200 Plus
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•November 16, 2016
Were Newspapers In on ‘War of Worlds’ Hoax?
Every Halloween, two places return to the national spotlight: Salem, Mass., for its witch trials, and New Jersey, for the Martian invasion of 1938. “The War of the Worlds” radio broadcast of Oct. 30…
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•November 9, 2016
‘He Kept Us Out of War’
In the presidential election of 1916, Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican candidate, was counting heavily on the support of women in the states where they were permitted to vote. Hughes supported…
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•November 2, 2016
Wilson No Fan of Women’s Suffrage
Woodrow Wilson had won the presidency in 1912 with a minority of the votes, because the Republican Party had split. In 1916, he would need to gather as many votes as possible. A key to his strategy…
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•October 26, 2016
The Summer White House
The story of Woodrow Wilson’s 1916 Shadow Lawn campaign for president began a year earlier when the Asbury Park Press broke a story stating, “TRENTON, Oct. 13. – It became known here today that a…
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•October 19, 2016
Segregation Roils 1916 Election
In 1912, Woodrow Wilson had won a three-way race for the White House with 42 percent of the votes. His promise of fair treatment for African-Americans had won over many of them to support a…
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•October 12, 2016
Racism an Election Issue 100 Years Ago
As Woodrow Wilson prepared to launch his 1916 reelection campaign from the Shadow Lawn estate on the Jersey Shore, he planned to ask the American public to trust him as he ran on the campaign promise…
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•October 5, 2016
Polio Invades Ocean County
In my haste to leave on vacation, I filed the last in this series early. Here is the missinginstallment; I’m sorry for any confusion.
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•September 28, 2016
Polio Epidemic Winds Down
September 1916 was finally bringing cooler weather to the East Coast. It was hoped by many that this change would bring an end to the epidemic of infantile paralysis, now known as polio, that had…
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•September 21, 2016
Fear Turns to Panic Amid Epidemic
For many people the terror of the summer of 1916 involved shark attacks along the Jersey Shore, but there was a far more insidious killer striking fear into the population: infantile paralysis, today…
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•September 14, 2016
Feds Respond to Polio Panic
During the heat of summer in 1916, an outbreak of polio, then called infantile paralysis, started in Brooklyn, New York. The rich fled the city to escape the disease, but the poor had no choice but…
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•September 7, 2016
New Yorkers Try to Flee Polio
Today as stories of the spread of disease and attempts to stop it are filling the media, a look at the 1916 polio epidemic might give us some insight as to how government and people react to an…
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•August 31, 2016
Polio Fears Outweigh Sharks
For many New Jersey citizens, the summer of 1916 was remembered as one of fear, dread and panic. Shark attacks on its beaches and a terrorist attack at Black Tom, in Jersey City, are the most…
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•August 24, 2016
Were Germans Responsible for Black Tom?
During the early morning hours of July 30, 1916, tons of munitions stored at the Black Tom Island loading facility in Jersey City and bound for the Allies fighting in the trenches of the Western…
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•August 17, 2016
Destruction Comes to New York Harbor
In July 1916 as World War I raged in Europe, the Black Tom Island loading facility in Jersey City was a major military target. While the United States claimed neutrality, hundreds of tons of…
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•August 10, 2016
Sharks Give Way to Germans
During the summer of 1916, as the Jersey Shore and the nation were preoccupied with shark attacks, there was a far more dangerous threat growing in their midst. With the outbreak of war in Europe in…
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•August 3, 2016
Shark Sensation Won’t Go Away
Matawan Creek had been the site of a devastating shark attack in July 1916; two people were dead and one had been maimed as the nation watched the third major attack along the Jersey Shore in less…
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•July 28, 2016
Shark Fears Grab Public Attention
In July 1916, the people of the Jersey Shore felt they were under attack, and after the deaths of four people and the maiming of one, there was finally a consensus over who the enemy was: sharks! The…
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•July 21, 2016
Terror Continues in Matawan Creek
Today the Matawan Creek is a slow-moving brackish body of water that almost anyone can throw a stone across. On July 12, 1916, it was the site of the shark attack on a young boy and one of the local…
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•July 14, 2016
Could Sea Turtle Be to Blame?
One hundred years ago this week the East Coast of the United States would finally come to grips with an unseen terror. While thousands were dying on the Somme Battlefield in France, and hundreds from…
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•July 7, 2016
Not Likely Again in a Thousand Years
July 1, 1916, was the first day of the Battle of the Somme. In a few hours the Allies would suffer over 50,000 casualties as men marched across no man’s land and into a hailstorm of machine gun fire.…
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•June 30, 2016
Fatal Shark Attack Claims Victim
Most locals in 1916 knew that shark attacks took place on the East Coast, but a look at newspapers from 1842 give some insight. According to the New York Evening Post of July 11, “While some boys…
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•June 23, 2016
State Steps in When Congress Fails
The battle for Island Beach didn’t involve thousands of troops storming ashore from landing craft. Instead it pitted environmentalists against developers, fighting for the support of politicians and…
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•June 16, 2016
Deadly DDT Comes to Island Beach
If you are lucky enough to witness an osprey in flight over Barnegat Bay, it should remind you that its return to the area is a symbol of one of the greatest environmental battles of the 20th…
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•June 9, 2016
Bumblebee Missile Should Never Fly
When the U.S. Navy took over the barren 9-mile peninsula today called Island Beach State Park in February 1945 and drafted all of its adult citizens into government service, the only thing made…
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•June 2, 2016
Best Laid Plans for Island Beach
As the Roaring ’20s were coming to an end, it appeared that what is today Island Beach State Park would become another Jersey Shore community linked to LBI, by a toll bridge. Henry Phipps, a…
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•May 26, 2016
So Near, Yet So Far
Standing at the base of Barnegat Lighthouse looking north across Barnegat Inlet, we can see Island Beach State Park. Google Maps tells us it is 50 miles away and will take over an hour to drive…
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•May 19, 2016
Navy Men Idle While Taxpayers Pay
The first two years of World War II had witnessed what is now being recognized as the Pearl Harbor of the Atlantic. German U-boats were attacking Allied shipping within sight of the famed bathing…
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•May 12, 2016
Blimp Casualties Continue to Rise
In early 1942, during the darkest days of World War II, for the people of the Jersey Shore the blimp had become a symbol of the battle to drive German U-boats away from the coast. From their base at…
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•May 5, 2016
Fog Causes Another Blimp Disaster
Some say that survival in war is sometimes just a matter of luck; others talk about a chain of events changing history. In October 1943 these two ideas led to a fatal collision of two Navy blimps on…
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•April 28, 2016
Blimps Part of War Effort Against U-boats
When you think of the history of Ocean County, the first thing that jumps to mind is shipwrecks. Then if you take another moment, you might flash on the an image of the Hindenburg exploding over…