Roebling: Company Town

Steel--the backbone of a growing industrial nation. Roebling--John A. Roebling and Sons Company, well-known for building the iconic Brooklyn Bridge, was ready to expand into the steel-making business. Land--the right piece of property was located alongside the Delaware River just eleven miles south of its Trenton, NJ plant. Workforce--it was an era when immigrants were welcomed for the labor they could provide. In ROEBLING: Company Town 1905-1947, discover how these major components worked together to build the unique community of Roebling, NJ. Louis Borbi, a life-long resident of Roebling with a keen interest and passion for its history, meticulously compiled a wealth of information over the past fifty years. He interviewed hundreds of residents, collected news articles and pictures of bygone days, and searched through century-old employment records. His family members, at one time numbering over fifty people, all lived in Roebling and many worked in the plant. The author also worked in many departments of the plant during summer breaks while teaching at the Roebling Public School. Through vivid descriptions and dialogue influenced by these reference materials, Borbi enables readers to step into the past and learn about everyday life in ethnic neighborhoods. He follows the journey of the impoverished Eastern European immigrants to America where a job and a home awaited. It is their story. Discover how they worked around open-hearth furnaces with the temperature fluctuating near 3,000 degrees to make the wire for the George Washington Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge and the wire cables to help win two World Wars. Read about the epidemics, Prohibition and moonshine, the Great Depression, Blue Center football, and the town Walter Winchell proclaimed as having the biggest gambling joint east of the Mississippi River in 1947. With their faith and perseverance, the immigrants and their children adapted to the American way of life while preserving their distinct ethnic traditions which added to the unique flavor of the melting pot that formed in Roebling. Nurtured by the Roebling Company, a community was built where pride in their workmanship and the contributions they made to their newly-adopted country, America, flourished. Roebling was a great place to grow up. Roebling took care of its people, while they were busy taking care of the world.

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