Shrewsbury Township. 0.10-square-mile township in Monmouth County. Shrewsbury Township was part of the original village of Shrewsbury, which was created by the Monmouth Patent of April 8, 1665. In 1693, a small section in the western part of the original village of Shrewsbury broke away and incorporated as a township. During World War II, Shrewsbury Township was the site of federal housing used by the U.S. Army. On July 18,1950, Tinton Falls and Wayside split from Shrewsbury Township. The new section fought to use the name of Shrewsbury, but lost. Instead, the small area that remained from the original village was awarded the right to retain the name.
Today, Shrewsbury Township is a tiny community that consists of approximately two to three blocks of apartments and condominiums. It is situated south and west of Shrewsbury Borough and is bordered by Shrewsbury Avenue, Tinton Falls, and a small portion of Eatontown. The population of Shrewsbury Township was 1,098 in 2000: 67 percent white, 17 percent black, and 10 percent Asian. The 2000 median household income was $36,875.
Sierra Club. Established in San Francisco in 1893 to protect natural areas, the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club was formed in 1972 and soon had 2,600 members, an outings schedule, and a quarterly journal, The Jersey Sierran. The state chapter (like the national) promotes grassroots activism on public policy issues, such as solid waste, mass transit, farmland preservation, environmental education, and clean water. In the 1970s it campaigned for the Eastern Wilderness Act, New Jersey’s Natural Areas System Act, the state’s Natural Lands Trust, Brigantine Wilderness Area, and the Pinelands Preserve. The club championed the 1974 New Jersey law giving citizens the right to sue polluters on the basis of (and prior to) environmental damage. Also in the l970s, the chapter lobbied against the Tocks Island Dam and the Toms River Extension of the New Jersey Turnpike and supported state passage of the Coastal Facilities Review Act and the $200 million Green Acres Bond Issue. The chapter joined national campaigns on issues such as nuclear power, the Concorde Supersonic Transport Aircraft, and Toxic Substances Control, vital to New Jersey. In the l980s the chapter lobbied to expand the Brigantine Wilderness Area and Great Swamp Wilderness. The New Jersey chapter, with 22,000 members in ten regional groups as of 2001, continues to function within the national, member-supported club, engaging in lobbying, support for legislative candidates, and judicial activism.
Sigmund Eisner Company. The Sigmund Eisner Company, manufacturers of U.S. Army uniforms, was founded by a Czech immigrant in the mid-i8gos. Eisner settled in Red Bank, where he met his wife, Bertha Wise, and raised his four sons. Starting in the needle trade, the couple soon expanded their cottage industry. Awarded government contracts during the Spanish-American War, the Eisner Company became the primary outfitters of uniforms in the United States with five factories working during World Wars I and II. Between the wars the Eisner Company manufactured Boy Scout uniforms and clothing for police departments and fire companies. Sig-mund Eisner died in 1925, but his sons continued to run the company until the early 1960s.
Silk industry. Although silk thread and textiles were produced in several New Jersey locations, Paterson was the center of the silk industry in the state. Christopher Colt, a Connecticut industrialist, installed the first silk mill during the late 1830s in Paterson’s Old Gun Mill, using old equipment brought from his Connecticut mill. The venture soon failed. John Ryle, a silk worker from England, purchased the machinery and started producing silk thread in 1840. By 1850, Ryle’s operation employed over five hundred employees, manufacturing silk thread, embroidery yarn, and ribbon. By i860, there were six silk mills in operation and secondary processing industries began to develop. Over six hundred people-mostly women, children, and unskilled men-worked in silk-dyeing plants.
Paterson’s silk industry thrived for several reasons: the water-based power supplied by the Passaic River, a steady supply of skilled immigrant craftspeople from England and France (and, later, from Poland and Italy), and proximity to the market in New York. The success of the enterprise was also aided by high protective tariffs imposed on imported silk finished goods. Improvements in technology, available capital, increased demand, and explosive immigration fueled the expansion of the industry. By 1900, 175 companies in Paterson, employing 20,000 workers, processed two-thirds of all the silk in the country. In 1919, there were 22,000 workers, producing over $140 million in goods, earning Paterson the titles "Silk City” and "the Lyons of America” after the French silk industry center.
