eBay

RARE Original Book Set
The History of New-England

by Neal
with Fold-out Map

2 Volumes
1747

For offer, rare early American works. Fresh to the market. Vintage, Old, Original - NOT a Reproduction - Guaranteed !! These were purchased at a book auction several years ago, which was selling books from various libraries and estates. The history of New-England, containing an impartial account of the civil and ecclesiastical affairs of the country, to the year of Our Lord, 1700. To which is added, the present state of New-England. With a new and accurate map of the country. And an appendix containing their present charter, their ecclesiastical discipline, and their municipal-laws. In two volumes. By Daniel Neal, A.M. London : Printed for A. Ward, in Little-Britain ; T. Longman and T. Shewell, in Paternoster-Row ; J. Oswald, in the Poultry ; A. Millar, in the Strand ; and J. Brackstone, in Cornhill, M DCC XLVII. [1747]. 2 v. Foldout map - complete. Marbled paper covers boards, quarter leather. In good to very good condition overall. Boards are detached, but present. Looks like paper was added to protect the boards, with remnants in inside covers. Leather chipping, wear at edges. Map in very good condition - light archival repair on back to support folds. Please see photos. If you collect 19th century politics, early United States of America, Americana history, Early American imprints, etc., this is a treasure. Add this to your bibliophile book library or paper / ephemera collection. Genealogy research information as well! Combine shipping on multiple bid wins! International s/h is more. 2496

New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.[4][5][6][7][8][9] It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick to the northeast and Quebec to the north. The Atlantic Ocean is to the east and southeast, and Long Island Sound is to the southwest. Boston is New England's largest city, as well as the capital of Massachusetts. Greater Boston is the largest metropolitan area, with nearly a third of New England's population; this area includes Worcester, Massachusetts (the second-largest city in New England), Manchester, New Hampshire (the largest city in New Hampshire), and Providence, Rhode Island (the capital of and largest city in Rhode Island).

In 1620, Puritan Separatist Pilgrims from England established Plymouth Colony, the second successful English settlement in America, following the Jamestown Settlement in Virginia founded in 1607. Ten years later, more Puritans established Massachusetts Bay Colony north of Plymouth Colony. Over the next 126 years, people in the region fought in four French and Indian Wars, until the English colonists and their Iroquois allies defeated the French and their Algonquian allies in America. In 1692, the town of Salem, Massachusetts, and surrounding areas experienced the Salem witch trials, one of the most infamous cases of mass hysteria in history.[10]

In the late 18th century, political leaders from the New England colonies initiated resistance to Britain's taxes without the consent of the colonists. Residents of Rhode Island captured and burned a British ship which was enforcing unpopular trade restrictions, and residents of Boston threw British tea into the harbor. Britain responded with a series of punitive laws stripping Massachusetts of self-government which the colonists called the "Intolerable Acts". These confrontations led to the first battles of the American Revolutionary War in 1775 and the expulsion of the British authorities from the region in spring 1776. The region played a prominent role in the movement to abolish slavery in the United States, and it was the first region of the U.S. transformed by the Industrial Revolution, centered on the Blackstone and Merrimack river valleys.

The physical geography of New England is diverse for such a small area. Southeastern New England is covered by a narrow coastal plain, while the western and northern regions are dominated by the rolling hills and worn-down peaks of the northern end of the Appalachian Mountains. The Atlantic fall line lies close to the coast, which enabled numerous cities to take advantage of water power along the many rivers, such as the Connecticut River, which bisects the region from north to south.

Each state is generally subdivided into small municipalities known as towns, many of which are governed by town meetings. While unincorporated areas do exist, they are limited to roughly half of Maine, along with some isolated, sparsely populated northern regions of New Hampshire and Vermont. New England is one of the Census Bureau's nine regional divisions and the only multi-state region with clear, consistent boundaries. It maintains a strong sense of cultural identity,[11] although the terms of this identity are often contrasted, combining Puritanism with liberalism, agrarian life with industry, and isolation with immigration.

