Delaware

This thesis is a geographic and temporal case study of the carpentry and joinery trades present in the Delaware River Valley region from the period of Anglo-European settlements in the 1660s to about 1740. This examination of the region’s craft traditions emphasizes what its colonies share: patterns of settlement, ethnicity, kinship, religion, material richness, and commercial interdependence.

This study closely examined the construction of and materials used in case furniture produced in New Jersey or Pennsylvania individually, or in the larger Delaware River Valley region as a whole, revealing the persistence of Anglo-European craft traditions in colonial America, and a relative stasis in internal casework construction as a result of the apprenticeship system.
The similarity of construction and material found in these objects indicates the shared cultural expectations of craftsmen and their patrons, illustrative of the craft tradition of the Delaware Valley Region, not of any one colony.  It also speaks to the significant role of New Jersey's timber in intercolonial commerce. This further suggests that extant furniture defined as made within Philadelphia or Pennsylvania without any further details of maker and place of manufacture could have been produced anywhere in the Delaware River Valley, including New Jersey, Chester County, and the Lower Counties (Delaware). In addition to case studies examining furniture of this region, this study identifies over two hundred and fifty members of New Jersey’s woodworking trades who utilized the colony's material wealth and interpersonal resources for individual success.

Of late there has been much discussion regarding racial disparities in the expulsion/suspension rates in
Delaware. Of importance to the community is degree that extreme disciplinary actions by school
officials are driven by racism or racial discrimination. Some have even associated extreme disciplinary
practices as a major contributor to the pipeline to prison. This preliminary study does not directly
address the school to prison pipeline issue in Delaware, however it does provide some insight to racial
disparities in the expulsion/suspension rate in Delaware’s public high schools.

This white paper examines the attitudes and perception of black community leaders regarding issues important to building capacity and development in Wilmington’s inner city. It sought to focus on capacity building and community development in Wilmington as a socio-political phenomenon. This paper begins with the assumption that social and political factors are as equally important as to economic factors in increasing the standard of living and quality of life in Wilmington’s inner-city communities. It considers the impact of social influences in shaping individual leaders political views. The findings show a measure of agreement among leaders regarding the most important issues facing their community, and strong agreement among the community leaders’ perceptions of the factors influencing political and social outcomes in the community. They were critical of the job government was doing to assist the community, yet equally critical of the efforts of the residents to address the problems their community faced.  They did not have much confidence in outside institutions nor did they have much faith in blacks who lived outside of the community helping to build community capacity and develop.  Capacity building and community development in inner city communities must be understood as they are situated in a complex and unique socio-political context and in accordance with internal community identity politics.

In this paper I examine the varying responses of early American Methodists to the tumultuous American War for Independence within the Mid-Atlantic region, placing special emphasis on the pacifist witness of several key leaders including Freeborn Garrettson and Jesse Lee.  This pacifism poses a quandary for church historians since Methodism has never stood within the peace church tradition.  Therefore, I also offer suggestions for how to interpret these unique responses to war and violence.

Few in Hollywood knew that James Young Deer, general manager of Pathé Frères West Coast Studio from 1911 to 1914, was really an imposter. After all, Young Deer had earned a reputation as the first Native American producer and had worked alongside D. W. Griffith, Fred J. Balshofer, and Mack Sennett.  For decades, he eluded film historians.  But after ten months of poking through dusty archives and faded vital records, the identity of this mysterious filmmaker finally came to light.

In 1940, the tidal Delaware River was “one of the most grossly polluted areas in the United States.” During the 1950s, water quality was so poor along the river at Philadelphia that zero oxygen levels prevented migration of American shad leading to near extirpation of the species. Since then, water quality in the Delaware Basin has improved with implementation of the 1961 Delaware River Basin Compact and 1970s Federal Clean Water Act Amendments. At 15 gages along the Delaware River and major tributaries between 1980 and 2005, water quality for dissolved oxygen, phosphorus, nitrogen, and sediment improved at 39%, remained constant at 51%, and degraded at 10% of the stations. Since 1980, improved water-quality stations outnumbered degraded stations by a 4 to 1 margin. Water quality remains good in the nontidal river above Trenton and, while improved, remains fair to poor for phosphorus and nitrogen in the tidal estuary near Philadelphia and in the Lehigh and Schuylkill tributaries. Water quality is good in heavily forested watersheds (>50%) and poor in highly cultivated watersheds. Water quality recovery in the Delaware Basin is coincident with implementation of environmental laws enacted in the 1960s and 1970s and is congruent with return of striped bass, shad, blue crab, and bald eagle populations.

Groundwater discharge locations along the upper Delaware River, both discrete bank seeps and diffuse streambed upwelling, may create thermal niche environments that benefit the endangered dwarf wedgemussel (Alasmidonta heterodon). We seek to identify whether discrete or diffuse groundwater inflow is the dominant control on refugia. Numerous springs and seeps were identified at all locations where dwarf wedgemussels still can be found. Infrared imagery and custom high spatial resolution fiber-optic distributed temperature sensors reveal complex thermal dynamics at one of the seeps with a relatively stable, cold groundwater plume extending along the streambed/water-column interface during midsummer. This plume, primarily fed by a discrete bank seep, was shown through analytical and numerical heat-transport modeling to dominate temperature dynamics in the region of potential habitation by the adult dwarf wedgemussel.

Most amateur historians of New York and the tri-state area are aware of the Lenape as the region's first inhabitants. But how many know they are still active and engage with them as neighbors? It was partly with this in mind that a group of young Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape drummers from Bridgeton, New Jersey, were invited by a graduating MFA painting student to perform in his thesis show at Rutgers University on March 4 in the Mason Gross School of the Arts galleries, marking the first such performance by people of Native descent at a studio program on the East Coast, and by the traditional people of the particular area. A brief history of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape, the political and cultural context of the performance, and reactions to the work.