As the industry grew and technology improved, the ratio of skilled to unskilled workers declined. In Europe, loom operators and ribbon makers were considered to be highly skilled artisans. There, they owned their own tools and were leaders in their communities. In New Jersey, by contrast, these skilled immigrants suffered reduced status and loss of independence. High-speed power looms replaced the looms that were run by skilled craftsmen. The silk industry became mostly a workplace for women and children. The fine and delicate work lent itself to their small hands. The men found work in the local metal industries and at the Paterson-based Rogers Locomotive Works.
Long hours, dangerous and unhealthy working conditions, and low wages were the rule in Paterson’s silk factories. Only the smallest children escaped work. The manufacturers, seeking to reduce costs and maximize profits, lowered the wages of the workers while increasing their workload. These wage cuts, along with horrible working conditions, led to a series of strikes and the involvement of labor unions, such as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), also known as "Wobblies.”
Manufacturers began to open annexes in northeast Pennsylvania and in the South where lower wages were tolerated and the workers were less likely to strike. Although the Paterson silk industry continued to grow until the Great Depression in the 1930s, it began to lose national market share to other states. As the big manufacturers moved out, smaller family shops, sometimes known as "cockroach” shops, replaced them. These usually had fewer than thirty looms and employed mostly women and children.
Other factors contributing to the decline of the silk industry in Paterson were labor unrest (most notably the general strike of i9i3), the lowered demand for silk during the Depression, and the failure to incorporate new and competing fibers, such as rayon, into production.
Sills, Cummis, Radin, Tischman, Epstein, and Gross. This law firm was founded in i97i in Newark under the name Sills, Beck, Cummis, Radin, and Tischman, when Arthur J. Sills, former attorney general of New Jersey for eight years under Gov. Richard J. Hughes, and David Beck joined an existing seven-lawyer general practice headed by Clive S. Cummis and two younger partners, Steven S. Radin and Michael B. Tischman. Growth came quickly and in large spurts-so quickly that one year later, the firm moved from its original offices in a three-story brown-stone to a new eighteen-story office building. Barry M. Epstein joined the firm in i976 and Steven E. Gross joined the firm in 1979. Arthur Sills died in 1982; David Beck and subsequent name partner Herbert L. Zuckerman have retired.
The firm presently occupies more than four floors in the Legal Center in Newark. Having gained a national client base, it also has offices in New York, San Francisco, and Atlantic City. Over i50 attorneys provide experience and expertise in a broad range of corporate disciplines including, but not limited to, complex litigation and corporate trans-actional matters, securities, tax, product liability, real estate, gaming/casinos, venture capital, bankruptcy, corporate immigration, employment and labor, and health care.
Silva, Francis A. (b. Oct. 4,1835; d. Mar. 31, 1886). Painter. Francis A. Silva was born in New York City, the son of Francis John Silva, a barber, who had emigrated from Madeira. The son began as a sign and carriage painter before his Civil War service in the Union Army, where he rose to captain in the Ninth New York Volunteer Infantry. In 1865 Silva returned to New York and began his career as an artist, concentrating on marine subjects. He married Margaret A. Watts in Keyport in 1868, and they had at least one child.
Silva was a leading figure in the luminist movement in American art, which stressed the use of light and atmosphere to achieve poetic images. He was known for his serene marine paintings depicting the coast from the New Jersey shore and Chesapeake Bay to New England, such as Barnegat Bay (1877) and Seabrightfrom Galilee (1880). He was elected to the American Watercolor Society in 1872. In 1880 Silva moved to Long Branch, although he maintained his studio in New York. For the last six years of his life he painted mainly New Jersey scenes. He died of pneumonia in New York City.
