How old is new jersey

Europeans came by the thousands to New Jersey to work in the factories. South Jersey remained rural for the most part, growing the crops to feed the urban areas nearby.

Railroads were important in helping the South Jersey seashore areas expand. In , New Jersey's population of nearly half a million and the industries in which most of those people worked were concentrated in the north. During the Civil War, New Jersey provided 31 regiments groups of soldiers , including cavalry soldiers on horseback and infantry soldiers on foot. Over 25, New Jersey men fought for the Union, and New Jersey soldiers participated in almost every major Eastern battle.

After the Civil War, the industrial revolution was under way, and New Jersey continued to grow. More factories opened, and cities like Trenton, Newark, Paterson, and Camden got bigger as immigrants from Europe came to work in them. Railroads were laid to connect the cities and to transport materials.

At first, most immigrants came from Ireland and Germany. Later, people came from Italy and from countries throughout Eastern Europe. In half the state's population was born or had parents who were born outside the United States. As city populations grew, farm populations shrank.

With so many people working in factories, issues like child labor and protection for workers became important. The popularity of these reforms brought Woodrow Wilson to power as governor in He left office in to become President of the United States and is the only New Jersey governor to become president. As both governor and president Wilson supported welfare reforms to protect workers and to keep companies from becoming too big.

The state's economic expansion had a lot to do with the genius of its inventors. Thomas Edison is probably most famous. Among his thousands of inventions, including the light bulb, Edison helped develop the motion picture while working in New Jersey.

Fort Lee became the motion picture capital of the world in the early s. Founded by the French, ruled for 40 years by the Spanish and bought by the United States The Dutch first settled along the Hudson River in ; two years later they established the colony of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. In , the English took control of the area and renamed it New York.

One of the original 13 colonies, New York played a crucial political Colonized by Spain, the land that is now New Mexico became U. The first native New Yorkers were the Lenape, an Algonquin people who hunted, fished and farmed in the area between the Delaware and Hudson rivers.

Europeans began to explore the region at the beginning of the 16th century—among the first was Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian New Jersey was the site of more Revolutionary War battles than any other state. The battle was a turning point in the war, as one of the first major military victories in the Revolutionary War.

In New Jersey became the third U. New Jersey was nicknamed the Garden State in , because of the huge amount of food grown there during that time. It can be divided into four different geographical regions. The Atlantic Coastal Plain, which features low hills, pine forests, and salt marshes, sweeps across the southern three-fifths of the state. This area includes the Barrier Islands, which have sandy beaches. Toward the west is the New England Upland, also called the Highlands.

Land area: 8, Largest county by population and area: Bergen, , ; Burlington, sq mi. Residents: New Jerseyite, New Jerseyan. Male: 4,, White: 6,, See additional census data. New Jersey's early colonial history was involved with that of New York New Netherlands , of which it was a part. Philip Carteret. In the colony was divided between Carteret and a company of English Quakers who had obtained the rights belonging to John, Lord Berkeley.

New Jersey became a united crown colony in , administered by the royal governor of New York.