Continuing a series that follows Delaware Before the Railways and Delaware from Railways to Freeways, Dave Tabler uses this well-researched final installment to describe how his home state changed over the course of the 20th century.

As before, he tells his story through a combination of images and detailed endnotes, structuring it via two narrative “bookends”: Delaware’s creation of a state highway system early in the 20th century and its contributions to the emerging Internet age late in the 20th century. In between, he covers other developments, from the New Deal-era push for rural electrification to the invention of synthetic fabrics (heavily underwritten, like the highway, by the wealthy and powerful Du Pont family.)

Tabler’s choice of illustrations shows how humble, unimpressive-looking objects could profoundly affect daily life, as with the crude-looking shed in Ocean View, Delaware, where in 1923 a local woman pioneered chicken factory farming, changing poultry meat from a delicacy into a staple.

Tabler also sprinkles some choice details throughout the text, as in a section on endearingly idiosyncratic local idioms (“By granny!”; “I declare to kings!”) One memorable anecdote involves a lurid series of “Lonely Hearts” murders of classified-ads respondents in 1949, and another, the dramatic surrender of a German U-boat off the coast several days after VE Day in 1945.

If the book falters, it’s by getting drier as it gets closer to the present and farther away from the more colorful, less well-ordered world of the past. Noting, for instance, that “Delaware’s modest size facilitates the state-wide acceptance of new medical applications” might be useful for healthcare professionals or patients but is unlikely to interest casual readers. Visual history buffs might also lament the occasional use of AI-generated drawings, perhaps a necessary shortcut but invariably less resonant than the well-chosen archival images otherwise used.

Although somewhat less compelling than its predecessors, Tabler’s latest book still provides a thoughtful and scrupulous continuation to the story of Delaware’s past.

Also available as an ebook.