History

Main article: History of New England

Indigenous territories, circa 1600 in present-day southern New England

The earliest known inhabitants of New England were American Indians who spoke a variety of the Eastern Algonquian languages.[12] Prominent tribes included the Abenakis, Mi'kmaq, Penobscot, Pequots, Mohegans, Narragansetts, Pocumtucks, and Wampanoag.[12] Prior to the arrival of European colonists, the Western Abenakis inhabited what is modern New Hampshire, New York and Vermont, as well as parts of Quebec and western Maine.[13] Their principal town was Norridgewock in present-day Maine.[14]

The Penobscot lived along the Penobscot River in modern Maine. The Narragansetts and smaller tribes under their sovereignty lived in what is known today as Rhode Island, west of Narragansett Bay, including Block Island. The Wampanoag occupied the regions of modern southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. The Pocumtucks lived in what is now Western Massachusetts, and the Mohegan and Pequot tribes lived in the current Connecticut region. The Connecticut River Valley linked numerous tribes culturally, linguistically, and politically.[12]

As early as 1600, French, Dutch, and English traders began exploring the New World, trading metal, glass, and cloth for local beaver pelts.[12][15]

Colonial period

Main articles: New England Colonies, Plymouth Council for New England, Connecticut Colony, and Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

Soldier and explorer John Smith coined the name "New England" in 1616.

On April 10, 1606, King James I of England issued a charter for the Virginia Company, which comprised the London Company and the Plymouth Company. These two privately funded ventures were intended to claim land for England, to conduct trade, and to return a profit. In 1620, the Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower and established Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, beginning the history of permanent European colonization in New England.[16]

With the arrival of colonists, many Native Americans were kidnapped for enslavement. English sailors— like George Waymouth in 1605 and Harlow in 1611—captured and enslaved Native peoples.[17] Up until 1700, Native American servitude comprised a majority of the nonwhite labor present in New England.[18]

In 1616, English explorer John Smith named the region "New England".[19] The name was officially sanctioned on November 3, 1620,[20] when the charter of the Virginia Company of Plymouth was replaced by a royal charter for the Plymouth Council for New England, a joint-stock company established to colonize and govern the region.[21] The Pilgrims wrote and signed the Mayflower Compact before leaving the ship,[22] and it became their first governing document.[23] The Massachusetts Bay Colony came to dominate the area and was established by royal charter in 1629[24][25] with its major town and port of Boston established in 1630.[26]

Massachusetts Puritans began to establish themselves in Connecticut as early as 1633.[27] Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts for heresy, led a group south, and founded Providence Plantation in the area that became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in 1636.[28][29] At this time, Vermont was uncolonized, and the territories of New Hampshire and Maine were claimed and governed by Massachusetts. As the region grew, it received many emigrants from Europe due to its religious toleration, economy, and longer life expectancy. [30]

On October 19, 1652, the Massachusetts General Court decreed that "for the prevention of clipping of all such pieces of money as shall be coined with-in this jurisdiction, it is ordered by this Courte and the authorite thereof, that henceforth all pieces of money coined shall have a double ring on either side, with this inscription, Massachusetts, and a tree in the center on one side, and New England and the yeare of our Lord on the other side. "These coins were the famous "tree" pieces. There were Willow Tree Shillings, Oak Tree Shillings, and Pine Tree Shillings" minted by John Hull and Robert Sanderson in the "Hull Mint" on Summer Street in Boston, Massachusetts. "The Pine Tree was the last to be coined, and today there are specimens in existence, which is probably why all of these early coins are referred to as Pine Tree shillings." [31] The "Hull Mint" was forced to close in 1683. In 1684 the charter of Massachusetts was revoked by the king Charles II.

French and Indian Wars

A 1638 engraving depicting the Mystic massacre

An English map of New England c. 1670 depicts the area around modern Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Relationships between colonists and local Indian tribes alternated between peace and armed skirmishes, the bloodiest of which was the Pequot War in 1637 which resulted in the Mystic massacre.[32] On May 19, 1643, the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut joined together in a loose compact called the New England Confederation (officially "The United Colonies of New England"). The confederation was designed largely to coordinate mutual defense, and it gained some importance during King Philip's War[33] which pitted the colonists and their Indian allies against a widespread Indian uprising from June 1675 through April 1678, resulting in killings and massacres on both sides.[34]

During the next 74 years, there were six colonial wars that took place primarily between New England and New France,[35] during which New England was allied with the Iroquois Confederacy and New France was allied with the Wabanaki Confederacy. Mainland Nova Scotia came under the control of New England after the Siege of Port Royal (1710), but both New Brunswick and most of Maine remained contested territory between New England and New France. The British eventually defeated the French in 1763, opening the Connecticut River Valley for British settlement into western New Hampshire and Vermont.

