PATERSON, a city of north-eastern New Jersey, U.S.A., the county seat of Passaic county; on the Passaic river, 13 m. N. of Newark and 17 m. N.W. of New York city. It is served by the Erie, the Lackawanna and the New York, Susquehanna and Western railways, interurban trolleys, motor-bus and truck lines. Pop. (1920) 135,875 (33% foreign-born white, including 11,566 from Italy and 10,503 from Poland, Russia and Lithuania) ; 1930 U.S. census 138,513. It occupies a restricted area of 8.36 sq.m., surrounded by the city of Clifton on the south (pop. in 193o: ; the boroughs of West Paterson (pop. 3,101), Totowa (4.600). Haledon (4,812), Prospect Park and Hawthorne (11,868) on the west and north ; and the township of Saddle River (2,424) and the borough of East Paterson (4,779) across the river on the north-east and the east. Within 1 o m. of Paterson's city hall there is a population of over 600,000.
The river winds around and through the city in a series of curves. It has a descent here of about 7o ft., of which 5o ft. is in one perpendicular fall, and furnishes power for many of the manufacturing plants, formerly by a system of raceways and water-wheels, now through a hydro-electric plant. Three parks and two cemeteries border on the river. Since 1910 several old cemeteries in the heart of the city have been converted into parks or used for schools and business buildings. The city has a city plan commission and a zoning commission. The assessed valuation for 1927 was $200,464,419.
Paterson has a unique form of government. The mayor, elected by the people every two years, appoints bipartisan commissions (on finance, public works, fire and police, parks, education and health) which are responsible for the administration of their respective departments. The board of finance is the appropriating body, but it spends no funds, except for its own expenses. The water-supply from the Passaic river (furnished by a private com pany) will be replaced about 1930 by a share in the supply from the Wanaque watershed, under development by joint action of several municipalities. The city's sewage empties into the great Passaic valley drain (another joint undertaking, completed in 1927) which carries the sewage of 15 municipalities along the Passaic river from Paterson to Newark out to Robins reef in New York bay. Paterson has a low general death rate, and an exceptionally low infant mortality for an industrial community. The health department maintains six baby-welfare stations in different parts of the city. The public school plant has been greatly enlarged and modernized since the World War, and many improvements in methods and organization have been brought about on the initiative of the teachers. A normal school estab lished by the city became a State institution in 1925. There is a museum in connection with the public library, and a collegiate centre is maintained with the co-operation of New York uni versity.
Paterson is the principal silk-manufacturing centre of the country and has many other important industries. The aggregate output of the 1,120 establishments within the city limits in 1927 was valued at $207,469,696, of which $105,871,838 represented silk manufactures and $39,244,714 the dyeing and finishing of textiles, largely silk. Other important products are textile
machinery and various other kinds, submarine cable, structural steel, boilers, aeroplane motors (including those used by Com mander Byrd on his North Pole flight and by Lindbergh on his flight from New York to Paris), thread and men's shirts. The silk industry employs some 30,00o persons in Paterson and the immediate suburbs. Every process is carried on except the reeling of the raw silk from the cocoon. Raw silk is received in skeins from Japan and China, Asia Minor, Italy and France and is made into every variety of broad and narrow silk, dyed, finished and ready for the market, before it leaves the city. About 20% of all the broad silk produced in the United States is made in Paterson (in plant units ranging from io to 750 looms) and 75% of all the silk that comes into the country is dyed here. It is estimated that there is constantly in transit through the streets, on any working day of the year, about $1,000,000 worth of silk, at all the various stages of manufacture.
Paterson had its origin in the incorporation on Nov. 22, 1791, of the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures (the "S.U.M."), which was planned and organized by Alexander Hamilton, with a view to making the United States industrially independent. The Great falls of the Passaic river were selected by the society as a favourable situation for its enterprise, and here a town was established in 1792. It was named in honour of William Paterson, then governor of New Jersey, was incorporated as a township in 1831 and chartered as a city in 1851. The S.U.M. soon dropped its manufacturing operations, but continued to develop its real estate and water-power interests. It still exists (1929) and controls certain water rights. Cotton manufacturing was the first industry established. The first cotton yarn was spun in 1793 in a mill run by ox-power, and the next year, on com pletion of the dams and reservoir, a cotton factory began opera tions. Attempts to manufacture machinery were made as early as 1800. The first locomotive (the "Sandusky") was built in 1837, and by 1860 Paterson was supplying locomotives to all parts of the United States and to Mexico and South America. The first silk mill was established in 1839 by John Ryle and George Murray, who had been trained in the industry in England. From this time there was a steady development of silk-manufac turing, until in the '7os Paterson was using two-thirds of all the raw silk imported into the country. Paterson is closely linked with the development of transportation facilities by land, under water and in the air : a Rogers locomotive was the first to cross the great North-west the submarine was invented here by John P. Holland, and the manufacture of aeroplane motors is now a leading industry. The population of the city was 19,586 in 1860, 51,031 in 188o and 105,171 in 1900. Between 1900 and 1920 it increased 29%.