New Jersey ratifies the Constitution, Dec. 18, 1787

On this day in 1787, New Jersey became the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution and thereby join the Union, following Delaware and Pennsylvania. New Jersey had played a major role in designing the structure of the U.S. government after it became widely evident that the original Articles of Confederation were ill-suited to govern a unified nation.

It was not a simple task.


The smaller former colonies balked when Virginia’s delegates advanced a plan calling for representation based on the population of each state, fearing they would be shut out of the decision-making. To allay their concerns, New Jersey’s William Paterson proposed forming a unicameral Legislature in which each state would be treated equally, receiving one vote apiece. In the end, the founders adopted both plans. Under the terms of the “Great Compromise,” there would be a House and a Senate.

On Nov. 20, 1789, New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights. In 1790, Trenton became the state capital. William Livingston became New Jersey’s first governor. Paterson went on to become an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and New Jersey’s second governor.

As the 19th century dawned, New Jersey grew and prospered. New factories sprung up throughout the state. The city of Paterson became a textile center and later became known for producing trains and silk. Trenton produced clay products, iron and steel. Camden, Elizabeth, Jersey City, Newark, and Passaic became major manufacturing centers.

During the Civil War, New Jersey mustered 31 regiments. More than 25,000 men from New Jersey fought for the Union, participating in nearly every major Eastern battle.

As the century progressed, an increasingly urbanized New Jersey came to be known as The Garden State. The nickname’s author, Abraham Browning, a Camden attorney, had noted that “the garden state is an immense barrel, filled with good things to eat and open at both ends, with Pennsylvanians grabbing from one end and New Yorkers from the other.”

In 1910, half the state’s people were either born or had parents who were born outside the United States. As city populations grew, the number of farm residents shrank.

With many people working in factories, such issues as child labor and worker protection grew in importance. The urgency of these reforms propelled Democrat Woodrow Wilson into the governorship in 1910. Two years later, Wilson won the presidency in a three-way race; he remains the sole New Jersey governor to hold that office.

In the early 1900s, thanks in large part to Thomas Alva Edison, who developed the first commercially practical incandescent light bulb, New Jersey for time became the motion picture capital of the world.

In Fort Lee, across the Hudson River from New York City, such film stars as Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Mary Pickford and Pearl White, among others, revolutionized the entertainment industry.

SOURCE: U.S. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; WWW.NJ.GOV/NJ/ABOUT/HISTORY/SHORT_HISTORY.HTML

