American Standard Corporation. The American Standard Corporation was formed in 1928 with the merger of two major heating and plumbing supply manufacturers, American Radiator of Buffalo, New York, and Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Corporation of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, becoming American Radiator and Standard Sanitary Corporation. In 1929, company president Theodore Ahern purchased the Thomas Maddock’s Sons sanitary pottery in Hamilton Township, giving it a state-of-the-art pottery on the East Coast.
Adding products ranging from toilet seats to air conditioners to truck braking systems, American Standard, as it was formally known from 1967 on, became the world’s largest plumbing products producer. In 1985, it purchased the Trane Corporation, manufacturers of air conditioners and furnaces, with a plant in Hamilton Township. The corporation moved its international headquarters from New York City to Piscataway in a cost-cutting move in 1995.
After upgrading its New Jersey pottery in the late 1980s and early 1990s, American Standard cut its staff by half in 1995, asserting that the plant was old and inefficient. Although workers protested that the seventy-six-year-old facility remained profitable and that renovations were under way that would further modernize it, American Standard closed the plant in December 2001, shifting remaining production to Tiffin, Ohio; Mexico; and Costa Rica. Under CEO and president Frederick M. Poses, American Standard had revenues of $7.465 billion, profits of $295 million, and about sixty thousand employees in twenty-seven countries in 2001. It ranked 255 on the 2002 Fortune 500 list of corporations.
American Tract Society. When tract societies from New England, New York, and New Jersey agreed to combine their efforts, the American Tract Society was founded on May 11, 1825. From its headquarters in New York City, the society published and distributed thousands of religious pamphlets—or tracts— designed, as the Rev. William Blackwood stated in an 1852 speech at Princeton Theological Seminary, to spread the gospel, which "alone is intended to achieve the subjugation of the world to Christ.” Influenced by the religious revivalism and reform efforts of the early nineteenth century, the society’s directors, mostly Congregationalist and Presbyterian ministers, encouraged cooperative efforts among the growing number of Protestant sects. Tract writers promoted social purity movements like temperance and urged believers to support missionary work, both spiritually and financially. New Jersey educator Theodore Frelinghuysen, active in the Presbyterian Church and the temperance movement, served as president of the American Tract Society from 1842 to 1846, before becoming president of Rutgers College in 1850. After the Civil War, the society
American Type Founders Company. Incorporated in New Jersey in 1892, the American Type Founders (ATF) was created by the merger of twenty-three leading American type foundries, including the oldest, begun in 1796. The company eventually bought the four remaining important foundries and became the leading supplier of printing type in the United States. ATF gradually consolidated casting and manufacturing operations in Jersey City and opened an important typographic library there. A second factory, opened in 1924 in Elizabeth, later supplanted the Jersey City factory. In 1933, during the Depression, ATF declared bankruptcy, from which it slowly reemerged as a smaller operation. Changes in printing technology relentlessly drove it into a second, and final, bankruptcy on May 19,1993.
Ammann, Othmar Hermann (b. Mar. 26, 1879; d. Sept. 22, 1965). Engineer and designer. Born in Feuerthalen, near Schaffhausen, Switzerland, Othmar Ammann was the son of Emmanuel Christian Ammann and Emilie Rose Labhardt. Ammann received a degree in engineering from the Federal Polytechnic Institute, Zurich, in 1902, and immigrated to the United States in 1904. He served as bridge engineer with the Port of New York Authority from 1925 to 1939, becoming chief engineer in 1930 and director of engineers in 1937. He designed the innovative George Washington Bridge (1931), the Bayonne Bridge (1931), and the Lincoln Tunnel (1937), all of which connected New Jersey to New York. In 1939 he returned to private practice and later designed the Delaware Memorial Bridge (1951), which connected New Jersey to Delaware.
Amphibians. Amphibians were the first vertebrates to be adapted for life on land. Jointed, bony limbs for walking on land and lungs capable of breathing gaseous oxygen, along with a mucus-covered skin to minimize water loss, allowed amphibians to make the transition from water to land. Amphibians normally spend only a portion of their life cycle on land, however, and return to the water to breed. The typical amphibian life cycle comprises an aquatic larval stage followed by a terrestrial adult stage. There are, however, exceptions to this standard life cycle. For example, the red-spotted newt, which is found throughout New Jersey, has aquatic larvae and adults, but it also has a fully terrestrial juvenile (or red eft) stage.