The New England Colonies were settled primarily by farmers who became relatively self-sufficient. Later, New England's economy began to focus on crafts and trade, aided by the Puritan work ethic, in contrast to the Southern colonies which focused on agricultural production while importing finished goods from England.[36]

Dominion of New England

Main articles: Dominion of New England, American Revolutionary War, American Revolution, and Boston campaign

The New England Ensign, one of several flags historically associated with New England. This flag was reportedly used by colonial merchant ships sailing out of New England ports, 1686 – c. 1737.[37][38][39][40][41]

New England's Siege of Louisbourg (1745) by Peter Monamy

By 1686, King James II had become concerned about the increasingly independent ways of the colonies, including their self-governing charters, their open flouting of the Navigation Acts, and their growing military power. He therefore established the Dominion of New England, an administrative union comprising all of the New England colonies.[42] In 1688, the former Dutch colonies of New York, East New Jersey and West New Jersey were added to the Dominion. The union was imposed from the outside and contrary to the rooted democratic tradition of the region and it was highly unpopular among the colonists.[43]

The Dominion significantly modified the charters of the colonies, including the appointment of Royal Governors to nearly all of them. There was an uneasy tension between the Royal Governors, their officers, and the elected governing bodies of the colonies. The governors wanted unlimited authority, and the different layers of locally elected officials would often resist them. In most cases, the local town governments continued operating as self-governing bodies, just as they had before the appointment of the governors.[44]

After the Glorious Revolution in 1689, Bostonians overthrew royal governor Sir Edmund Andros. They seized dominion officials and adherents to the Church of England during a popular and bloodless uprising.[45] These tensions eventually culminated in the American Revolution, boiling over with the outbreak of the War of American Independence in 1775. The first battles of the war were fought in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, later leading to the Siege of Boston by continental troops. In March 1776, British forces were compelled to retreat from Boston.

New England in the new nation

After the dissolution of the Dominion of New England, the colonies of New England ceased to function as a unified political unit but remained a defined cultural region. There were often disputes over territorial jurisdiction, leading to land exchanges such as those regarding the Equivalent Lands and New Hampshire Grants.[46]

By 1784, all of the states in the region had taken steps towards the abolition of slavery, with Vermont and Massachusetts introducing total abolition in 1777 and 1783, respectively.[47] The nickname "Yankeeland" was sometimes used to denote the New England area, especially among Southerners and the British.[48]

Vermont was admitted to statehood in 1791 after settling a dispute with New York. The territory of Maine had been a part of Massachusetts, but it was granted statehood on March 15, 1820, as part of the Missouri Compromise.[49] Today, New England is defined as the six states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut.[5]

New England's economic growth relied heavily on trade with the British Empire,[50] and the region's merchants and politicians strongly opposed trade restrictions. As the United States and the United Kingdom fought the War of 1812, New England Federalists organized the Hartford Convention in the winter of 1814 to discuss the region's grievances concerning the war, and to propose changes to the Constitution to protect the region's interests and maintain its political power.[51] Radical delegates within the convention proposed the region's secession from the United States, but they were outnumbered by moderates who opposed the idea.[52]

Politically, the region often disagreed with the rest of the country.[53] Massachusetts and Connecticut were among the last refuges of the Federalist Party, and New England became the strongest bastion of the new Whig Party when the Second Party System began in the 1830s. The Whigs were usually dominant throughout New England, except in the more Democratic Maine and New Hampshire. Leading statesmen hailed from the region, including Daniel Webster.

Many notable literary and intellectual figures were New Englanders, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, George Bancroft, and William H. Prescott.[54]

Industrial Revolution

The Slater Mill Historic Site in Pawtucket, Rhode Island

Bread and Roses Strike. Massachusetts National Guard troops surround unarmed strikers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1912.

