Writing in his book South Jersey Heritage: A Social, Economic and Cultural History, R. Craig Koedel described the Atlantic County community of Egg Harbor City:

For more than half a century, Egg Harbor City was a German town. However, it was recognized as early as 1868 that the settlement could not maintain for long its purely German character. Blacks moved into the area before the end of the century, their children learning to speak fluent German. Italians were attracted by the wine industry, by Egg Harbor City's second-most prominent enterprise, tailoring, and by the railroad's need for cheap labor. The railroad imported as many as eighty Italian immigrants to the town in a single month in 1890. The gradual disappearance of the German flavor of the community was evident in its churches, which changed from German to bilingual services, then finally to English. The minutes of the City Council were recorded in German for the last time in 1916. When the First World War ended, Egg Harbor City had become as American as any other town in South Jersey.

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