Spade foot toad.
New Jersey is home to thirty-two different species of amphibians. Salamanders account for sixteen of these species and include the endangered blue-spotted salamander and eastern tiger salamander, as well as the threatened long-tailed salamander and eastern mud salamander. One common species of salamander is the redback, which is found in moist forests throughout New Jersey. Other species such as the mountain dusky, Jefferson, and northern red salamander are found only in northern counties of the state.
Frogs and toads are the most commonly observed group of amphibians. The familiar sounds of male frogs and toads calling during the breeding season increases our awareness of these amphibians in the state. Some species, like the ubiquitous spring peeper, may call as early as March following the first spring rains of the year. An icon of the Pinelands, the Pine Barrens treefrog is a state endangered species that prefers to breed in fishless ponds and temporary wetlands. Like salamanders, the porous skin and semiaquatic life cycle of frogs and toads make them very sensitive to water pollution. Habitat loss and the degradation of water quality are the two major threats to amphibian populations in New Jersey.
Amtrak. Railroads had been losing passenger, express, and mail service to airlines, trucks, cars, and buses since the Depression, and by the late 1960s the quality and reliability of much of the remaining service had significantly declined. Railroads saw no incentive to acquire new equipment or facilities. Blending "America," "travel," and "track," Amtrak, a semipublic corporation, was created by the federal government in 1971 to operate most of the nation’s remaining intercity passenger trains. Under its national scope, Amtrak brought coordinated scheduling, reservations, ticketing, and uniform service standards. Despite gloomy predictions at its inception, the company has expanded services, purchased new equipment, speeded up schedules on several routes, and offers premium express shipment service on its trains. The recently inaugurated Acela trains have reduced the Boston-to-Washington time to six and a half hours. Amtrak serves five hundred stations in forty-five states and provides contract commuter service for eight state and regional authorities. Much of its service operates over routes belonging to freight railroads but it owns the Boston-Washington corridor, and the New Jersey section of this route handles the highest volume of trains. Amtrak owns 2,188 cars and 343 locomotives, and employs 25,000 individuals. More than 22.5 million customers are served yearly.
Ancient Oriental churches. Almost all ancient Oriental churches have congregations in New Jersey. Generally, they are considered Eastern churches, in distinction to the Roman or Western Church, which itself fragmented into many distinct Protestant denominations. Some of these Eastern churches are in communion with Rome; others are not and are considered Eastern Orthodox, although they derive from many traditions: Byzantine, Anti-ochian, Coptic, Armenian, and Syriac.
The Oriental churches vary little in belief but greatly in ritual and administration. Generally, they do not accept the primacy of the Roman pontiff or Latin-rite patriarch, preferring the orthodoxy of the early church, which accepted diversity, local governance, and the authority of the patriarchs of Anti-och and Constantinople. Some had their origins in Nestorianism and others in the schism of 1054, which split the Eastern and Western churches. In the eighteenth century and thereafter, several Oriental groups reentered communion with Rome (for example, the Melkites and Ukrainians) and are thus known to westerners as "Uniates.”
The largest of these Oriental traditions is the Byzantine or Eastern Orthodox Church. After Rome, it is also the most "universal.”Un-like the groups listed above, which are Arab to one degree or another, the Byzantine tradition also includes Greeks, Russians, Ukrainians, and other Slavic groups. All have communities throughout New Jersey. Among Eastern communities in general, the Greek Orthodox Church in New Jersey is most widely known and widespread, and it also serves as the embodiment of that ethnic community, as seen in the numerous Greek festivals held at churches throughout the state. Owing to their diversity, however, no single organization represents all the Eastern churches in New Jersey. Rather, the various ethnic Orthodox bodies belong to a larger national organization that is slowly melding them into a singular American Byzantine Orthodox Church.
