Gloucester County
Working in Gloucester for this project, we initially focused on parts of the county defined by the larger cities and towns. These include Swedesboro, Glassboro, Woodbury, and Paulsboro. Where possible, we followed leads into the smaller surrounding towns too. So for example, while working in Glassboro we also visited and talked with people in Clayton and Elk Township, as well as Pitman and Barnsboro. While working in Woodbury, we met with people in Deptford Township and in Thorofare and National Park. While working in Paulsboro, we made visits in Gibbstown and Bridgeport. And from Swedesboro, we visited Wenonah, Mullica Hill, Harrison Township, and parts of Greenwich Township along Kings Highway (Rt. 551). By the way, Kings Highway is a richly significant historical corridor in Gloucester County. We’ll report more on that and on all of these places later, as this web page develops.
As a first step, we invite you to review the physical layout of the county. You can refer to this map to see the locations of places mentioned in the information below.
View - Perkins Center Folklife Project-Gloucester County in a larger map
Geography
Gloucester County is an interesting mix of river, farming, and urban communities. Many historic inland farming communities are now giving way to development, but agriculture still defines large sections of the landscape, and farmers and would-be farmers are exploring new niches to help them carry on as farmers.
Urban communities such as Paulsboro and Woodbury have suffered from the effects of suburbanization, mall development, and the decline of their main streets and downtowns. But they are rebounding due to persistence of community leaders and with help from energetic new arrivals who are settling in those towns.
In the west, Gloucester County is a watery place. The Delaware River is a significant defining geographical feature, forming the entire western boundary of the county. Flowing toward the river from the east, a number of creeks and lesser rivers feed into the Delaware. Oldmans Creek runs along the southern border with Salem County. Moving north there are the Raccoon, Little Timber, Repaupo, Still Run, Mantua, and Woodbury Creeks. In the far north, Big Timber Creek forms the border with Camden County. These waterways have influenced historical development, and have deeply affected social and cultural life as well.
Paulsboro
The Tinicum Rear Range Lighthouse located off Delaware Street near the Delaware River is a historic landmark, still in use today as an aid to Delaware River shipping. The lighthouse has inspired art (its portrait has been painted as a fundraiser by Ray Miller, a local artist and decoy carver, pictured above) and craft (there is a replica built to scale, standing in the front yard of a private home nearby. You can view the Tinicum Rear Range Lighthouse Society website at www.tinicumrearrangelighthouse.org
Paulsboro was originally established as a resort town accessible by ferry from Philadelphia, but was gradually developed into an industrial site, with a focus on oil refining. Despite changes in recent years, Paulsboro remains an integral part of the social and cultural history of Gloucester County. We plan to write more about Paulsboro on this page in coming months.
Paulsboro is flanked north and south along Route 44 by various river-related communities and histories. Just to the north, on Route 44, boating and boatbuilding traditions are still evident in National Park. Residents of that town and nearby towns have also been employed in river-related occupations, such as the tugboat industry. We’ll explore and learn more about these occupations and their relationship to local culture and history as this project unfolds.
The urban areas of Gloucester County are culturally diverse, and that diversity is increasing now. Paulsboro and neighboring Gibbstown are home to a significant Italian American community. Though many of the ethnic businesses on Delaware Avenue in Paulsboro have closed as Italian Americans moved away, the town still features a significant Italian American presence. The Paulsboro Sons of Italy lodge is the largest in the state. Italian Americans affiliated with the lodge practice traditions that express ethnic identity, such as decorative stone and brick work, food and cooking traditions, home winemaking, and home gardening.
The Paulsboro Sons of Italy Lodge has continued to be an important gathering place for Italian Americans in Gloucester County. For Italian Americans, the lodge is a place where local history and ethnic experience are joined and renewed through social interaction and sharing of stories. In addition to participating in activities of their own community, members of this lodge regularly engage in fundraising for various social causes.
By the way, there is a sizeable Irish American community in National Park and nearby Thorofare, with a chapter of an important Irish fraternal and charitable organization, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, still active there.
We might also mention that National Park is home to the James and Ann Whitall House and Red Bank Battlefield, where Revolutionary era historical reenactments and other events, as well as tours, are featured. The remains of Fort Mercer are located there. Their website can be accessed at www.nj.searchroots.com/Gloucesterco/redbank.html.
