and together they reflect the environmental, industrial,
and cultural diversity of the state. Eighteen wheelers on the turnpike
roar past densely packed cities and stark industrial landscapes, as well
as past small, quiet towns and fertile farms shuttered from the road by
woodlands.
For a relatively small area, New Jersey holds surprising geological contrasts.
The Appalachian trail snakes through the northern reaches of the state
and the Ramapo, Watchung, and other mountain ranges roll south from the
borders with Pennsylvania and New York through the central counties. In
the south, the land gradually flattens and fans out into sandy beaches
on the long coast line.
Within these natural environments, communities have used the natural resources
to create distinct folkways. Maritime groups in the Raritan Bay area long
ago tailored boats from local woods to suit the unsheltered coastline
and to reap its harvests of fish and shellfish. Families in the small
towns there started housing tourists from the cities in the 19th century,
and building their seasonal rounds on the comings and goings of the crowds,
and continue to do so today.
In the Pine Barrens region, men began farming cedar trees in the nineteenth century and building “corduroy roads” to make their way into the swamps where the trees grow best. The discarded pieces of cedar were scavenged or bought by hunters and hunter guides to carve decoys that would help them attract ducks. Each area of the Barnegat Bay had its own style. Today, those decoys are prized by collectors and museums.
American Indians worked all these areas before the Europeans arrived, and many of their methods and resources were shared with the newcomers. Colonization decimated the tribes, though, and by the middle of the 19th century, most had either left for other places (mainly Oklahoma) or tried to blend in with the local settlers. Today, many people in the state have Indian heritage, some from local tribes, others from those in other states. They gather regularly at pow wows to regenerate their traditions.
The
state’s natural resources attracted many industries and people from
around the world to work in them. Factories producing everything from
steel to silk were powered by both the craft and the muscle of immigrants.
The industries themselves provided a context for the creation of folkways.
In Millville, for instance, the glass industry predominated and the hierarchies
of the workplace were repeated in the neighborhoods, with the skilled
and well-paid glassblowers at the top. In the summer, when the glass factories
shut down, much of the town emptied out as families followed their men
to other workplaces or to the shore. Civic parades included bands of glassworkers
marching with glass batons.
The cities grew, and then the suburbs. Rail lines were developed to allow people to live beyond city limits and still work in the cities. They were replaced by high speed roads, such as the turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, and today the state is crowded with highways and suburbs along with its old cities, small towns, and country roads.
The European immigrants that came to the state from its earliest days as “East Jersey” (settled first by the Dutch in the north), and “West Jersey” (settled by Swedes and English in the south), established a characteristic that continues today. Throughout much of the twentieth century, New Jersey was one of the five top destinations in the country for new immigrants.
Thus New Jersey has become one of the most culturally diverse states in the country. It has provided a home to almost every wave of immigrants, from the Dutch seeking enterprise and the Quakers seeking religious freedom in colonial days, to the Irish and Italians fleeing crop failures and starvation in the nineteenth century, to African Americans seeking freedom and jobs after the Civil War and World War II, Eastern Europeans escaping pogroms and war in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Asians and Latinos searching for political and economic security in more recent times.
Today,
New Jersey remains among the top five destinations for new immigrants
and is tied for third among all the states the percentage of residents
that are foreign born. Many of our cities and suburbs are “little
nations,” with high populations of particular ethnic groups. Union
City, for instance, is the second largest concentration of Cubans in the
country. Edison has the third largest population of Asian Indians in the
nation. Newark is known in Portugal and Brazil as “a home away from
home,” and Paterson has the largest Peruvian community outside of
Peru. In New Jersey’s Mexican communities, at least six different
native American languages are spoken.
All of these factors – environmental resources, industry, and ethnicity, and occupation – have created a panoply of folk cultural forms.
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