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Photo, Print, Drawing Dundee Canal, Headgates, Guardlock & Uppermost Section, 250 feet northeast of Randolph Avenue, opposite & in line with East Clifton Avenue, Clifton, Passaic County, NJ

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[ Photos from Survey HAER NJ-45  ]

More Resources

[ Data Pages from Survey HAER NJ-45  ]
[ Photo Captions from Survey HAER NJ-45  ]

About this Item

Title

  • Dundee Canal, Headgates, Guardlock & Uppermost Section, 250 feet northeast of Randolph Avenue, opposite & in line with East Clifton Avenue, Clifton, Passaic County, NJ

Names

  • Historic American Engineering Record, creator
  • Dundee Manufacturing Company
  • Dundee Water Power and Land Company
  • Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures
  • Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures
  • Allen, Joseph W.
  • Scott, Joseph
  • Hackensack Water Company
  • United Water Resources, Inc.
  • North Jersey District Water Supply Commission
  • New Jersey Department of Transportation, sponsor
  • URS Greiner, Inc., contractor
  • American Hydro Power Company, sponsor
  • Raber Associates, contractor
  • Photo Recording Associates, contractor
  • Speed-Graphics, Inc., contractor
  • Raber, Michael S., historian
  • Flagg, Thomas R., photographer
  • Reilly, David, field team
  • Yearby, Jearn P., transmitter
  • Brown, Marvin A., historian
  • Scheerer, E. Madeleine, historian
  • Tucher, Rob, photographer

Created / Published

  • Documentation compiled after 1968

Headings

  • -  canals
  • -  water power
  • -  economic development
  • -  textile industry
  • -  real estate business
  • -  rubber industry
  • -  manufacturing
  • -  public utilities
  • -  farming
  • -  industry
  • -  lumber industry
  • -  railroad companies
  • -  navigation
  • -  floods
  • -  Works Progress Administration
  • -  New Deal
  • -  public works
  • -  New Jersey--Passaic County--Clifton

Notes

  • -  Significance: The Dundee Manufacturing Company built the present Dundee Dam and the 1.8-mile Dundee Canal between 1858 and 1861, culminating at least three decades of attempts made to harness Passaic River water power at the dam site, and over six decades of planning for navigation between the Great Falls at Paterson and tidewater at Passaic. Paterson's older but analogous Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures was an apparent parent of the Dundee venture and corporation. The dam and intake structures at the canal's upper end were the most substantial and important features of the short system. Although designed for an unusual combination of navigation and power, the canal and its builders proved incapable of sustaining the former of its two principal chartered roles, and after two corporate reorganizations, the company emerged in 1872 as the Dundee Water Power and Land Company. As a seller of water rights for power and processing, the new company and its facilities were pivotal in the transformation of the small tidewater junction of Acquackanonk into industrial Passaic, a national center of integrated woolen production whose growth yielded the company more income from real estate sales until the late 19th century. Despite the exhaustion of available land rights, increasing use of steam or electric power by canal-side industries, and decreasing availability of clean canal water for woolens processing in the 20th century, the company' lake, dam, and canal continued to provide a stable corporate income in water rights leasing for fire prevention and non-woolen industrial production. Rubber products manufacture emerged as a major local industrial component by the early 20th century with less stringent water quality requirements than woolens, and survived the contraction and disappearance of woolens production between c.1929-59. Canal appearance and ownership began a series of changes in the 1930s, as the city of Passaic flumed over much of what had become an aqueous corridor of trash. The canal's owners sold out to a group of local lawyers shortly after World War II, in a move linked to the demise of the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures. A sequence of related public water supply corporations gained control after 1974, resulting in the demolition and stabilization of deteriorated elements at the canal's upper end. Until 1985, however, the guardlock and headgate structures built in tandem at the dam's west end retained much of their original configuration and features, and had additional significance as the most dramatic visual vestige of the dual navigation-power functions projected by the canal's first proponents. Nearby prism sections also have archaeological significant in the apparent retention of data on the sequence of canal construction below the dam site, beginning with the earliest such episode in the 1830s.
  • -  Survey number: HAER NJ-45
  • -  Building/structure dates: 1858-1861 Initial Construction

Medium

  • Photo(s): 32
  • Data Page(s): 43
  • Photo Caption Page(s): 4

Call Number/Physical Location

  • HAER NJ,16-CLIF,5-

Source Collection

  • Historic American Engineering Record (Library of Congress)

Repository

Control Number

  • nj1000

Rights Advisory

Online Format

  • image
  • pdf

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  • Call Number: HAER NJ,16-CLIF,5-
  • Access Advisory: ---

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Historic American Engineering Record, Creator, Dundee Manufacturing Company, Dundee Water Power And Land Company, Society For Establishing Useful Manufactures, Society For The Establishment Of Useful Manufactures, Joseph W Allen, Joseph Scott, et al., Flagg, Thomas R, and Rob Tucher, photographer. Dundee Canal, Headgates, Guardlock & Uppermost Section, 250 feet northeast of Randolph Avenue, opposite & in line with East Clifton Avenue, Clifton, Passaic County, NJ. Clifton Passaic County New Jersey, 1968. translateds by Yearby, Jearn P.Mitter Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/nj1000/.

APA citation style:

Historic American Engineering Record, C., Dundee Manufacturing Company, Dundee Water Power And Land Company, Society For Establishing Useful Manufactures, Society For The Establishment Of Useful Manufactures, Allen, J. W. [...] Scheerer, E. M., Flagg, T. R. & Tucher, R., photographer. (1968) Dundee Canal, Headgates, Guardlock & Uppermost Section, 250 feet northeast of Randolph Avenue, opposite & in line with East Clifton Avenue, Clifton, Passaic County, NJ. Clifton Passaic County New Jersey, 1968. Yearby, J. P. M., trans Documentation Compiled After. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/nj1000/.

MLA citation style:

Historic American Engineering Record, Creator, et al., photographers by Flagg, Thomas R, and Rob Tucher. Dundee Canal, Headgates, Guardlock & Uppermost Section, 250 feet northeast of Randolph Avenue, opposite & in line with East Clifton Avenue, Clifton, Passaic County, NJ. trans by Yearby, Jearn P.Mitter Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <aj.sunback.homes/item/nj1000/>.