Camden, NJ

Camden, NJ

Camden, New Jersey, final home to Walt Whitman, where he spent years revising Leaves of Grass and hosting countless visitors including Oscar Wilde. It's also the manufacturing site of the Victrola (and recording site of countless albums), birthplace and headquarters to Campbell's Soup, and the world's first drive-in theater. It's also home to a major research university and new medical school. Yet, Camden, perhaps more than any other city in the United States, also symbolizes the results of deindustrialization, suburbanization, racial strife and abject poverty. The city reflects both the hopes and losses of 20th Century America, and perhaps 21st.

B.H.