recreation was a pleasure savored by a rather small segment of the U.S. population. One of 

 the exceptions may have been those who traveled on the Sunday "Dollar Excursion" train 

 which ran from Philadelphia to Atlantic City beginning in the 1890 's. 



But life in America was undergoing many changes in the late 1800's and these changes 

 had a direct effect on the ocean front of New Jersey. One example was the shift from a 

 predominantly rural to an urban society. In 1870, 25.7 percent of the 39,905,000 people in 

 the United States hved in urban areas; in 1900 it was 39.6 percent of 76,094,000; and in 

 1920, 51.2 percent of 106,466,000 Americans lived in urban areas. With such a marked 

 alteration in lifestyle, the out of doors acquired a connotation quite different from what it 

 had been during the days of a largely rural society. Increasingly, a trip to the country, the 

 mountains, or the seashore meant going on a pleasure trip— an excursion to take one away 

 from the press of city Ufe. 



This shift to the city had been, in part, a result of the great expansion of industrialization 

 which occurred in tliis country following the Civil War. The poor working conditions and 

 low wages that existed during this postwar period prompted the growth of labor unions. 

 Gradually, the number of working hours lessened and wages advanced. In time, an 

 occasional day set aside for leisure became something other than the monopoly of the well 

 to do. 



But the real boon to shore recreation was the increased use of the automobile. Although 

 the first automobiles were largely objects of sport for the wealthier groups, the efforts of 

 industrialist Henry Ford helped breach this exclusiveness by introducing a low-cost car, 

 which became available to more and more people after around 1910. This new mode of 

 transport acted as an incentive for the improvement of roads and the construction of bridges 

 to the barrier islands off the coast of New Jersey. The combination of these several events 

 set the scene for the influx of many more vacationers to the beaches of New Jersey for a 

 day, a weekend, or a summer in the sun and tlie surf. Moreover, tlie automobile allowed 

 beach recreationists to fan out along the entire shoreline, rather than concentrate in a few 

 specific locations. This encouraged the development of the then largely empty stretches of 

 shore interspersed between the main resort cities. John Cunningham has written that, "the 

 automobile democratized Barnegat Peninsula."^ Indeed, the automobile democratized 

 virtually the entire New Jersey shore, and many other coastal recreation areas as well. 



More shore vacationers meant the growth of more permanent facUities along the 

 coastUne of New Jersey which, in turn, was accompanied by increased land values. Along 

 this 130-mile-long coast, the interaction between ocean waves and beach had been occurring 

 since time immemorial. The movement of sand, in accordance with wind, wave, and current 

 conditions, had always resulted in both beach accretion and beach erosion at various 

 points. Now, however, with the new and growing dollar value of shore sites, the latter 

 process in particular— beach erosion— became a serious problem. Thus, by the 1920 's, and 

 even considerably earUer in some areas, a different situation had evolved based upon the 

 emergence of the following two important considerations. 