New England was key to the industrial revolution in the United States.[55] The Blackstone Valley running through Massachusetts and Rhode Island has been called the birthplace of America's industrial revolution.[56] In 1787, the first cotton mill in America was founded in the North Shore seaport of Beverly, Massachusetts, as the Beverly Cotton Manufactory.[57] The Manufactory was also considered the largest cotton mill of its time. Technological developments and achievements from the Manufactory led to the development of more advanced cotton mills, including Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Towns such as Lawrence, Massachusetts, Lowell, Massachusetts, Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and Lewiston, Maine, became centers of the textile industry following the innovations at Slater Mill and the Beverly Cotton Manufactory.[citation needed]

The Connecticut River Valley became a crucible for industrial innovation, particularly the Springfield Armory, pioneering such advances as interchangeable parts and the assembly line which influenced manufacturing processes all around the world.[58] From early in the nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth, the region surrounding Springfield, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut served as the United States' epicenter for advanced manufacturing, drawing skilled workers from all over the world.[59][60]

The rapid growth of textile manufacturing in New England between 1815 and 1860 caused a shortage of workers. Recruiters were hired by mill agents to bring young women and children from the countryside to work in the factories. Between 1830 and 1860, thousands of farm girls moved from rural areas where there was no paid employment to work in the nearby mills, such as the famous Lowell Mill Girls. As the textile industry grew, immigration also grew. By the 1850s, immigrants began working in the mills, especially French Canadians and Irish.[61]

New England as a whole was the most industrialized part of the U.S. By 1850, the region accounted for well over a quarter of all manufacturing value in the country and over a third of its industrial workforce.[62] It was also the most literate and most educated region in the country.[62]

During the same period, New England and areas settled by New Englanders (upstate New York, Ohio's Western Reserve, and the upper midwestern states of Michigan and Wisconsin) were the center of the strongest abolitionist and anti-slavery movements in the United States, coinciding with the Protestant Great Awakening in the region.[63] Abolitionists who demanded immediate emancipation such as William Lloyd Garrison, John Greenleaf Whittier and Wendell Phillips had their base in the region. So too did anti-slavery politicians who wanted to limit the growth of slavery, such as John Quincy Adams, Charles Sumner, and John P. Hale. When the anti-slavery Republican Party was formed in the 1850s, all of New England, including areas that had previously been strongholds for both the Whig and the Democratic Parties, became strongly Republican. New England remained solidly Republican until Catholics began to mobilize behind the Democrats, especially in 1928, and up until the Republican party realigned its politics in a shift known as the Southern strategy. This led to the end of "Yankee Republicanism" and began New England's relatively swift transition into a consistently Democratic stronghold.[64]

20th century and beyond

Autumn in New England, watercolor, Maurice Prendergast, c.1910–1913

The flow of immigrants continued at a steady pace from the 1840s until cut off by World War I. The largest numbers came from Ireland and Britain before 1890, and after that from Quebec, Italy, and Southern Europe. The immigrants filled the ranks of factory workers, craftsmen, and unskilled laborers. The Irish assumed a larger and larger role in the Democratic Party in the cities and statewide, while the rural areas remained Republican. Yankees left the farms, which never were highly productive; many headed west, while others became professionals and businessmen in the New England cities.

The Great Depression in the United States of the 1930s hit the region hard, with high unemployment in the industrial cities. The Boston Stock Exchange rivaled the New York Stock Exchange in 1930. In the beginning of 1930, another John Hull helped Massachusetts out. John C. Hull first Securities Director of Massachusetts (1930-36) in response to October 1929, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. He was helpful in the passing of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 with his war on "unlisted securities".[65] Hull gave testimony to the US Senate (Sen. Duncan Upshaw Fletcher) for work on the Pecora Commission. The Pecora Commission revealed that neither Albert H. Wiggin (born Medfield MA) nor J. P. Morgan Jr. paid any income taxes in 1931 and 1932; a public outcry ensued. [66]

The Democrats appealed to factory workers and especially Catholics, pulling them into the New Deal coalition and making the once-Republican region into one that was closely divided. However, the enormous spending on munitions, ships, electronics, and uniforms during World War II caused a burst of prosperity in every sector.

The region lost most of its factories starting with the loss of textiles in the 1930s and getting worse after 1960. The New England economy was radically transformed after World War II. The factory economy practically disappeared. Like urban centers in the Rust Belt, once-bustling New England communities fell into economic decay following the flight of the region's industrial base. The textile mills one by one went out of business from the 1920s to the 1970s. For example, the Crompton Company, after 178 years in business, went bankrupt in 1984, costing the jobs of 2,450 workers in five states. The major reasons were cheap imports, the strong dollar, declining exports, and a failure to diversify.[67] The shoe industry subsequently left the region as well.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, has a high concentration of startups and technology companies.