Oriental churches were first established in New Jersey at the turn of the twentieth century. At that time, most congregants were either Byzantine-rite Catholics from Syria, known as Melkites, or Syrian Orthodox Christians from the cities of Syria and Lebanon. Both the Byzantine Catholics and the Orthodox Syrians are now known as Antiochian Orthodox. Along with these Arab immigrants came Armenian-rite Catholics from Aleppo, Syria. All have thriving congregations in the suburbs of Paterson, where they have built beautiful modern churches and community centers. Orthodox congregations from Armenia were first established at the same time, mostly in Bergen and Passaic counties.
More recently, the venerable Coptic Church thrives in Jersey City, brought there by Egyptian immigrants. The Syriac-rite Christians of Turkey have also arrived in the state from Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. They consider themselves Syriac Orthodox and use Aramaic (the language Christ spoke) in their liturgy, which is often interspersed with Arabic and Turkish as well. Also using Aramaic in the liturgy are the Maronites of Lebanon. This new community has settled in New Brunswick and is in the process of establishing a permanent parish there.
Ancora Psychiatric Hospital. Ancora Psychiatric Hospital (Camden County) opened in 1955 to provide psychiatric services to adults and children in southern New Jersey and to relieve crowding at other state psychiatric hospitals. Approximately two thousand patients were housed in nine modern buildings. Ancora’s inpatient population has decreased to just over six hundred patients as coordinated programs moved some inpatients to geriatric facilities and community-care settings. Current programs include a forensic psychiatry facility and drug and alcohol rehabilitation for patients with coexisting mental illness. An innovative "Campus Brief Visit” program allows patients approaching discharge and their families to re-experience family living during brief stays in a cottage on the hospital grounds.
Anderson, John (b. 1665; d. Mar. 28,1736). Politician. Following an unsuccessful attempt to establish a Scottish colony on the Isthmus of Panama, John Anderson sailed for New York in 1699 but abandoned his unseaworthy ship in New Jersey. He settled there and soon began serving as provincial court judge. John Anderson married Anna Reid on December 7, 1701, and fathered nine children. Apart from a suspension between 1722 and 1726, Anderson was a member of the New Jersey Council from 1713 until 1736. As senior councilor, Anderson became acting governor after the death of William Cosby on March 10,1736. He served for only eighteen days before dying on March 28.
Andover Borough. 1.4-square-mile borough in Sussex County. Formerly the primary village of Andover Township, Andover Borough was incorporated in 1904. The village grew from the Andover Ironworks, an important colonial operation that ceased operation in 1795. The ironworks included a furnace erected in 1761, as well as a gristmill and an ironmaster’s dwelling. A number of these stone buildings survive. The furnace building, later converted to a community playhouse, was adaptively reused as a supermarket. The arrival of the Sussex Railroad in 1854 brought new prosperity to the village and secured its role as the shipping and mercantile center for the surrounding area, which was largely agricultural.
Though colonial in origin, the village today reflects its railroad-era heritage. The 2000 population count was 658, of whom 93 percent was white. The median household income in 2000 was $60,000.
Andover Township. 21.2-square-mile municipality in Sussex County. The township was split off from Newton Township in 1864; the village of Andover was set off from the township as a borough in 1904. The Andover Mine, a pre-Revolutionary iron mine located north of Andover Village, was one of the most important colonial iron mines in the state, and was active until the late nineteenth century. The town as a whole was greatly assisted by the arrival of the Sussex Mine Railroad in 1848, built by Peter Cooper and Abraham Hewitt, and its extension as the Sussex Railroad in 1854, which provided the first rail access to the interior of Sussex County. Iron mining and limestone quarrying remained important through the late nineteenth century, and agriculture was and to a degree remains an important part of the township, although much residential construction has occurred in recent decades.
The 2000 population was 6,033, 94 percent of which was white. The 2000 median household income was $75,748. For complete census figures, see chart, 129.
Andrews, Solomon (b. Feb. 15, 1806; d. Oct. 17, 1872). Inventor, politician, and physician. Solomon Andrews served as Collector of the Port of Perth Amboy in 1844-1845, was the mayor of his town for three terms, and spearheaded the construction of Perth Amboy’s first sewer system. As a doctor, having received his M.D. from Rutgers College in 1827, Andrews recognized the importance of modern sewage systems in preventing the outbreak of cholera and yellow fever.
