Frank Pedulla, Jr., a Korean War veteran who was 26-years-old when he was elected to the Franklin Township Committee in Gloucester County in 1954, died on February 25. He was 93. Pedulla was likely among the last living New Jerseyans...
Just 22,091 votes separated John F. Kennedy from Richard M. Nixon in the contest for New Jersey’s sixteen electoral votes in the 1960 presidential election. Kennedy won 50% to Nixon’s 49%, but Nixon carried 14 of New Jersey’s 21 counties....
John D. Polhemus, a former Peace Corps volunteer who was twice elected as a Democrat to the Warren County Board of Freeholders, died on February 12. He was 81. Raised on his family dairy farm with aspirations of becoming a...
Madaline Williams (1894-1968) was the first Black woman to serve in the New Jersey Legislature. She was elected to the State Assembly in 1957 and re-elected in 1959. An East Orange, Democrat, she was elected Essex County Register of Deeds...
The last New Jersey Democrat to lose a U.S. Senate race in New Jersey was Paul Krebs (1912-1996), labor leader and one-term congressman from Livingston. His story involves one of the great New Jersey labor union feuds. The account starts...
One of the most influential labor leaders in New Jersey history was Vincent J. Murphy (1893-1976), who spent nine years as the president of the New Jersey AFL-CIO after two terms as the Mayor of Newark. He was the Democratic...
The emergence of a serious grass roots, activist movement within the New Jersey Democratic Party has happened before. One certainty is that Donald Trump’s presidency, which ended last month, engaged new people into state and local politics from both people...