Silversmithing. Until the late 1700s, a few individuals (the shop of Isaac Pearson of Burlington dates to circa i7i0) practiced the art of the silversmith in New Jersey; New York and Philadelphia silversmiths usually supplied what was needed until then. After the Revolution, with increased prosperity and population, more silversmiths began to work within the state’s borders. A number of the earliest involved in the trade were Nathaniel Coleman (Burlington), Aaron Lane (Elizabeth), Teunis Denise Dubois (Freehold), John Dikerson (Morristown), John and Peter Lupp (New Brunswick), David Lyell (Perth Amboy), Smith Burnett and Benjamin Cleveland (Newark), and John Fitch (Trenton). Most engaged in the allied trades of jeweler and clock and watchmaker, as well as that of silversmith, to earn their living. The overwhelming proportion of their production, common at the time, was the fabrication of spoons.
The first large-scale manufacturing operation for silverware developed in Newark with the partnership of Taylor and Baldwin (John Taylor and Isaac Baldwin) in 1821. About 1820, silversmiths in the New York area began wholesaling their wares and making pieces to order for retail jewelers. Taylor and Baldwin, besides selling on its own account, was involved in this type of business and, perhaps, was specifically formed to engage in it. The firm also entered into the large-scale production of jewelry and is credited with establishing the basis for one of the great and profitable industries of Newark.
In 1842, John Taylor retired to enter the banking business full time. Baldwin established a new firm, known as Baldwin and Company, consisting of himself, his sons Horace and Wickliffe, and another individual by the name of C. E. Chevalier. The timing of this new enterprise could not have been better since, in the same year, a tariff was put into place raising the import duties on silverware from 20 percent ad valorum to 30 percent ad valorum. This protection, along with the general increase in prosperity after the paralyzing five-year depression emanating from the Panic of 1837, resulted in a dynamic and expanding market for domestically produced silver goods. Baldwin and Company produced fashionable and stylistically distinctive goods. In 1869, the firm was succeeded by Thomas G. Brown. In an 1869 advertisement for Brown, part of the text reads: "Successor to Baldwin & Co., Established 1813." The dating of the firm to the year 1813 cannot be verified, since establishments often dated themselves from the beginning of an earlier partnership. Brown continued the production of high-quality silverware, although the firm, in most instances, listed itself as a jewelry manufacturer.
Another mid-nineteenth-century New Jersey silversmith of note was Henry C. Priest of Newark (fl. 1835-1863). Many examples of his spoons are still found in the marketplace today. Some other examples of nineteenth-century New Jersey retailer names often seen stamped on the back of silverware are Henry Evans, Richard Smith, and Gaven Spence.
Three notable firms in existence shortly before the twentieth century and continuing beyond were Unger Brothers, Lebkuecher and Company, and the Mauser Manufacturing Company, all of Newark. Unger was established in 1872, the partnership consisting of five brothers. When three of the brothers died in 1878 (George, Frederick, and William), the firm was carried forward by the two survivors (Eugene and Herman). To many, the name Unger Brothers is synonymous with American art nouveau, not only because of the firm’s flatware offerings, but also because of its seemingly endless varieties of silver novelties, toiletries, and small hollowware in the style.
Sixteen of its art nouveau flatware patterns were design-patented in only two years, 1903 and 1904. Overall, the patterns are highly figu-ral. Much of Unger Brothers’ silverware is distinctive and has a devoted collector following. The firm was working as jewelers/silversmiths from its inception in 1872 until 1914. Although the business survived until 1919, it produced only airplane parts in the last five years of their existence.
Lebkuecher and Company was founded toward the very end of the 1800s and was succeeded by other firms after 1918. The founders were Arthur E. and Francis A. Lebkeucher, along with Charles C. Wientge. It is assumed that they are related to Francis Lebkeucher, a Newark gold-chain manufacturer, although the history of the company is not well known. The firm produced some extraordinary items of great quality. A line of silver bowls and vases, with Chinese-influenced designs, was one of the firm’s distinctive product lines. The Elder Company succeeded Lebkuecher and Company in 1918, followed by the Elder-Hickok Company in 1922, becoming the Hickok-Matthews Company in 1931. The successor firms produced some remarkable Art Deco designs for silverware and clock cases and did a substantial number of custom orders as well as production work. It is also known that they produced items in solid 14K gold, including large trays.
