Local History Award Presented to Cranbury Author

Cranbury author John Whiteclay Chambers II has been awarded an Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH)  for his book, Cranbury: A New Jersey Town from the Colonial Era to the Present. The AASLH Leadership in History Awards, now in its 68th year, is the most prestigious recognition for achievement of outstanding state and local history.  

A Rutgers history professor and Cranbury resident, Chambers wrote the book for Cranbury Landmarks, Inc., a local preservationist organization. While providing an in-depth history of Cranbury since 1697, he also placed the town’s development in the context of major trends in the history of New Jersey and the nation. In dealing with the town’s historic preservation and balanced economic growth in recent years, Chambers showed how local people influenced their community’s future through effective activity. The AASLH Award affirmed that the book was “an inspiring model for writing local history.”

Since its publication in the spring of 2012, the book has been enthusiastically received in the community, helping to generate a groundswell of interest in the town’s past and in local history. It was featured in several talks and newspaper and magazine articles. The Cranbury Museum sponsored a prize-winning float assembled by local students and the Cranbury Historical and Preservation Society added new historic markers and is updated its Village Walking Tour.

Most extensively, with a grant from the Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission, Cranbury Public Library instituted a far-reaching program, “One Book, One Cranbury,” in 2012-2013 that included lectures, reading groups, exhibits, historic tours and even a scavenger hunt, all related to the town’s history.

This spring, Chambers and Cranbury Landmarks, Inc., deposited copies of a expanded “Reference Edition” of the book, an unabridged, bound, typescript containing additional text, plus 600 extensive endnotes and a bibliography of 400 sources, at the Cranbury’s public library, town hall, museum and history center, as well as at the Rutgers University Library, New Jersey Historical Society Library, and the New Jersey State Library and Archives.