14 Random Things You Couldn’t Enjoy If It Wasn’t For New Jersey

Bubble wrap! Jon Stewart!! Light bulbs!!!

1. Bubble Wrap

Aivolie / Getty Images

Alfred W. Fielding, born in Hackensack, invented Bubble Wrap in his garage in Hawthorne. Fielding and his co-engineer were originally trying to cook up a new form of wallpaper, but the result ended up better for use as a (fun-as-hell to pop) packing material.

2. Band Aids

Spoon / Getty Images

The Band Aid was invented by Earle Dickson, a Johnson & Johnson cotton buyer in New Brunswick, as a work-around solution for his wife's around-the-house cuts and bruises.

3. Bruce Springsteen

Columbia Records

*yells* BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUCE

4. Frozen Dinners

Bwfolsom / Getty Images

There's some dispute over the invention of the "TV dinner" as a concept, but in 1944, William Maxson created the first packaged frozen dinners. His W.L. Maxson Co. sold the dinners to the Navy and various airlines. Maxson told The New Yorker that he "got the idea... when he grew a surplus of cauliflower on his place in Jersey. He cooked and froze a little (for some reason) and upon tasting it a year later (for some reason) found that it was delicious."

5. Teflon

Flickr: 29069717@N02

Dr. Roy J. Plunkett was an engineer at Dupont, in Deepwater, NJ, when he accidentally created the substance that keeps all your pots non-stick as hell. He was "conducting an experiment on a possible new refrigerant when he discovered he had created a new product" and once he tested that product's properties, he knew he had something special.

6. Condensed Soup

Leon Neal / AFP / Getty Images

Dr. John T. Dorrance invented the formula for condensed soup for Campbell's — based in Camden — in 1897. More than a century of soup, from New Jersey to you. You're welcome.

7. Light Bulbs

Welgos / Getty Images

OK so Thomas Edison didn't technically invented electric lights, but he made the first commercially viable light bulb — a huge leap. And all in Menlo Park, baby.

8. M&Ms

commons.wikimedia.org

Forrest Mars Sr. teamed up with Bruce Murrie, the son of a Hershey executive (hence M&Ms) to make these sugar-coated chocolates in Newark, NJ. Interestingly, M&Ms were originally only sold to the US military — a natural fit because the candies are more resistant to heat and can be easily packed.

9. Jon Stewart

Brad Barket / Getty Images

The former Daily Show host and current cool-beard-haver grew up in Lawrenceville. Jon and his wife Tracey are also turning their farm in Middletown into an animal sanctuary, so we can thank him for that too. 🐷🐣

10. Submarines

en.wikipedia.org

John Holland, an Irishman living in Paterson, is considered the father of the modern submarine. He created the design for the Holland VI, which launched from Crescent Shipyard in Elizabethport in 1897.

11. Drive-in Movie Theaters

Flickr: thomashawk

The first drive-in theatre opened in 1933 in Camden, NJ. Entry cost a quarter.

12. Salt Water Taffy

Flickr: mattb_tv

Enoch James and Joseph Fralinger started selling the chewy, iconic New Jersey treat on the Atlantic City boardwalk in the 1880s.

13. Barcodes

vimeo.com / Via prostheticknowledge.tumblr.com

Inventor N. Joseph Woodland, from Atlantic City, developed the barcode system with a partner while studying at Drexel University in the late 1940s.

14. Safe Drinking Water

Nektarstock / Getty Images

Before Charles Frederick Wallace introduced his invention the chlorinator to the Boonton, NJ reservoir in 1913, people were regularly getting sick and dying just from contaminated drinking water. Wallace, who lived in Westfield for 50 years with his wife, was inducted into the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame in 1996.

Give it up for the Garden State, y'allllll.

Michelle Porucznik / Via porucz.com