The View West Along Fern Street Camden, New Jersey – 1979-2019

Beginning in 1979, Camilo José Vergara has been returning year after year to take photographs of Fern Street in Camden, New Jersey. We’ve shared more from his project to create a visual archaeology of the USA with his pictures of Vyse Street in New York City’s South Bronx and 65 East 125th Street in Harlem. Now we’re in Camden.

 

The city that was once an industrial and commercial leader. Eldridge Johnson’s machine shop gave way to the Victor Talking Machine Company, predecessor of RCA, which ended its presence in the city in 1988. In 1869 Joseph Campbell and Abram Anderson founded a preserving company that eventually became known as The Campbell Soup Company.

In 1926, President Calvin Coolidge dedicated the Delaware River Bridge, later renamed for Benjamin Franklin. It opened the way for commuters to work in Philadelphia and live in the Camden suburbs. A second bridge, the Walt Whitman, opened 31 years later, connecting Philadelphia and Gloucester City. In 1976, the Betsy Ross Bridge, linking Philadelphia and Pennsauken, opened to traffic.

These routes and the development of high-speed rail transportation between Camden and Philadelphia helped to push the county’s population over the half-million mark.