About the Author

            Louis Borbi, the grandson of immigrants from Eastern Europe, was born in Trenton and has lived his whole life in Roebling, NJ.  He grew up in a row house designated for immigrants when the town was founded in 1905.  He lived in the two-bedroom house with his parents, brother, and twin sister.

            After graduating from the Roebling Grammar School, Florence Township Memorial High School, and the University of Maryland, where he majored in history, Borbi taught in the Roebling Public School for twenty-nine years.

            It was in his first year of teaching in 1967 that the idea for the book, ROEBLING: COMPANY TOWN Steel, Immigrants, Moonshine and Crap Tables 1905-1947, came into existence.  He realized no one was documenting the stories of the men and women who worked for the John A. Roebling and Sons Company and lived in the company town.  He then made a commitment to document their legacy before it would vanish forever.

            For the next fifty years, he conducted hundreds of interviews in the distinct ethnic neighborhoods and barrooms, collected antiquated newspapers, magazines, old pictures, and thousands of work records.  During his summer breaks from teaching, he worked in the steel plant and used his experience from working alongside the first and second generations of workers to tell their story.

            As a teacher and one of the founders of the Roebling Historical Society in 1980, he brought the young generation together with the old to listen to their life experiences.

            In addition, he made two trips back to the village in Romania where his grandparents emigrated in 1912.  Both trips yielded a wealth of information on daily life, which in some instances, hasn’t changed much in the last hundred years.

            It is Louis Borbi’s aspiration that the children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and all future generations will read and appreciate what their ancestors contributed to the history of Roebling and our country.