Swedesboro
In Swedesboro, Italian American farmers have greatly contributed to shaping the surrounding landscape through agricultural activity over several generations of family farmers. The original immigrants carried their farming traditions with them from the agricultural districts of Cantania Province in Sicily. That farm-based culture is now giving way to housing development in the Swedesboro area, but the Italian presence persists, as reflected in an array of thriving local businesses. We plan to explore Swedesboro in much more depth, focusing not only on the Italian community, but on all communities in that area to provide a broader perspective on the places and the people of that area. (For more on Swedesboro see the ‘Textile Arts’ section of this web page.)
Glassboro
Glassboro is a historic community, and is now home to Rowan University, which is currently undertaking a major expansion in the city. Located in southern Gloucester County, Glassboro became an important glass manufacturing center in the late 18th century, with many glass companies established there and thriving in succeeding decades. Today it is a place of historic neighborhoods and abundant cultural activity. Among other things, artisan glassmaking is being reestablished on a small scale in nearby Clayton, by descendants of the Gilson family. We’ll report on this and on an array of other significant activities in and around Glassboro in coming weeks and months.
African Americans are an important part of the social and cultural fabric of Gloucester County, with significant black settlements in Paulsboro, Woodbury, and Swedesboro among other places. There is also a historic population of African Americans in the Glassboro area, and in surrounding areas such as Clayton and Elk Township. African American artists and artisans are still active in the historic Glassboro neighborhoods, featuring strong textile arts and storytelling traditions as well as poetry and choral arts. There is also evidence of small-scale farming traditions on properties in Elk Township that are related to African American foodways. These and other features of the Glassboro area, so rich in history and culture, will be explored more fully in the weeks to come.
We’re told that members of Glassboro's African American community planned to establish a cultural center there at one point. There are indications today that artists and their supporters may be organizing now to revisit that plan. Other significant sites in and around Glassboro are the Martin Luther King Community Center on Academy Street, which is an important center of African American social life. Local businesses such as Bryant’s barber shop, as well as Touch of Class beauty salon on Delsea Drive, are family owned African American businesses that contribute significantly to social and cultural life in Glassboro and beyond.Volunteer firefighting and fire companies form a significant historical tradition within the black community, and there is a long-established fire company in Elk Township. The African American volunteer fire companies are a significant source of historical and cultural Identity. These volunteer companies will provide an interesting subject for further exploration as this project unfolds.
The cultural mix in and around Glassboro is being enhanced now by the arrival of peoples from West Africa, who are settling in local towns. They are seeking ways to introduce West African music, dance, foodways and festivals, and fabric arts traditions into the cultural mix of Gloucester County.
Incidentally, just to the north and east in nearby Camden County there is a small but growing concentration of West African peoples from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Cote D’Ivoire. These communities may have social ties to the West African community in the Glassboro area. West Africans in and around Blackwood (Camden County) have formed a grassroots organization to provide a social focus for immigrants from those countries here. They also hope to sustain West African culture, perhaps through planned festivals and other events.
Members of this West African community are establishing businesses to provide goods and services to community members – fabric shops, food stores, restaurants – much as so many other immigrant groups have done in the past. These businesses are evolving into social spaces as well as information and resource centers for community members. They also provide opportunities for social and cultural exchange between the West African, African American, and Afro-Caribbean peoples of that area. We’ll report more fully on this community and these interrelationships as the Camden County web page develops.
Woodbury
Woodbury is located in northern Gloucester County, and it too is a city of historic neighborhoods. Residents are actively involved in preserving the neighborhoods. Community members are also increasingly involved in arts and cultural activity in Woodbury, and there are related efforts underway now to revitalize the downtown area.
There are historic African American communities in Swedesboro and Woodbury as well. In Woodbury, African Americans have organized to produce public festivals and events. One very significant event on the black history calendar is the ‘Juneteenth’ celebration. This event is produced annually to celebrate the day that blacks in Texas first learned of the Emancipation Proclamation. It has since been adopted in communities throughout the country.
