Editing Jersey City, New Jersey (section)

====Consolidation of Jersey City====
Soon after the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], the idea arose of uniting all of the towns of Hudson County east of the Hackensack River into one municipality. In 1868, a bill for submitting the question of consolidation of all of Hudson County to the voters was presented to the Board of Chosen Freeholders (now known as the [[Board of County Commissioners (New Jersey)|Board of County Commissioners]]). The bill was approved by the state legislature on April 2, 1869, with a special election to be held on October 5, 1869. An element of the bill provide that only contiguous towns could be consolidated. While a majority of the voters across the county approved the merger, the only municipalities that had approved the consolidation plan and that adjoined Jersey City were [[Hudson City, New Jersey|Hudson City]] and [[Bergen City, New Jersey|Bergen City]].<ref name="Merger">Winfield, Charles Hardenburg. [https://archive.org/details/historycountyhu00winfgoog/page/n305 <!-- pg=289 --> "History of the County of Hudson, New Jersey, from Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time"], p. 289. Kennard & Hay Stationery M'fg and Print. Co., 1874. Accessed December 21, 2011.</ref> The consolidation began on March 17, 1870, taking effect on May 3, 1870.<ref>Staff. [https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1870/04/25/80226366.pdf "The New Government of Jersey City – The Subordinate Offices"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', April 25, 1870. Accessed December 21, 2011. "The new City Government of Jersey City goes into operation on the first Tuesday in May."</ref> Three years later the present outline of Jersey City was completed when [[Greenville, Jersey City|Greenville]] agreed to merge into the Greater Jersey City.<ref name="Story" /><ref>''Municipal Incorporations of the State of New Jersey (according to Counties)'' prepared by the Division of Local Government, Department of the Treasury (New Jersey); December 1, 1958, p. 78 – Extinct List.</ref>

Following consolidation, the city's first university, [[Saint Peter's University|Saint Peter's College]], was charted in 1872 and classes began on September 2, 1878, in Paulus Hook. Decades later, it would adopt the [[Saint Peter's Peacocks|peacock]] as its mascot in partial reference to the original settling of the Jersey City area as "Pavonia", ''land of the peacock''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.saintpeters.edu/mission-and-history/|title=Mission and History|website=saintpeters.edu|access-date=February 17, 2025}}</ref>

On October 28, 1886, the [[Statue of Liberty]] was dedicated by [[Grover Cleveland|President Grover Cleveland]] just off the city's shores at [[Liberty Island|Bedloe's Island]] in New York Harbor. The statue would welcome millions of immigrants as they arrived by [[Passenger ship|ship]] at [[Ellis Island]] (opened in 1892) in the coming decades.

By the late 1880s, three passenger railroad terminals opened in Jersey City along the [[North River (Hudson River)|Hudson River]] ([[Pavonia Terminal]],<ref>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1887/12/04/102976849.pdf "A Handsome Building: The Erie Railway's New Station at Jersey City."], ''[[The New York Times]]'', December 4, 1887. Accessed November 14, 2016.</ref> [[Exchange Place (PRR station)|Exchange Place]] and [[Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal|Communipaw]]) making Jersey City a terminus for the nation's rail network.<ref name="CRRNJ">[http://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/parks/liberty_state_park/liberty_crrnj.html Liberty State Park: CRRNJ], [[New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection]]. Accessed August 30, 2015.</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Port of New York. A History of the Rail and Terminal System from the Beginnings to Pennsylvania Station (Volume 1) |last=Condit |first=Carl |year=1980 |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |isbn=978-0-226-11460-6 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/portofnewyork0000cond/page/46 46–52,152–168] |url=https://archive.org/details/portofnewyork0000cond/page/46}}</ref><ref name="Great City"/> Tens of millions, roughly two-thirds, of [[Immigration to the United States|immigrants]] that were processed at Ellis Island entered the United States through Communipaw Terminal to then settle in Jersey City and its neighboring municipalities or make their way westward.<ref name="CRRNJ" /><ref>{{cite web|url=https://njcu.libguides.com/centralrailroad|title=Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal|website=njcu.libguides.com|access-date=February 9, 2025}}</ref> The railroads transformed the geography of the city by building several [[List of bridges, tunnels, and cuts in Hudson County, New Jersey#Bergen Hill-Hudson Palisades|tunnels and cuts]], such as the [[Bergen Arches]], through the city and filling in the coves at Harsimus and Communipaw for the construction of several large freight rail yards along the waterfront.<ref>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1910/06/12/102040699.pdf "Finish Erie Tunnel in Jersey Heights"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', June 13, 1910. Accessed July 18, 2017.</ref><ref name="jclandmarks">[http://www.jclandmarks.org/history-bergenarches.shtml The Bergen Arches of the Erie Railroad] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081230150759/http://www.jclandmarks.org/history-bergenarches.shtml |date=December 30, 2008}}, Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy. Accessed April 1, 2015.</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1873/08/08/79042686.pdf | work=The New York Times | title=New-Jersey | date=August 8, 1873}}</ref>

Jersey City became an important port, railroad and manufacturing city during the 19th and 20th centuries. Much like New York City, Jersey City has always been a destination for new immigrants to the United States. [[Germans|German]], [[Russians|Russian]], [[Poles (people)|Polish]], [[Scottish people|Scottish]], [[Irish ethnicity|Irish]] and [[Italians|Italian]] immigrants settled in local [[tenements]] and found work at the local docks, railroads and adjacent companies such as [[American Can Company|American Can]], [[Colgate-Palmolive|Colgate]], [[Chloro]], [[Lorillard Tobacco Company|Lorillard Tobacoo]] and [[Dixon Ticonderoga]].<ref name="Remaking"/> During this time, concern grew for the social issues of the city's immigrant poor. [[Cornelia Foster Bradford]] founded [[Whittier House (Jersey City, New Jersey)|Whittier House]] in Paulus Hook in 1894 as the first "[[Settlement movement|settlement house]]" in New Jersey. Whittier House led to several social reforms and city "firsts" such as free kindergarten, a dental clinic, a visiting nurse service, a milk and medical dispensary, diet kitchen for mothers and babies and a playground. Mary Buell Sayles, a settlement resident, wrote ''The Housing Conditions of Jersey City'' in 1902 about the lives of immigrants in and around Paulus Hook. In response, mayor [[Mark M. Fagan]] (1902–1907) created the Municipal Sanitary League and opened the city's first public bath house on Coles Street in 1904. That same year, the first "State Tenement House Commission" was formed and the New Jersey Legislature passed the "Tenement House Act".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://njcu.libguides.com/whittier|title=Whittier House|website=njcu.libguides.com|access-date=February 10, 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://streettotheleft.weebly.com/coles-street-bathhouse.html|title=Coles Street Bathhouse|website=streettotheleft.weebly.com|access-date=February 10, 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bgchc.org/mission-history|title=Our History|website=Boys and Girls Club of Hudson County|access-date=February 10, 2025}}</ref>