Dodge, Mary Mapes (b. Jan. 26,1830; d. Aug. 21, 1905). Children’s author and editor. Author of Hans Brinker; or, The Silver Skates, poet, and editor of Saint Nicholas magazine, Mary Mapes Dodge changed nineteenth-century children’s literature and influenced generations of English-speaking writers.
She was the daughter of Sophia (Furman), amateur musician and artist, and James Jay Mapes, a scholar, inventor, and agrarian scientist of wide renown. When she was sixteen she moved to Mapleridge, in Waverly (now a part of Newark), an old farm James Mapes used as a proving ground for his theories on the restoration of land through chemical fertilizer. The residence became a meeting place for Newark artists, writers, and scientists. Mary Mapes married William Dodge III in September 1851, and they had two sons. In 1858, distraught by economic problems caused largely by the numerous mortgages that had been held by his father-in-law and the illness of their son James, Dodge disappeared, presumed drowned, leaving his wife, at twenty-eight, with two small children and many debts. Mapes turned to her childhood passion for writing.
Dodge sold stories to Harper’s and other magazines. Urged by her sons to write about the European craze for ice skating, she published Hans Brinker, a lively tale about Dutch life, which instantly became a best seller, went through one hundred printings, and was awarded the Prix Monthyon by the French Academy in 1869.
When her father died in 1866, Mapes became head of a three-generation extended family at the Waverly farm. In 1868 she became associate editor, under Harriet Beecher Stowe and Donald G. Mitchell, of Hearth and Home. She wrote articles on domestic, literary, artistic, and scientific topics. In 1872, she accepted the editorship of Scribner’s new children’s monthly magazine, Saint Nicholas Magazine for Girls and Boys, over which she had complete control and which became a new literary force for children. In the first issue, Dodge listed nine standards which guided the magazine’s publication for thirty-two years, including "fun, appreciation of art, the cultivation of the imagination, high moral ideals, and realistic role models for living,” all presented with enthusiastic optimism.
The magazine attracted leading authors of the day: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Alfred Lord Tennyson, John Greenleaf Whittier, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Frances Hodgson Burnett, and illustrators such as Howard Pyle and N. C. Wyeth. Dodge encouraged new talent: writers such as Eudora Welty, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and E. B. White first published as children in Saint Nicholas. Dodge, with her belief in children’s writing that reflected "freshness and heartiness, life and joy,” influenced a distinguished group of artists, writers, and notable figures.
Dodge Poetry Festival. Since 1986, the Village of Waterloo in Stanhope has been host to the largest public poetry event in North America. Every two years, eminent names from the roll call of regional, national, and international poetry join thousands of poetry enthusiasts for a four-day celebration of the written (and spoken) word.
Featuring readings, workshops, conferences, social events, and concerts, the festival has been supported since its inception by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The autumn biennial has been the subject of a PBS documentary and was the backdrop for the PBS series "Fooling with Words,”which showcased festival poets in readings and conversation.
During the festival, amateur poets share the stage with their better-known peers, such as former poet laureates Rita Dove and Robert Pinsky. In addition to recitations, forums are held to consider such issues as poetry and politics, the technical aspects of the craft, and the impact of the Internet on poetic culture.
The Dodge Poetry Program, an offshoot of the festival, provides yearlong training and in-service programs for high school teachers who wish to integrate poetry into their curricula.
Doe v. Poritz. At issue in this New Jersey Supreme Court case was the Registration and Community Notification Law (RCNL), or "Megan’s Law,” adopted by the New Jersey legislature in 1994. The RCNL required that sex offenders register with law enforcement officials and, in some cases, that the communities in which they planned to reside be notified of their impending prison release. Sex offenders were placed into one of three tiers and the extent to which community notification was required was dependent on this tier designation.
"John Doe,”a convicted sex offender, challenged the RCNL as being in violation of the federal and state constitutions. The state court found that the RCNL was constitutional and that states could take action in the interest of public safety to counter the high rates of recidivism by certain offenders. Although the court upheld the RCNL, it mandated that the state attorney general create judicial proceedings to allow offenders to appeal their tier designation. At these hearings, offenders bear the heavy burden of proving that their designations do not accurately reflect their risk of reoffense.
The RCNL was the first statute of its kind adopted by any state, but all fifty states and the federal government now require registration, and many also require notification. In November 2000, New Jersey voters overwhelmingly approved an initiative that permitted community notification through an Internet site.
