Paterson is the largest city in and the county seat of Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the city was the state's third-most-populous municipality, with a population of 159,732.

The Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures (S.U.M.) or Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures was a private state-sponsored corporation founded in 1791 to promote industrial development along the Passaic River in New Jersey in the United States. The company's management of the Great Falls of the Passaic River as a powersource for grist mills resulted in the growth of Paterson as one of the first industrial centers in the United States. Under the society's long-term management of the falls, the industrialization of the area passed through three great waves, centered first on cotton, then steel, and finally silk, over the course of over 150 years. The venture is considered by historians to have been a forerunner for many public–private partnerships in later decades in the United States.