In 1849 Andrews converted a former army barracks in Perth Amboy into the Inventor’s Institute. Andrews developed many products, including a sewing machine, barrel maker, fumigator, velocipede, gas lamp, and kitchen stove. In addition, he invented a burglarproof lock for safe and vault doors.
Andrews built a flying machine, the Aereon, which had its maiden flight over Perth Amboy on June 1, 1863. Later, Andrews met President Abraham Lincoln to discuss its use during the Civil War, but with the conflict coming to an end, nothing further transpired. After the war, Andrews organized the Aerial Navigation Company, hoping to manufacture commercial airships for flights between New York and Philadelphia. Unfortunately, the postwar economic panic wiped out his company and defeated his flight plans.
Andros, Edmund (b. Dec. 6, 1637; d. Feb. 27,1714). Military officer and politician. Born on the Isle of Guernsey, the son of Amias and Elizabeth (Stone) Andros, and a member of a prominent family that supported the Royalist cause during the English Civil Wars, the young Andros was well positioned to advance his career following the restoration of Charles II in 1660. A military officer whose early responsibilities included service in Barbados, he found an important patron in James, the duke of York and brother of the king, who looked to Andros to help administer extensive North American holdings recently taken from the Dutch.
In July 1674 Andros received a commission as governor of New York, and in 1680, following the death of Sir George Carteret, he seized an opportunity to extend his rule to East Jersey. Andros’s tactless handling of the situation led to his recall to England in January 1681, but he returned in December 1686, this time to supervise Charles II’s ambitious attempt at consolidating under the Dominion of New England all of the Crown’s northern colonies.
Andros’s efforts at a sweeping overhaul of government in America and greater adherence to English practice ended with the overthrow of James II and the accession of William of Orange to the throne. Before his tenure as governor ended, however, Andros received a commission dated April 7, 1688, which incorporated East and West Jersey into the Dominion of New England. He governed in that capacity from August 1688 until his arrest and eventual return to England in spring 1689.
Andros’s strong skills as an administrator continued to be admired in England, and he later served as governor of Virginia from September 1692 to December 1698 and lieutenant governor of Guernsey from 1704 to 1706. Andros then retired to London, where he died.
Annin Flag Company. The worlds largest flag company has its corporate offices and distribution facilities in Roseland. There are two manufacturing plants in the state, at Verona and Orange, and others in Pennsylvania, California, and Virginia. Although Annin manufactures more than twenty thousand different flags and flag accessories, its principal product since its incorporation in 1847 has been the American flag. Between then and July 4, i960, the number of stars has increased sixteen times, from twenty-nine to fifty. Annin-made flags have flown at every presidential inauguration since that of Zachary Taylor in 1849. The company made the flag that Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin placed on the Moon during their historic landing on July 20,1969, and the ones flown on Robert E. Peary’s expeditions to the North Pole, Richard E. Byrd’s flights over the North and South poles, and the National Geographic Society’s expedition to the top of Mount Everest. Annin is also the official flag manufacturer for the United Nations.
Antheil, George [Georg] (Carl Johann) (b. July 8,1900; d. Feb. 12,1959). Composer, concert pianist, lonely hearts columnist, and inventor of a torpedo. Born in Trenton, Antheil studied violin and piano as a child and began composing as a teenager. He trained as an aviator for World War I, but his first trip to Europe was as a concert pianist after the war.
The early twentieth century was a time of experimentation, a time of turning against traditions in the arts. Antheil’s concerts were considered avant-garde in Germany, where rioting audiences became commonplace. The riots were fueled by Antheil’s playing of ultramodern works, including his own "barbarous” piano sonatas. For protection, he carried a pistol under his tuxedo. Antheil’s reputation preceded him to the Theatre des Champs Elysees in Paris, where on October 4, 1923, his performance again precipitated a riot, which made him notorious with the Parisian critics and a champion to modernists.
