From the back cover:
       Thriving, prosperous communities in Morris and Union Counties, New Jersey, presented an attractive target during the trolley mania that swept America early in the 20th Century. Backed by prominent individuals in the area, (eg. Frederick Alleman, Otto Schultz) the Morris County Traction Co. was formed to serve this population. Its first trolley car rumbled through Dover on a glorious day in 1904, but after that it took more than ten years to complete the system. Eventually, the company operated about 50 miles of trolley and transportation lines in New Jersey extending from Lake Hopatcong and Boonton through Succasunna, Roxbury Township, Kenvil, Wharton, Dover, Rockaway, Denville, Morristown, Madison, Chatham, Summit, Springfield, Millburn, and other communities to Union and Maplewood, with connectons to Elizabeth and Newark.
       The mature MCT was typical of the entire electric railway industry: it strove to provide good, dependable service, but soon found itself engaged in an endless battle to survive against a multitude of threats. Although its cars transported over seven million passengers a year--workers, shoppers, school children and postmen--it was finally worn down by industry-wide problems and the proliferation of automobiles and gave up the struggle in 1928. The failure of the MCT provides a vivid example of how events of the 1920s wiped out an enormous investment in electric railways and shaped the transportation system and the human landscape we see today.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Larry Lowenthal. He received his bachelor's degree in history from Rutgers University (1967) and a master's degree in history from Yale University (1969). He worked at the Springfield [Massachusetts] Armory National Historic Site from 1979 to 1992, and then with the Boston Support Office of the National Park Service from 1992 to 1999. He retired from the National Park Service on December 31, 1999, and is now a historical consultant and writer.
       Mr. Lowenthal is also the author of Titanic Railroad: the Southern New England, the Story of New England's Last Great Railroad War -- Iron Mine Railroads of Northern New Jersey -- The Lackawanna Railroad in Northwest New Jersey -- From the Coalfields to the Hudson: a History of the Delaware & Hudson Canal -- and Marinus Willett, Defender of the Northern Frontier.

William T. Greenberg, Jr. Among the books he has authored are The Handsomest Trains in the World: Passenger Service on the Lehigh Valley Railroad -- Lehigh Valley Railroad, East of Mauch Chunk -- and The Lackawanna Railroad in Northwest New Jersey.