Doll manufacturing. Nineteenth-century developments in technology spurred many toy entrepreneurs to launch businesses in New Jersey; however, their early dolls were neither artful nor necessarily designed for children. Thomas Edison applied his phonograph to an 1878 British patent for a "phonographic” doll whose limbs moved. By 1891, half of Edison’s West Orange plant was dedicated to the manufacture of phonographs and dolls. Philip Goldsmith, whose store "25 Cents No More, No Less” eventually became MacGregor Sporting Goods, produced 500 twenty-two-inch talking dolls daily in his West Orange factory. Here, women recorded nursery rhymes while men produced the dolls. Goldsmith’s marketing savvy led to the commercial success of his dolls over competitors in the field.
During the 1890s, women redirected the industry from a concentration on mechanical toys to those that socialized children. Mary C. W. Foote, owner of the Fairyland Doll Company in Plainfield, expanded her mission to crusade for an end to child labor and the protection of women workers. After the First World War, prominent New Jersey manufacturers included Dollcraft of Newark, the Smock Doll Company of East Orange, Qualitoy of Newark, American Ocarina and Toy Company of Newark, American Bisque Doll Company of Newark, Fulper of Flemington, and the Magic Novelty Company of West Hoboken. Pursuing artistry, companies such as EFFanBEE of East Brunswick turned to Lenox to reformulate bisque heads for U.S. dolls.
Though some companies, such as Gund, remain headquartered in New Jersey, many economic factors contributed to the mid-twentieth-century demise of doll manufacturing in the Garden State. Most doll manufacturing is now located overseas.
Dominicans. Only a small number of immigrants from the Dominican Republic lived in New Jersey before World War II. Their numbers increased markedly after i960, and by 2000 the census recorded 93,316 foreign-born Dominicans residing in the state. Their major places of settlement have been Elizabeth, West New York, Passaic, Hoboken, Newark, Paterson, Hackensack, Jersey City, Camden, and Englewood.
Although some Dominicans have professional, executive, and entrepreneurial employment, most are engaged in factory and service work. Their native language is Spanish. Most are Roman Catholic, although some are members of Protestant and Pentecostal congregations. In New Jersey the Dominicans have founded many social, cultural, and civic clubs.
Dominican Sisters of Caldwell. The Sisters of Saint Dominic of the American Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, known as the Dominican Sisters of Caldwell, is a diocesan community of Roman Catholic women religious. The community originated in i853, when four Second Order Dominican sisters from Ratisbon (now Regensburg), Bavaria, came to New York to minister to the German immigrant population. In i88i, members of this group living in Jersey City became a separate community with Catherine Muth as prioress. In i906, the sisters adopted the Third Order Conventual Constitutions, which allowed them more freedom of movement than they had before. The motherhouse was transferred to Caldwell in i9i2. Traditionally focused on education, the Dominican Sisters of Caldwell currently sponsor Caldwell College, three academies, and the Link Community School in Newark, as well as working in hospitals, nursing homes, and day care centers.
Dominion of New England. The Dominion of New England, a bold attempt by James II to bring England’s northern colonies under a single administrative structure, began with the consolidation of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and the Narragansett Country (or King’s Province) under interim governor Joseph Dudley in May 1686. In December i686 Dudley was replaced by Edmund Andros, who vigorously sought to enforce the Crown’s will in matters involving taxation, land tenure, religion, judicial practice, and trade. Andros gradually extended his jurisdiction to include Rhode Island, Connecticut, and, in August i688, New York and New Jersey.
New Jersey’s inclusion in the Dominion had little real significance, and essentially ended in the spring of i689, when Andros returned to England following the overthrow of James II and the accession of William and Mary to the English throne.
Donck, Adriaen van der (b. c. i6i8; d. 1655). Lawyer and politician. Adriaen van der Donck was born in Breda (the Netherlands) and graduated from Leyden University with a degree in law. He came to America in 1641 at age twenty-one as schout (sheriff) of Kiliaen van Rensselaer, the patroon of a vast estate on the northeast bank of the Hudson. Van der Donck became New Amsterdam’s first lawyer and one of its leading citizens. He chaired the city government’s Committee of Nine, and was the main author of a report, Remonstrance of New Netherland, which was critical of the management of the Dutch West India Company and especially the actions of Gov. Peter Stuyvesant. On behalf of that group, van der Donck went to Holland in i652 to negotiate the recall of Stuyvesant. The outbreak of the Anglo-Dutch war prevented implementation of the recall, and van der Donck was prohibited by the Dutch authorities from returning to America. It was during this time that he wrote his "Description of New Netherland,” which was first published in i655. It is a rich historical and literary resource with extensive descriptions of the physical environment and especially his informed reports on the American Indian population. Unfortunately, there is as yet not an adequate English translation available.
