Author: Terry Golway

House Proud

December 19, 2007

She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1974 and served four terms. A Republican, she was famously independent, known for her pipe smoking and her blueblood style. She inspired the character of Lacey Davenport in Garry Trudeau’s comic strip, Doonesbury.

Seen in: History, Towns & Schools

Most New Jerseyans know him as a bridge on the Garden State Parkway. But Driscoll earned that immortality as the first governor empowered by the Constitution of 1947. As a reformer, a champion of civil rights, and a conservationist, Driscoll set the template for future activist governors. He served from 1947 to 1954.

Seen in: History, Towns & Schools

New Jersey had one of the weakest governor’s offices in the country until the state Constitution was rewritten after World War II. The war and the New Deal had shown the importance of strong executive guidance, leading to the revisions. Today, the state has perhaps the most powerful governor’s office in the nation.

Seen in: History, Towns & Schools

He’s a state forest now instead of a sports arena, but one thing hasn’t changed: his high standing in the polls. During his years in Trenton (he was elected in 1973 and reelected in 1977), the sports complex in the Meadowlands became reality, residents were hit with an income tax, and gambling was legalized in Atlantic City.

Seen in: Best Of Jersey

William Livingston was born in Albany in 1723, a member of a wealthy Hudson Valley family. He attended Yale and set up shop as a politically connected lawyer in New York City, but when he and his family fell out of favor in 1772, he, like many other disillusioned New Yorkers through the years, moved to New Jersey.

Seen in: History, Towns & Schools

Who was she? Did she really even exist? We know her real name was not Molly Pitcher—that was the nickname she earned on the battlefield, perhaps while bringing water to parched soldiers.

Seen in: History, Towns & Schools

(1885–1977) A suffrage activist who lived to see the nation’s bicentennial, Paul, a Quaker from Moorestown, earned a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and law degrees from Columbia and American universities at a time when few women attended college. She not only advocated for women’s voting rights, in 1964 she helped persuade Congress to add a ban on sex discrimination to the Civil Rights Act.

Seen in: History, Towns & Schools

This local dispute garnered national attention. In the end, workers didn’t get everything they wanted, but the strike captured the imaginations of activists around the country, even in New York City—perhaps the last time an injustice in New Jersey received attention on the east bank of the Hudson.

Seen in: History, Towns & Schools

His last day on Earth was spent in New Jersey. On the cliffs overlooking the North River (as the Hudson was called) and Manhattan Island, he was shot by the vice president of the United States, Aaron Burr, during a duel.

Seen in: History, Towns & Schools

The media, including this magazine, have been chronicling the 40th anniversary of Newark’s catastrophic summer of 1967

Seen in: History, Towns & Schools