Camden After the Fall: Decline and Renewal in a Post-Industrial City

Chapter 1: A City That Worked

Chapter  A City That Worked Chief among the reasons why Camden is a desirable and prosperous place of residence, may be mentioned the fact that its people govern it. They have not surrendered their own sovereignty to an unscrupulous, corrupt ring of professional politicians. . . . The old-fashioned notion that a ‘‘public office is a public trust’’ is still adhered to and practiced in Camden with the result that capital and new residents are attracted instead of being repelled. . . . It has no slum sections in which human beings are packed like sardines in a box, as they are in some portions of the city across the river, nor need it ever have, if the city continues to be as wisely and liberally governed as at present. —Camden Chamber of Commerce, Camden, New Jersey: The City’s Rise and Growth Ask a former Camden resident, one who has been out of the city for years, what the city was once like, and the answer is always the same: it was a wonderful place to live and work. When the same people are asked about its present state, Camden is described only in negative terms. The foundations that once made the city one of the most economically productive in the nation came unraveled in the life of a single generation. Collective memory of that experience has coalesced into the judgment that ‘‘old Camden’’ is dead. Neither its once diverse economic nor its rich social opportunities remain. Such sharply etched distinctions between the city’s past and present make that conclusion appear special to the place. In fact, the experience is common to many cities that have undergone post-industrial transformations. In Camden, as in Alan Ehrenhalt’s ‘‘Lost City’’ of Chicago, old neighborhood-based urban communities appear to have broken down, victims as much to changing social mores as to the shift in fortunes.1 No doubt a strong element of nostalgia drives the articulation of widespread regrets about these places, yet objective evidence suggests they once served the vital function of providing two ingredients essential for surviving the  Chapter  vicissitudes of the marketplace: work and social assistance. Such sites offered access to both monetary and social capital, what Robert Putnam describes as networks of civic engagement and norms of trust and reciprocity.2 Camden’s rich history before World War II demonstrated the accumulation of both elements. The Camden Chamber of Commerce’s  claims touch on these elements . Yet they are neither an accurate snapshot of the contemporary city nor simply another example of urban boosterism. Within the Chamber’s pious homilies lies the central assumption of every aspiring twentiethcentury city: that success is measured by growth, that growth requires adequate opportunities for work and decent places to live, along with proper governance. If there is a fault here, it may be in the overemphasis on the formal aspects of government. For the many who aspired to employ the urban opportunity structure, informal networks of power were as important as those vested in elected offices.3 Either way, even with all its limitations , old Camden was a city that worked. * * * Camden originally developed largely as an extension of Philadelphia, which during the colonial period was the leading city on the North American continent . Camden’s incorporation in  did not remove it from the larger city’s sphere; Philadelphians across the Delaware River continued to exercise influence by using Camden to pursue their own business or personal interests. The city began to acquire standing on its own in , when the Camden and Amboy Railroad, then the longest line in the country, made Camden its terminus. In testimony to its growing importance, the town became the county seat in . Although it remained very much in Philadelphia ’s shadow through the Civil War Era, with peace Camden attracted both the immigrant work force and the capital to establish its own industrial base. It was home to plants that produced carriages, woolen goods, and lumber, and to Richard Esterbrook’s steel pen company. In  the modest canning business Joseph Campbell had started in  incorporated as Campbell Soup. Eight years later the New York Ship Company opened yards, which soon employed as many as , workers. In  Eldridge Johnson, who had begun work on a ‘‘talking machine’’ two years earlier, formed the Victor Talking Machine Company. Other smaller but important manufacturing firms joined these three emerging giants to produce everything from fountain pens to cigars. By  Camden’s board of trade could [18.119.125...