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, a fulling mill and a dyehouse for processing cloth, a bakehouse, and iron works.
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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 iconic 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). |
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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
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