Antheil composed solo piano works, symphonies, film music, ballets, and operas. His music was influenced by jazz, cubism, technology, and later, neoclassicism. Early works, like his Sonata Sauvage, Airplane Sonata, and Mechanisms are machinelike in their rhythmic and percussive qualities. Ballet mecanique (19231925), originally scored for sixteen player pianos and percussion, is his best-known work. Antheil’s music is rarely performed today, but his compositional experimentation and notoriety as a performer are important to early twentieth-century musical aesthetics. His music reflects the effect technology and war had on the arts.
Anuszkiewicz, Richard (b. May 23, 1930). Painter. Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, Richard Anuszkiewicz studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art and began seriously painting in the 1950s as a student of the influential Bauhaus artist Josef Albers at Yale University. Anuszkiewicz dislikes the designation "Op art” coined in 1964 to describe many new paintings. "Scientific art”would be a more apt term. Early in his career, he stated that he was interested in exploring how the mind, based on definite psychological laws, organizes what the eye sees. Recoiling from Abstract Expressionism’s abandon, his smoothly surfaced paintings combine repetition and organized procedures to create symmetrical patterns of geometric lines or blocks of color. Because no one part is dominant, his works can be understood as metaphors for the ideal of human equality. His works can also be considered to be two-dimensional equivalents to Buckminster Fuller’s tensigrity, a modern architectural principle of balanced forces. After marrying Elizabeth (Sally) Feeney in i960, Anuszkiewicz moved to Englewood. He taught at Cooper Union, Dartmouth, Cornell, and Kent State. Besides many one-man and group shows, in i980, the Brooklyn Museum organized a mid-career retrospective. An outdoor mural near Journal Square in Jersey City marks his contribution to New Jersey’s public art.
Apex Beauty Products Company.Apex Beauty Products Company was founded by Sara Spencer Washington, an African American entrepreneur and philanthropist, who served as president of the company from 1913 until her death in 1953. Apex Hair Company of Atlantic City, originally a one-room beauty shop located at Indiana and Arctic avenues, was the first of Washington’s numerous Apex enterprises. At her laboratory she developed a patented hair curl-removal system called Glossatina, which included hair sheen, pomade, and hot-comb pressing oils that soothed the scalp. Perfumes, lipstick, and facial creams were also created in the laboratory. The company manufactured over seventy-five beauty products for black women in its Atlantic City plant. The finished products were delivered to company agents using a fleet of Apex Hair Company trucks and cars. The company employed more than 2i5 men and women as chemists, lab technicians, office workers, teachers, sales representatives, and chauffeurs.
By 1946, Apex Enterprises grossed over a million dollars a year and included beauty schools, Apex Farm, Apex Rest, and Apex News, a national beauty magazine for Apex beauticians and agents. The magazine was first issued in i928 and was published regularly after 1935. The Apex Schools of Scientific Beauty Culture, graduating more than 4,000 people a year, were located in eleven American cities, plus Johannesburg, South Africa, and the Caribbean Islands. Apex Farm and Apex
Rest were purchased in the i930s. Apex Farm was a 120-acre tract of land in Egg Harbor, New Jersey. Apex Rest was a fifteen-room facility in Atlantic City used primarily by company employees but open to the public. Recreational facilities included a hall routinely converted from dance floor to basketball court and a nine-hole golf course carved out of the woods of Pomona in the late i940s. The golf club is now the Pomona Golf Course.
An influential business executive and pioneer in promotional techniques, Washington established a public relations department that worked with black organizations throughout the country to explain the importance of buying from blacks and supporting their businesses.
In 1939 Washington was awarded a medallion at the New York World’s Fair as one of the outstanding businesswomen of New York State. She received a citation for meritorious service during World War II and was the recipient of numerous awards from schools, organizations, and businesses nationwide.
Washington’s only child, her adopted daughter Joan Cross Washington Hayes, assumed the presidency of Apex upon Washington’s death in i953. The business was absorbed by a Baltimore firm in the 1960s. The last line of Apex products seen in the marketplace was produced in Memphis. Although Apex Beauty Products Company is no longer in existence, the product name is still being used.