What remains is very high technology manufacturing, such as jet engines, nuclear submarines, pharmaceuticals, robotics, scientific instruments, and medical devices. MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) invented the format for university-industry relations in high tech fields and spawned many software and hardware firms, some of which grew rapidly.[68] By the 21st century, the region had become famous for its leadership roles in the fields of education, medicine, medical research, high-technology, finance, and tourism.[69]

Some industrial areas were slow in adjusting to the new service economy. In 2000, New England had two of the ten poorest cities in the U.S. (by percentage living below the poverty line): the state capitals of Providence, Rhode Island and Hartford, Connecticut.[70] They were no longer in the bottom ten by 2010; Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire remain among the ten wealthiest states in the United States in terms of median household income and per capita income.[71]

Geography

Main articles: Geography of Connecticut, Geography of Maine, Geography of Massachusetts, Geography of New Hampshire, Geography of Rhode Island, and Geography of Vermont

A political and geographical map of New England shows the coastal plains in the southeast, and hills, mountains and valleys in the west and the north.

A portion of the north-central Pioneer Valley in Sunderland, Massachusetts

The states of New England have a combined area of 71,991.8 square miles (186,458 km2), making the region slightly larger than the state of Washington and slightly smaller than Great Britain.[72][73] Maine alone constitutes nearly one-half of the total area of New England, yet is only the 39th-largest state, slightly smaller than Indiana. The remaining states are among the smallest in the U.S., including the smallest state—Rhode Island.

Geology

Main article: Geology of New England

New England's long rolling hills, mountains, and jagged coastline are glacial landforms resulting from the retreat of ice sheets approximately 18,000 years ago, during the last glacial period.[74][75]

New England is geologically a part of the New England province, an exotic terrane region consisting of the Appalachian Mountains, the New England highlands and the seaboard lowlands.[76] The Appalachian Mountains roughly follow the border between New England and New York. The Berkshires in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and the Green Mountains in Vermont, as well as the Taconic Mountains, form a spine of Precambrian rock.[77]

The Appalachians extend northwards into New Hampshire as the White Mountains, and then into Maine and Canada. Mount Washington in New Hampshire is the highest peak in the Northeast, although it is not among the ten highest peaks in the eastern United States.[78] It is the site of the second highest recorded wind speed on Earth,[79][80] and has the reputation of having the world's most severe weather.[81][82]

The coast of the region, extending from southwestern Connecticut to northeastern Maine, is dotted with lakes, hills, marshes and wetlands, and sandy beaches.[75] Important valleys in the region include the Champlain Valley, the Connecticut River Valley and the Merrimack Valley.[75] The longest river is the Connecticut River, which flows from northeastern New Hampshire for 407 mi (655 km), emptying into Long Island Sound, roughly bisecting the region. Lake Champlain, which forms part of the border between Vermont and New York, is the largest lake in the region, followed by Moosehead Lake in Maine and Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire.[75]

Climate

Main article: Climate of New England

Köppen climate types in New England

The White Mountains of New Hampshire are part of the Appalachian Mountains.

The climate of New England varies greatly across its 500 miles (800 km) span from northern Maine to southern Connecticut:

Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and western Massachusetts have a humid continental climate (Dfb in Köppen climate classification). In this region the winters are long and cold, and heavy snow is common (most locations receive 60 to 120 inches (1,500 to 3,000 mm) of snow annually in this region). The summer's months are moderately warm, though summer is rather short and rainfall is spread through the year.

In central and eastern Massachusetts, northern Rhode Island, and northern Connecticut, the same humid continental prevails (Dfa), though summers are warm to hot, winters are shorter, and there is less snowfall (especially in the coastal areas where it is often warmer).