Doo-Wop architecture. A style of architecture popular during the i950s was known regionally as Doo Wop, but elsewhere as googie, populux, moderne, or streamlined. In New Jersey the architectural style derives the name Doo Wop from the vocal harmony rock ‘n’ roll music synonymous with that era. Space-age and tropical themes executed in flamboyant neon, angular shapes, and chrome mark the style embodied primarily in motels and eateries. The Wildwoods claim the largest collection of Doo-Wop architecture in the United States.
Doremus, John P. (b. July21,1827; d. Jan. 6, 1890). Photographer. Turning from his original career as a painter, John P. Doremus opened a photography studio in Boonton in 1862. In March i863, he established Doremus’ Gallery of Art in Paterson, producing photographic portraits and views, and dealing in oil paintings and frames. His New Jersey stereographic series included Passaic Falls and Vicinity; Paterson from Garret Mountain; Cedar Lawn Cemetery; and Stereoscopic Gems of Northern New Jersey. In 1874, he photographed scenery around Minneapolis and there built the Success, a "Floating Photographic Gallery,”with an i8-by-76-foot deck, pulled by a small steamer, to "do the Mississippi Valley” over a four-year period. He made more than four thousand exposures (at least i97 published stereos) of river scenery and portraits in small towns. The luxuriously appointed Success included a reception room, operating room, toilet room, Doremus’s private room, private dining room, private parlor, two-berth stateroom, kitchen, pantry, storeroom, and silvering/toningroom. In 1877, Doremus published a pamphlet about his experiences, Floating down the Mississippi. His 1870s stereographs of northern New Jersey and the Mississippi Valley are highly prized today.
Double Trouble State Park.Established in 1965, the park encompasses 7,336 acres of Pine Barrens habitat located in the Bayville section of Berkeley Township in Monmouth County. Frequented by visitors who canoe along Cedar Creek, fish and hunt, or hike along its nature trails, the park also contains a historic village of fourteen buildings—a general store, a schoolhouse, a sawmill, and several cottages. The park is a testament to Berkeley Township’s history of cranberry harvesting (it contains two original cranberry bogs) and logging (the Double Trouble sawmill was restored in 1995). Now owned by the state and protected under the Green Acres program for preservation, Double Trouble cranberry bogs are still leased to the New Jersey Devil Cranberry Company. At one time, Berkeley cranberry bogs produced the largest crops in the state, and Double Trouble State Park is a window to the region’s economic and historic past.
Douglass, Mabel Smith (b. Feb. 11,1877; d. Sept. 21,1933). Educator and founder and first dean of the New Jersey College for Women (now Douglass College). Following graduation from Barnard College in New York in 1899, Mabel Douglass taught in the New York public schools until her marriage. President of the College Club of Jersey City in 1911, she served as chair of a subcommittee to investigate the admission of women to Rutgers College, the state land grant college. She gathered support by meeting with President Woodrow Wilson, who had earlier been president of Princeton University, and by launching a one-dollar subscription campaign.
In January 1915, for health reasons, she withdrew from the campaign. The three-year campaign for New Jersey college education for women lost its momentum, but in 1918, after the Smith Hughes bill provided funding for the teaching of home economics at land grant schools and an estate suitable for a college became available, Rutgers’s trustees resolved to establish a college for women. During the summer of 1918, Douglass organized the new college, raising monies, directing workers transforming the Carpender mansion into College Hall, hiring staff, and designing a curriculum that would provide a sound liberal arts education as well as vocational training in home economics.
The New Jersey College for Women opened in September 1918 with fifty-four students. The college survived the swine flu epidemic that began two weeks later and a heating system that malfunctioned all that winter. Douglass visited women’s clubs, board of managers’ meetings, and gatherings of potential financial friends and lobbied in Trenton for more funding. She knew each student personally and drew faculty and students into the formulation of college policy. During the college’s second year, she had a gymnasium built from packing boxes originally intended for shipping airplane engines to Europe.