The Mauser Manufacturing Company produced a wide range of stylish hollowware, flatware, and novelties. It had a vast production and items of its manufacture are still commonly found in the antiques marketplace today. A good deal of its output consisted of attractive floral designs. The firm shut down, however, in February 1908 for lack of orders. Frank Mauser, the founder, died tragically less than two months later.
Although the silverware industry in the United States is a mere shadow of what it was a century ago, New Jersey still prominently hosts the trade. Tiffany and Company formerly had its extensive silver-manufacturing works in Newark, and still maintains a shop of twenty-two skilled silversmiths handcrafting and manufacturing production and special-order pieces in Parsippany. The firm also has an active apprenticeship program to train silversmiths of the future. Much of the Tiffany and Company archive remains intact, and is a great source of knowledge about the firm, as well as offering a rich and impressive history of the craft in America.
The Garden State also has reason to boast of native son Ubaldo Vitali, a renowned silversmith and the fourth of his line to follow the trade. He is acknowledged by most to be one of the leading contemporary craftsmen. Of outstanding design and execution, his creations have found homes all over the world.
Silzer, George Sebastian (b. Apr. 14,1870; d. Oct. 16,1940). Lawyer and governor. After graduation from grammar and high school in his native New Brunswick, where his father owned and operated the Bull’s Head Tavern, George S. Silzer read law. Admitted to the bar in 1902, he opened an office in New Brunswick and began to build a successful practice. Already interested in a political career, Silzer had won election to the local board of aldermen in 1892, serving there until 1896. He chaired the Middlesex County Democratic Committee for ten years and won election to the State Senate in 1906 and 1909. The "New Idea” progressive movement among Republicans surfaced during Silzer’s years in the legislature. He stood in the forefront of the comparable reform movement in his own Democratic party. Gov. Woodrow Wilson named him prosecutor of the pleas for Middlesex County in 1912; he served there until 1914, when Gov. James F. Fielder named him a judge of the circuit court, which office he held until nominated for governor in 1922.
In a campaign dominated by the Prohibition issue, Silzer won because he was the "wettest” candidate and because the Hague machine in Hudson County turned out a big vote for him. Throughout his term Silzer faced a legislature dominated by Republicans. He proposed several social and economic reform measures but gained little legislative support. He was more successful in getting action on transportation issues. As his term neared completion so did a vehicular bridge spanning the Delaware River between Camden and Philadelphia and the Holland Tunnel, which provided a connection between Jersey City and Manhattan. Silzer revamped the state road commission so that it consisted of engineers and other experts competent to address the question of a state road network. Silzer also proposed bridges to connect Staten Island to New Jersey and a Camden Port Authority to function on the Delaware as did the Port of New York Authority along the Hudson. His administration laid the physical infrastructure for much of the state’s post-World War II development.
After Silzer left office, he returned to the practice of law, this time in Newark, and also became active in banking circles, serving on the boards of several New Jersey and New York banks, including the Broad and Market National Bank of Newark and the Interstate Trust Company. In 1926 he became chairman of the Port of New York Authority and there he supervised the process of planning the George Washington Bridge; in September 1927 Silzer presided at the groundbreaking ceremonies. When his term as chairman ended in 1928, New Jersey’s governor, A. Harry Moore, refused to renominate him, in spite of the strong recommendation of New York governor Alfred E. Smith. Afterward Silzer’s law practice and his banking activities kept him busy. He was one of the attorneys defending Dutch Schultz in an income tax evasion case in 1935, and for several years he was a member of the state board of bar examiners. On October 16, 1940, as he was walking from his office in Newark to the Pennsylvania Station to catch the train for his home in Metuchen, he was felled by a heart attack and died in the street.
Sinatra, Frank (b. Dec. 12, 1915; d. May 14, 1998). Singer and actor. Hoboken native Francis Albert Sinatra was the son of Dolly and Martin Sinatra. Also known as Ol’ Blue Eyes, the Chairman of the Board, and The Voice, Sinatra was one of the most important figures in American popular music. He used his formidable vocal technique to create an intimate bond with his listeners, whether he was singing about true love, carefree pleasures, or late-night ruminations. Unlike singers before him, he put a personal, stylish spin on all his material, "interpreting” songs rather than just singing them. Despite his celebrity, he kept pushing himself artistically, and left behind a daunting body of work.
