Roebling, NJ

Historically Roebling, NJ is best known as a factory town for the Roebling Steel Mill. Back in 1905 John A. Roebling and Sons started to build the town to house their workers. Thousands of people worked in the mill every day. Today New Jersey Transit's RiverLine could workers to town, which would make an easy commute, but that was still many years into the future. Roebling moved their factory from Trenton to the suburbs of Florence, NJ.

The actual factory no longer stands. It closed in 1974, and soon after was demolished. In 1983 it became an EPA project. At the time, the area was a mess. Slag was dumped into the Delaware River rather than be taken further away. By the time the EPA got their hands on it, it was a 30 acre slag dump. I can't imagine the work involved with cleaning it. Today it is a grassy park with a view of Pennsylvania. In 2010 the Roebling Museum opened. Ashley and I first visited the museum in 2011.

On my birthday, Nancy, mom, and I went on a walking tour of Roebling, a subsection of the town of Florence. Built in the early 20th century it is the ultimate planned community. Row homes closest to the mill housed Hungarian immigrants on 2nd Avenue. The next block up housed Romanian immigrants. Fourth Avenue was home to the Slovaks. Just like today, people chose to live near others who shared their language and culture.

In 1905 the general store was built, and opened for business on June 3, 1906. It was the Target of the day -- it had everything you needed. They continued to operate until 1959. 

On the other side of the general store is 5th Avenue. Suddenly the homes grow bigger. Instead of row homes, they have "twins," or what I would call "duplexes." These were for the managers. The next two streets, 6th and 7th, have even bigger houses. Our walking tour did not go quite that far away. Immigrant children were told not to cross the grassy knoll on 5th Avenue. It wasn't safe to be in the English speaking part of town. 

Lyn, the executive director of the Roebling Museum led us on the tour. We felt as if we were getting the VIP treatment! At the end of the tour she complimented us as the best tour group. I'm willing to bet she says that to everyone, but she knows how to make a group feel special.

The only part of the factory still standing is the main office. There are about eight doors leading to different offices. Back in the day, depending on your role, you checked in a different door. Woman making wire cloth in one door, men working in the hot mill a different one, and so on. They collected their time card before stepping into the 200 acres of steel mill, including 14 miles of train tracks inside the mill. Looking at the empty field, it is hard to imagine just how large it used to be. They left black rails to show the footprint, but you can't quite imagine the size, noise, sounds, etc. 

Second Avenue was built first, and was the closest street to the factory. They were tenement/worker two story, two bedroom homes with running water.  Most homes had no more than six adults living in them, plus children. That sounds like a lot, but this was the era the Tenement Museum in NYC's Garment District portrays when that many people would have been in a two-room apartment that had a single bathroom per building. Having your own bathroom was a luxury.

Inside the museum there is a display comparing how the demographics changed from 1910 to 1940, all based on the census. In the earlier years most homes had boarders. As families grew, there were less borders. 

The homes were owned by the mill. They took care of their workers. That shifted in 1941 when they workers unionized. Roebling and Sons no longer maintained the houses. In 1947 the homes were sold to the workers. The rule was, though, the owners had to put central heating in their home in order to purchase it. I've lived in New Jersey most of my life. It would have been hard to spend winters in unheated homes. Shows how much our standards have changed over the century.

The inn on Riverside Avenue is still standing. It is the oldest still standing building in town. Today it is a county senior center. Lyn expressed a wish to find the guest book that the hotel used to maintain. She is a firm believer in putting things out in the universe. The inn cost $2 a week to rent a room. There were two bowling alley lanes in the basement.

I was impressed by the employment cards the museum has. Volunteers are in the process of digitizing the cards. Each worker had a card. It showed their basic information, included a photograph, and their employment history. They are a treasure trove of information. I hope someday they are able to share it with Ancestry.com. If Lyn can put it out the universe, so can I. Genealogists would go crazy over the type of information on each card. 

Today twenty percent of current owners are related to the former owners. They seem to be a tight knit community of kind people who look out for each other. It was warm the day of our walk. A woman dashed up to us and handed the four of us bottles of water.

We stayed to watch a movie about the town. As the museum was being built someone had the foresight to interview former factory workers and preserve their oral history. Fifteen years later, the movie is holding up well.

We upgraded our tour ticket ($5) to include the museum (another $7), there is a $2 discount for doing both. Much of the museum looked familiar from my 2011 visit, but other sections felt fresh. It is a very clean museum with lots of engaging displays. As I stood in the museum I reread my 2011 post. It mentioned a shoe room that caught Ashley's interest. I couldn't find it, showing that some things do change.