New Jersey, the Garden/Factory/Highway State

As I read through various WPA guides, I was surprised at how inclusive they were, and how they were all so much more than guidebooks. While modern guidebooks might offer a very brief history of a place, or mention its politics, they are much more focused around tourism, with everything in them tying back to what might be of interest or of use to the tourist. The WPA guides read more along the lines of artifacts of state pride. They offer in depth history lessons, cite positive and negative attributes, mention the lives, activities and personal anecdotes of the locals, and admit deficiencies. I found the New Jersey guide to be quite interesting as it is a state that today does not have a very wide-reaching reputation as a tourist destination. While yes, I have seen a few commercials sprinkled across television inviting people to visit NJ’s beaches in the past few years, in general New Jersey has a bad reputation as being anything but “the garden state.”
Looking back to the WPA guide, it seems New Jersey was already best known for its factory lined un-scenic highways. With such a reputation the writers of the guides had a lot to counteract and to prove about the beauty contained in New Jersey, emphasizing that much lies beyond the highways which most who pass through New Jersey never take the time to leave. Even the introduction addresses the state’s critics, stating “This story of New Jersey is a cause for pride to those who love the state, but must also give pause to those who can be critical at the same time. Its beauty and romance, its ugliness and the commonplace have been preserved in an unusual balance by the collaborators in the evaluation of the State.”
The guide emphasizes New Jersey’s diversity, noting that, though “it is often called the Garden State, with equal reason it might be labeled the Factory State or the Commuter State,” and I might add, today, the Shore State, as I think The Jersey Shore is now the state’s biggest draw. In emphasizing this variety, the guide does not however focus on the beauty and ignore the less appealing characteristics. Instead it looks to acknowledge what is positive about the aspects usually regarded in a negative light. It talks about how ingenious the road design in New Jersey is, how most travelers never leave the highway, because unlike other less well designed road systems that force slow going and transfers, “it was New Jersey that pioneered with the cloverleaf intersection to sort unceasing streams of traffic. Roads have been laid so straight and broad that the long-distance autoist speeds across the State, seeing little except a landscape of reinforced concrete and billboards, although many pleasant villages and quiet country lie a little way off the main highways.” This is something that definitely holds true today. The other thing about New Jersey’s reputation for its roads is that it was used as a corridor between New York City and Philadelphia, and so many that passed through were merely commuters; New Jersey typically was not the destination in itself.
Reading through the history section, I learned that New Jersey was originally comprised of two separate provinces—East Jersey and West Jersey, now North and South Jersey—and I found this very interesting, because this divide continues to be seen today, but without any thought given to its origins. While today North and South still hold onto some animosities, they are more pride based, but back when it was being settled the differences were still firmly rooted in lifestyles and systems of belief. New England Puritanism was “stamped upon the eastern province, which was to become the urban manufacturing area, while the western province…concentrated on agriculture and adhered largely to the Quaker faith. Although the two provinces were united under a single government in 1702, fusion has never been completed.” This history lesson and notion of ongoing divide, while very interesting, is again something that would not be written in a guide book today. Modern guides would only emphasize the positive, and the attractions, while these guides were more inclusive, and seem to me to be more pieces of state memorabilia than anything else. The guide does, however, offer some practical information as well, and here it is extraordinarily thorough. After outlining possible modes of transportation to the state, the guide focuses on the driving trend and offers detailed information on what motorists will need to know while driving through, from the gas tax to the speed limits and traffic laws.