In addition, a committee of African Americans has formed to conduct an oral history project in Woodbury. Their goal is to interview older black residents, in order to document African American history and the historic neighborhoods of Woodbury. They mean to safeguard that historic legacy for young black people of their community. And there’s more. Some African American artists and musicians are actively exploring cultural and historical linkages between African American and African cultures. They are presenting workshops in schools and other venues where students can learn about their own culture while exploring related cultural traditions.
We also want to note that there are indications of a growing Latino presence in Woodbury, which is being fed by immigrants from Mexico and the Central American countries. We’ll try to learn more about these communities too in coming months, and report what we can of them here.
Decoy Carving
An especially interesting feature of the county is the fishing and hunting activity that has evolved over many generations. For example, there is a significant decoy carving tradition in Gloucester that is widely known and highly regarded. Gloucester County carvers are part of a larger tradition known as the ‘Delaware River School’ of decoy carving. This particular style of carving is distinctive; Delaware River decoys are visibly different in form than decoys made along the New Jersey Coast, or in Maryland, or Virginia. This is partly due to conditions on local rivers and creeks, as well as to the special methods of hunting that are practiced there. Pictured above and below is the work of decoy carver Ray Miller. You can visit his website at www.woodncanvas.com 
Today, a number of decoy carvers in Gloucester County are working within the Delaware River carving tradition, and some are active along the river corridor in the Paulsboro area, and in the inland towns such as Mantua and Harrisonville. While working within a clearly defined historical carving tradition, contemporary carvers are reinventing and redefining that tradition for our time. Their work is beautiful as well as functional, and their decoys are still used for hunting by some carvers and their customers.
Textile Arts
There is a very interesting fine embroidery tradition practiced by Italian American women in Gloucester County. Their work is complemented by textile arts from other cultural communities, past and present. Local women descending from the Swedish and English communities of the Swedesboro area possess examples of textile artifacts made by their mothers and grandmothers, including examples of crochet work and tatting. Taken together these textile crafts form an important nexus of artistic and cultural expression, all arising from focused social interactions of local women.
We hope that women’s textile arts may provide a focus for future programming at Perkins because they are widespread and socially meaningful, and because they reveal a rich network of social and cultural relationships in the county.
Needles and Pins Fabric Shop is an important venue for women’s social activity and artisan production in Swedesboro, a place where women gather to sew and exchange information and ideas. Among these is Kathleen Johnson, who regularly visits the Pins and Needles shop. She owns and operates a longarm quilting machine out of a shop in Mt. Laurel. These elaborate machines produce finished quilts by sewing together the quilt tops, batting, and backing. They speed up the quilting process but are also able to perform intricate and detailed work. Longarm quilting is a contemporary alternative to hand quilting, enabling Kathleen Johnson to provide expert services to customers of various backgrounds, to meet a variety of quilting needs. She is an excellent source of information about quilting and the community of quilters in the region.
By the way, quilting and related traditions are alive and well in the Mt. Laurel area: we’re told that three separate quilting guilds have been formed in that area alone.
According to the guild members who meet at Pins and Needles Fabric Shop, there is a woman in the Swedesboro area who spins thread and weaves cloth using wool obtained from local sheep farms. This is an intriguing lead, which may indicate a dynamic set of productive relationships between local farmers and local artisans. We hope to follow-up and learn more in coming weeks and months.
The women who belong to the quilting guild at Needles and Pins also told us that they’d like to identify a local venue for display of art and craft work of various kinds. This could be developed into a lively space for cultural programming and workshops. This is a common need in communities throughout the region, where local cultural venues are scarce but much desired. A potential site in Swedesboro is the ‘Little Red Schoolhouse’, a historic structure located near the central business area.
Stay Tuned
The Kings Highway corridor (County Route 551) connecting Woodbury in the north and Swedesboro in the southern portion of Gloucester County is a significant historic byway, with many old historic buildings en route, and in established settlements such as Mt. Royal, Clarksboro, and MIckleton. These communities will be surveyed more fully in the upcoming year, along with all other plans for follow-up cited on this web page. We will also explore the river communitites and the communities lying along the creeks of Gloucester County, including places in and around Bridgeport, along with those already mentioned here.
