Ocean County [New Jersey]: Four Centuries In The Making (sigedn by the author and six additional contributors) by Pauline S. Miller - 2000

Toms River, NJ: Ocean County Cultural & Heritage Commission, 2000. First edition. Hardcover. Fine/very good. Thick, octavo sized hardcover in blue cloth lettered and decorated with a lighthouse image in gilt. Signed on the title page by Miller and six of the contributors. Color illustrated endpapers, xix+ 981 pp. plus bibliography, index. Illustrated throughout with vintage and contemporary photographs and with vintage reproductions. Fine in very good dust jacket. Massive history of New Jersey's Ocean County. Located on the Jersey Shore directly east of Philadelphia and roughly midway between New York and Atlantic City, the county was formed in 1850 from part of Monmouth County to the north; the area was first charted by Dutrch explorer Cornelius Hendrickson in 1614/15 began to be populated by white settlers in the late 1600s. The book is divided into three parts; Part I covers 1614-1850, the years of Native American occupation, the activities of whalers, smugglers, and privateers, the beginnings of pineland industries; Part II (1850-1950) records the developent of county government, the expansion of barrier islands, the impact of the railroad era, the Civil War, WWI, the KKK, the Great DEpressiona ndWWII; Part III (1950-2000) deals with the county's renaissance of growth, shifting industries and populations, medical care and the effect of local women on the political scene.