Frank Sinatra at the Garden State Arts Center Gala, Holmdel, 1984.
Sinatra married Nancy Barbato in 1939. The couple had three children, two of whom (Frank Sinatra, Jr. and Nancy Sinatra) became performers themselves. He married Ava Gardner in 1951, Mia Farrow in 1966, and Barbara Marx in 1976. He was a controversial figure who associated with gangsters, flaunted his extramarital affairs, and was prone to angry outbursts, but he was also idolized by several generations of pop-music fans.
Sinatra started out singing with a local group, the Hoboken Four, and other New Jersey musicians. A 1939 radio broadcast of a show at the Rustic Cabin in Englewood Cliffs led to his first big break, when he was hired to sing with the Harry James Orchestra. He sang with trombonist Tommy Dorsey’s big band from 1940 to 1942, learning valuable breath-control skills from the masterly horn player. He went solo in 1942, and, the leading teen idol of his time, he attracted hordes of screaming, swooning bobby-soxers to his concerts. An uncharacteristic dry spell in the late 1940s and early 1950s ended in 1953, when he landed the role of Private Maggio in the film From Here to Eternity. Sinatra’s portrayal earned him an Oscar in 1954 and led to high-profile roles in movies like Guys and Dolls, High Society, The Manchurian Candidate, and The Man with the Golden Arm. He also resurrected himself musically, recording infectious swing tunes and world-weary "saloon songs” with increasingly sophisticated musical arrangements. In the 1960s, he created his own record label, Reprise, and made more artistically challenging theme albums, including collaborations with jazz greats Count Basie and Duke Ellington and the Brazilian singer, songwriter, and guitarist Antonio Carlos Jobim. He also joined with Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, and other celebrities in the "Rat Pack,” a hard-partying social group whose antics were immortalized in movies like Ocean’s Eleven and Robin and the Seven Hoods.
Sinatra retired in 1971, but he returned in 1973 with the album Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back, which sold more than a million copies. He added two more signature songs to his repertoire— "My Way” and "New York, New York’—but his concerts of the 1980s and 1990s were often disappointing. His voice retained just a hint of its former glory, and he often had trouble remembering lyrics. His Duets albums of 1993 and 1994, featuring collaborations with Barbara Streisand, Bono, Aretha Franklin, and others, sold well but received mixed reviews. He retired in 1995 and died from a heart attack in Los Angeles in 1998.
Singer Sewing Machine Company. In 1851 inventor and manufacturer Isaac Merritt Singer established I. M. Singer and Company in New York City to make and sell sewing machines. At the outbreak of the Civil War, yearly sales amounted to 22,000 units; in 1867 the company became international by opening a plant in Scotland; and by 1900 annual unit sales had reached 1,350,000. Singer’s was not the first sewing machine, but it was the best, and efficiency in business practices discouraged competitors.
In 1863 the Singer company opened a foundry in Elizabeth, on land near the western terminus of the Central Railroad bridge across Newark Bay; by this time, the firm’s founder had retired from active business management. Sewing machines for every purpose were assembled in Elizabeth. The Singer complex included several buildings, each devoted to a specific aspect of sewing machine production, including metal casting, japanning, and cabinetry. Eventually there were five miles of railroad track on the eighty-four-acre site and shipping docks dotted its one thousand-foot waterfront. The Singer company had a positive impact on Elizabeth’s economy, employing at its height nearly ten thousand individuals and causing the city’s population to grow by several thousand people. The plant closed in 1982.
Siscoe, Isaac (fl. I770s-I780s). Loyalist spy. Isaac Siscoe was from a family of free African Americans who were landholders in Bergen County. During the American Revolution, he was a member of a vast network of spies and informants, which operated in and around New York City. Siscoe provided the British with valuable intelligence on Patriot activities in Bergen County, and his reports contributed to British military operations in that area. Under Gen. Sir Henry Clinton, Siscoe became a key operative within the British intelligence system. One of his most important assignments came in early 1781 when he and other British agents were sent from New York City to gather information on the mutiny of the New Jersey Line at Pompton.