Southern and coastal Connecticut is the broad transition zone from the cold continental climates of the north to the milder subtropical climates to the south. The frost free season is greater than 180 days across far southern/coastal Connecticut, coastal Rhode Island, and the islands (Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard). Winters also tend to be much sunnier in southern Connecticut and southern Rhode Island compared to the rest of New England.[83]

Regions

Regions of NE cropped.png

1. Northwest Vermont/Champlain Valley

2. Northeast Kingdom

3. Central Vermont

4. Southern Vermont

5. Great North Woods Region

6. White Mountains

7. Lakes Region

8. Dartmouth/Lake Sunapee Region

9. Seacoast Region

10. Merrimack Valley

11. Monadnock Region

12. Aroostook

13. Maine Highlands

14. Acadia/Down East

15. Mid-Coast/Penobscot Bay

16. Southern Maine/South Coast

17. Mountain and Lakes Region

18. Kennebec Valley

19. North Shore

20. Metro Boston

21. South Shore

22. Cape Cod and Islands

23. South Coast

24. Southeastern Massachusetts

25. Blackstone River Valley

26. Metrowest/Greater Boston

27. Central Massachusetts

28. Pioneer Valley

29. The Berkshires

30. South County

31. East Bay

32. Quiet Corner

33. Greater Hartford

34. Central Naugatuck Valley

35. Northwest Hills

36. Southeastern Connecticut/Greater New London

37. Western Connecticut

38. Connecticut Shoreline

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of New England

Largest self-reported ancestry groups in New England. Americans of Irish descent form a plurality in most of Massachusetts, while Americans of English descent form a plurality in much of the central parts of Vermont and New Hampshire as well as nearly all of Maine.

In 2010, New England had a population of 14,444,865, a growth of 3.8% from 2000.[84] This grew to an estimated 14,727,584 by 2015.[85] Massachusetts is the most populous state with 6,794,422 residents, while Vermont is the least populous state with 626,042 residents.[84] Boston is by far the region's most populous city and metropolitan area.

Although a great disparity exists between New England's northern and southern portions, the region's average population density is 234.93 inhabitants/sq mi (90.7/km2). New England has a significantly higher population density than that of the U.S. as a whole (79.56/sq mi), or even just the contiguous 48 states (94.48/sq mi). Three-quarters of the population of New England, and most of the major cities, are in the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The combined population density of these states is 786.83/sq mi, compared to northern New England's 63.56/sq mi (2000 census).

According to the 2006–08 American Community Survey, 48.7% of New Englanders were male and 51.3% were female. Approximately 22.4% of the population were under 18 years of age; 13.5% were over 65 years of age. The six states of New England have the lowest birth rate in the U.S.[86]

World's largest Irish flag in Boston. People who claim Irish descent constitute the largest ethnic group in New England.

White Americans make up the majority of New England's population at 83.4% of the total population, Hispanic and Latino Americans are New England's largest minority, and they are the second-largest group in the region behind non-Hispanic European Americans. As of 2014, Hispanics and Latinos of any race made up 10.2% of New England's population. Connecticut had the highest proportion at 13.9%, while Vermont had the lowest at 1.3%. There were nearly 1.5 million Hispanic and Latino individuals reported in New England in 2014. Puerto Ricans were the most numerous of the Hispanic and Latino subgroups. Over 660,000 Puerto Ricans lived in New England in 2014, forming 4.5% of the population. The Dominican population is over 200,000, and the Mexican and Guatemalan populations are each over 100,000.[87] Americans of Cuban descent are scant in number; there were roughly 26,000 Cuban Americans in the region in 2014. People of all other Hispanic and Latino ancestries, including Salvadoran, Colombian and Bolivian, formed 2.5% of New England's population and numbered over 361,000 combined.[87]

According to the 2014 American Community Survey, the top ten largest reported European ancestries were the following:[88]

Irish: 19.2% (2.8 million)

Italian: 13.6% (2.0 million)

French and French Canadian: 13.1% (1.9 million)

English: 11.9% (1.7 million)[89]

German: 7.4% (1.1 million)

Polish: 4.9% (roughly 715,000)

Portuguese: 3.2% (467,000)

Scottish: 2.5% (370,000)

Russian: 1.4% (206,000)

Greek: 1.0% (152,000)

English is, by far, the most common language spoken at home. Approximately 81.3% of all residents (11.3 million people) over the age of five spoke only English at home. Roughly 1,085,000 people (7.8% of the population) spoke Spanish at home, and roughly 970,000 people (7.0% of the population) spoke other Indo-European languages at home.[90] Over 403,000 people (2.9% of the population) spoke an Asian or Pacific Island language at home.[91] Slightly fewer (about 1%) spoke French at home,[92] although this figure is above 20% in northern New England, which borders francophone Québec.[citation needed] Roughly 99,000 people (0.7% of the population) spoke languages other than these at home.[91]

