Trenton Makes
Trenton's history as a center of industry began with the grist mill built by Mahlon Stacy on Assunpink Creek at the Falls of the Delaware where he settled in 1679. During the few years (1714 and 1724) that William Trent owned property there, he expanded that mill and built another as well as a sawmill, fulling mill and dyehouse for processing cloth, a bakehouse, and iron works. Industrial development accelerated in the mid-1800s and during the 19th century Trenton's mills and factories produced paper, button, leather belts, cooking utensils, cotton and wood fabric, liquor, and industrial machinery, but most importantly iron, steel, rubber, and pottery. These enterprises drew immigrants from Europe, especially Eastern and Southern Europe, through the late 19th and early 20th century and then African Americans moving from southern states in mid-20th century.
|
While a number of economic and social factors led to the decline of manufacturing in Trenton in the second half of the 20th century, Trenton still proudly displays its icon slogan on the Lower Trenton Bridge. “Night view west toward the Trenton Makes Bridge from the east bank of the Delaware River in Trenton, Mercer County, New Jersey,” September 19, 2023 (Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons). |
|
RESOURCES:
www.mercercounty.org/community/history/beginning-of-an-industrial-giant
Social History of Economic Decline: Business, Politics, and Work in Trenton (1989) by John T. Cumbler
"The Social Cost of Deindustrialization: Postwar Trenton, New Jersey" (2024) by Patrick Luckie
Other Stories
Explore the other stories we tell.
