Camden, New Jersey

Camden is a city in Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Camden is part of the Delaware Valley. The city was incorporated on February 13, 1828. Camden has been the county seat of Camden County since the county was formed on March 13, 1844. The city derives its name from Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden. Camden is made up of over 20 neighborhoods. The city is part of the South Jersey region of the state.

The City of Camden has a long history that starts with the local indigenous Lenape population, who are believed to have inhabited this area 13-15,000 years prior to the first European settlers. Quakers eventually settled in the area at the end of the 17th century and the start of the 18th century, drawn by promises of religious freedom, fairer taxation, and more representation in government. The area was not popular for settlement until the Camden and Amboy Railroad came through in the second quarter of the 1800s. In Camden, there is also a location that is tied to the Underground Railroad, which was the first stop on the Philadelphia to New York route and operated through the Macedonia African Methodist Episcopal Church. Established in 1832, this church stands as the oldest African American institution in the city.

One of the largest population booms came from the founding of a preserving company known as The Campbell Soup Company. This brought jobs to the area, encouraging people to move into the city for transportation considerations. Other major manufacturing companies moved into the area during the last half of the 1800s. The growth of Camden continued until the 1950s with the help of the “big three” employers that maintained facilities within the city: RCA, Campbell’s Soup, and New York Ship. Drastic changes in the way workers went from disorganized to unionized increased labor costs to a point where the big three moved away from Camden in the mid-to-late-20th century.

From a thriving industrial city to the flight of much of the population to suburbs, Camden has survived a number of changes to its demographics. Once known for violent crime, the restructuring of the police force in 2013 has been credited for the decrease in that number. As of January 2021, violent crime was down 46% from its high in the 1990s and at the lowest level since the 1960s. Overall crime reports in 2020 were down 74% compared to 1974, the first year of uniform crime-reporting in the city.

Although revitalization efforts have been met with limited success so far, there are a number of philanthropic groups that are active in Camden. Projects such as the redevelopment of the waterfront area brought three tourist attractions to the area: the USS New Jersey, the Freedom Mortgage Pavilion, and the Adventure Aquarium. The city is the home of Rutgers University–Camden, which was founded as the South Jersey Law School in 1926, and Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, which opened in 2012. Camden also houses both Cooper University Hospital and Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center. Camden County College and Rowan University also have campuses in downtown Camden. The "eds and meds" institutions account for roughly 45% of Camden's total employment.