As of 2014, approximately 87% of New England's inhabitants were born in the U.S., while over 12% were foreign-born.[93] 35.8% of foreign-born residents were born in Latin America, 28.6% were born in Asia,[94] 22.9% were born in Europe, and 8.5% were born in Africa.[95]

Southern New England forms an integral part of the BosWash megalopolis, a conglomeration of urban centers that spans from Boston to Washington, D.C. The region includes three of the four most densely populated states in the U.S.; only New Jersey has a higher population density than the states of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

Greater Boston, which includes parts of southern New Hampshire, has a total population of approximately 4.8 million,[96] while over half the population of New England falls inside Boston's Combined Statistical Area of over 8.2 million.[97]

Largest cities

Main article: List of cities by population in New England

The most populous cities as of the Census Bureau's 2014 estimates were (metropolitan areas in parentheses):[96][98]

Massachusetts Boston, Massachusetts: 655,884 (4,739,385)

Worcester, Massachusetts: 183,016 (931,802)

Rhode Island Providence, Rhode Island: 179,154 (1,609,533)

Springfield, Massachusetts: 153,991 (630,672)

Connecticut Bridgeport, Connecticut: 147,612 (945,816)

New Haven, Connecticut: 130,282 (861,238)

Stamford, Connecticut: 128,278 (part of Bridgeport's MSA)

Hartford, Connecticut: 124,705 (1,213,225)

New Hampshire Manchester, New Hampshire: 110,448 (405,339)

Lowell, Massachusetts: 109,945 (part of Greater Boston)

During the 20th century, urban expansion in regions surrounding New York City has become an important economic influence on neighboring Connecticut, parts of which belong to the New York metropolitan area. The U.S. Census Bureau groups Fairfield, New Haven and Litchfield counties in western Connecticut together with New York City and other parts of New York and New Jersey as a combined statistical area.[99]

Major cities of New England

1. Boston, Massachusetts

2. Worcester, Massachusetts

3. Providence, Rhode Island

4. Springfield, Massachusetts

5. Bridgeport, Connecticut

6. New Haven, Connecticut

7. Stamford, Connecticut

8. Hartford, Connecticut

9. Manchester, New Hampshire

10. Lowell, Massachusetts

Cities and urban areas

Metropolitan areas

The following are metropolitan statistical areas as defined by the United States Census Bureau.

Bangor, ME MSA

Barnstable Town, MA MSA (Greater Boston)

Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH MSA (Greater Boston)

Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT MSA (New York-Newark CSA)

Burlington-South Burlington, VT MSA

Hartford-East Hartford-Middletown, CT MSA

Lewiston-Auburn, ME MSA

Manchester-Nashua, NH MSA

New Haven-Milford, CT MSA (New York-Newark CSA)

Norwich-New London, CT MSA

Pittsfield, MA MSA

Portland-South Portland, ME MSA

Springfield, MA MSA

Providence-Warwick, RI-MA MSA (Greater Boston)

Worcester, MA-CT MSA (Greater Boston)

State capitals

Hartford, Connecticut

Augusta, Maine

Boston, Massachusetts

Concord, New Hampshire

Providence, Rhode Island

Montpelier, Vermont

Economy

Main article: Economy of New England

The Port of Portland in Portland, Maine, is the largest tonnage seaport in New England.

Several factors combine to make the New England economy unique. The region is distant from the geographic center of the country, and it is a relatively small region but densely populated. It historically has been an important center of industry and manufacturing and a supplier of natural resource products, such as granite, lobster, and codfish. The service industry is important, including tourism, education, financial and insurance services, and architectural, building and construction services. The U.S. Department of Commerce has called the New England economy a microcosm for the entire U.S. economy.[100]

The region underwent a long period of deindustrialization in the first half of the 20th century, as traditional manufacturing companies relocated to the Midwest, with textile and furniture manufacturing migrating to the South. In the late-20th century, an increasing portion of the regional economy included high technology, military defense industry, finance and insurance services, and education and health services. As of 2018, the GDP of New England was $1.1 trillion.[101]

New England exports food products ranging from fish to lobster, cranberries, potatoes, and maple syrup. About half of the region's exports consist of industrial and commercial machinery, such as computers and electronic and electrical equipment. Granite is quarried at Barre, Vermont,[102] guns made at Springfield, Massachusetts, and Saco, Maine, submarines at Groton, Connecticut, surface naval vessels at Bath, Maine, and hand tools at Turners Falls, Massachusetts.

