For everyday people, the Revolution was not only about ideals. It was about danger, inflation, raids and not knowing who might appear at the door.

“It affected almost everybody, everywhere in one way or another,” Lurie said.

Well before the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, New Jersey was already defined by movement. The roads were rougher, but rivers like the Raritan and Passaic helped move goods to hubs like New Brunswick and Newark.

By the 1830s, the Morris Canal helped moved goods east and west across the state between the Delaware River and New York Harbor — an early, watery version of Route 80.

The speed has changed since then. But the state’s role is familiar.

“We are a transitory state,” Koning said.

From taverns to roadside diners

Constant movement helps explain another piece of the identity. A New Jerseyan from 1776 wouldn’t know what to make of a modern roadside diner with its chrome and disco fries. But a roadside stop where people eat and talk would make sense.

“Taverns were really important because that’s where they got news, that’s where they talked to each other,” Lurie said.

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In a largely agricultural colony with few large buildings, taverns and churches served as gathering places. Elizabethtown, now Elizabeth, was the largest town in the colony, said Lurie. It had about 350 houses.

New Jerseyans still need places to sit and argue about what’s going on. While Lurie thinks the modern idea of an in-your-face New Jersey personality may be more of a 20th-century idea tied to media, Koning sees pushback as part of the culture.

New Jerseyans are fierce defenders of the state because it’s often underestimated.

“Our importance is so undervalued and so understated,” Koning said.

She pointed to New Jersey’s role in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, invention and entertainment as examples of how much the state has contributed.

New Jersey has produced some of the country’s most famous entertainers. But no single one of them can represent such a diverse state. Bruce Springsteen stands for working class culture. Jon Bon Jovi gives another impression and so did Frank Sinatra.

“You can say Bruce signifies and is emblematic of the hard-working lives within New Jersey and that working culture,” Koning said. “But then at the very same time, in contrast, if we look at Sinatra, this is the smoothness of city-adjacent living and Hoboken.”

No single New Jerseyan

Outsiders may picture “The Sopranos,” “Jersey Shore,” malls and big hair. But New Jersey is too varied to be captured that way, Koning said. “Our uniqueness becomes the stereotype.”

So there’s no single New Jerseyan.

“I think that’s the beauty of our state, much like it’s the beauty of our country and what our country should be about,” Koning said. “The thing that unifies us is our differences bring us together.”

The New Jerseyan of the Revolution would probably flee from the sound of the E Street Band, but they might recognize the geography, the waterways, the pull of the cities and that New Jersey is central to the national story — and still fighting to be seen clearly, and appreciated.

“The historical connections are all around us,” Koning said, “even when we don’t recognize it.”