08/29/2026
Here is a piece of New Jersey that helped win a world war, and most people drive right past where it stood. ✈️ In Wood-Ridge, the Curtiss-Wright plant built the aircraft engines that powered American planes through World War II, thousands upon thousands of them roaring off the line.
At its peak the place employed tens of thousands of workers, many of them women who stepped onto the factory floor while the men were overseas. They machined the massive radial engines that flew bombers and fighters across every theater of the war. When people talk about the Arsenal of Democracy, this is exactly what they mean, and a whole lot of it happened right here in Bergen County. 🔧
That is the thing about Jersey. We do not always brag about it, but so much of what built modern America came off a factory floor in a Jersey town, made by the hands of our parents and grandparents.
Did anyone in your family work the line at a Jersey factory back in the day?