When she retired in 1933, the New Jersey College for Women, which opened with 54 students, 2 buildings, and a faculty of 18, had become one of the largest colleges in the East with 1,071 students and 115 faculty members.
Douglass received many honors. In 1931, she became the first woman to receive the Columbia University medal, and in 1932, she was made an Officier d’Academie by the French government in appreciation of her influence upon the teaching of the French language. She received honorary degrees from Rutgers in 1924 and from Russell Sage in 1932.
The personal tensions and pressures created by the controversy over the relations among the New Jersey College for Woman, Rutgers, and the state as well as her son’s untimely death took a large toll. In June 1932, after Douglass was granted a leave of absence for reasons of health, she retired to her summer cottage on Lake Placid, New York. On September 21,1933, the boat she had gone rowing in was found empty. She had evidently committed suicide. The outpouring of tribute reflected a deep sense of loss. In April 1955, Founder’s Day, the New Jersey College for Women was officially renamed Douglass College.
Mabel Smith Douglass.
Douglass College. Douglass College, originally called New Jersey College for Women (NJC), opened on September 18, 1918, with an enrollment of fifty-four, two buildings, and a faculty of eighteen. The new college, an autonomous unit within Rutgers University, was the result of a seven-year campaign by the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs under the leadership of Mabel Smith Douglass, the first dean of the college, for whom it was renamed in 1955. Despite a difficult first year, which included the depredations of the Spanish influenza, the college survived. By the time the first class graduated in 1922, the enrollment had risen to 238 and the college had been granted a Phi Beta Kappa chapter, in recognition of its academic strength. By 1933, when Dean Douglass retired, the college had 1,701 students and 115 faculty members. From the outset, Dean Douglass envisioned NJC as "a true college for women,” not a vocational school, and she and her successors developed a strong liberal arts program as well as addressing the needs and concerns of women. In the late 1950s, Douglass opened its doors to mature women who had dropped out of college without completing their degrees. In the 1970s, Douglass lost much of its autonomy, but it has maintained its national reputation as a center for research and programs focusing on women. The Institutes for Research on Women and Women’s Leadership as well as the Center for American Women and Politics are located on the Douglass campus. With an enrollment of approximately three thousand, Douglass College is the largest women’s college in the United States.
Dow, Joy Wheeler (b. i860; d. Feb. 17, 1937). Architect. Joy Wheeler Dow was the son of Augustus F. and Sarah E. Dow of New York City. Born John Augustus Dow, he changed his name at twenty-one. He married Elizabeth Goodchild in 1904, and they had two sons.
A self-taught architect, he moved to Mill-burn in 1878. Most of his early work was done in Millburn and Summit, where he built a number of homes incorporating his very individual philosophy of historic design. The Unitarian Church (1912) in Summit is considered his best New Jersey work. Through his many magazine articles and his book on architecture, American Renaissance, he became nationally known. He was a charter member of the New Jersey Society of Architects, which later became the New Jersey Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1965. In 1922 he moved to Kennebunkport, Maine, where he died in 1937.
Students in a home economics class at Douglass College, 1925.
Dover. 2.68-square-mile town in Morris County. Dover was founded in 1722 with the establishment of an iron forge at Indian Falls. Originally known as Old Tye or Bemen’s, the name Dover was in use by 1800; it is said to refer to Dover, New Hampshire, the former home of a local industrialist. Dover was incorporated as a town on April 1, 1869, though it remained part of Randolph Township until separating on May 4, 1896. In 1938, Dover annexed the small community of Bowlbyville from Randolph.
From its earliest days until after World War II, Dover prospered from a range of industries, from the forging of iron ore to manufacturing and textiles. Its thriving commercial center, born in the days of the Morris Canal, served laborers and the local populace. The decline of heavy industry and the rise of suburban shopping malls after World War II cut into these sources of prosperity.
Dover is primarily residential, but with a significant commercial presence. The town’s Hispanic population, which first began to arrive in the 1940s, grew to 60 percent of the population by 2000 and is a major cultural influence. Dover’s 2000 population of 18,188 was 69 percent white, 7 percent black, and 58 percent Hispanic (Hispanics may be of any race). The median household income was $53,423. For complete census figures, see chart, 131.