Urban centers

The Hartford headquarters of Aetna is housed in a 1931 Colonial Revival building.

In 2017, Boston was ranked as having the ninth-most competitive financial center in the world and the fourth-most competitive in the United States.[103] Boston-based Fidelity Investments helped popularize the mutual fund in the 1980s and has made Boston one of the top financial centers in the United States.[104][105] The city is home to the headquarters of Santander Bank and a center for venture capital firms. State Street Corporation specializes in asset management and custody services and is based in the city.

Boston is also a printing and publishing center.[106] Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is headquartered there, along with Bedford-St. Martin's and Beacon Press. The city is also home to the Hynes Convention Center in the Back Bay and the Seaport Hotel and Seaport World Trade Center and Boston Convention and Exhibition Center on the South Boston waterfront.[107]

The General Electric Corporation announced its decision to move the company's global headquarters to the Boston Seaport District from Fairfield, Connecticut, in 2016, citing factors including Boston's preeminence in the realm of higher education.[108] The city also holds the headquarters to several major athletic and footwear companies, including Converse, New Balance and Reebok. Rockport, Puma and Wolverine World Wide have headquarters or regional offices[109] just outside the city.[110]

Hartford is the historic international center of the insurance industry, with companies such as Aetna, Conning & Company, The Hartford, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, The Phoenix Companies and Hartford Steam Boiler based in the city, and The Travelers Companies and Lincoln National Corporation have major operations in the city. It is also home to the corporate headquarters of U.S. Fire Arms Mfg. Co., United Technologies, and Virtus Investment Partners.[111]

Fairfield County, Connecticut, has a large concentration of investment management firms in the area, most notably Bridgewater Associates (one of the world's largest hedge fund companies), Aladdin Capital Management and Point72 Asset Management. Moreover, many international banks have their North American headquarters in Fairfield County, such as NatWest Group and UBS.

Agriculture

A plowed field in Bethel, Vermont

Agriculture is limited by the area's rocky soil, cool climate, and small area. Some New England states, however, are ranked highly among U.S. states for particular areas of production. Maine is ranked ninth for aquaculture,[112] and has abundant potato fields in its northeast part. Vermont is fifteenth for dairy products,[113] and Connecticut and Massachusetts seventh and eleventh for tobacco, respectively.[114][115] Cranberries are grown in Massachusetts' Cape Cod-Plymouth-South Shore area, and blueberries in Maine.

Energy

Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant in Seabrook, New Hampshire

The region is mostly energy-efficient compared to the U.S. at large, with every state but Maine ranking within the ten most energy-efficient states;[116] every state in New England also ranks within the ten most expensive states for electricity prices.[117] Wind power, mainly from offshore sources, is expected to gain market share in the 2020s.

Employment

Unemployment rates in New England

Employment area October 2010 October 2011 October 2012 October 2013 December 2014 December 2015[118] December 2016[119] Net change

United States 9.7 9.0 7.9 7.2 5.6 5.0 4.7 −5.0

New England 8.3 7.6 7.4 7.1 5.4 4.3 3.5 −4.7

Connecticut 9.1 8.7 9.0 7.6 6.4 5.2 4.4 −4.7

Maine 7.6 7.3 7.4 6.5 5.5 4.0 3.8 −3.8

Massachusetts 8.3 7.3 6.6 7.2 5.5 4.7 2.8 −5.5

New Hampshire 5.7 5.3 5.7 5.2 4.0 3.1 2.6 −3.1

Rhode Island 11.5 10.4 10.4 9.4 6.8 5.1 5.0 −6.5

Vermont 5.9 5.6 5.5 4.4 4.2 3.6 3.1 −2.8

As of January 2017, employment is stronger in New England than in the rest of the United States. During the Great Recession, unemployment rates ballooned across New England as elsewhere; however, in the years that followed, these rates declined steadily, with New Hampshire and Massachusetts having the lowest unemployment rates in the country, respectively. The most extreme swing was in Rhode Island, which had an unemployment rate above 10% following the recession, but which saw this rate decline by over 6% in six years.

As of December 2016, the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) with the lowest unemployment rate, 2.1%, was Burlington-South Burlington, Vermont; the MSA with the highest rate, 4.9%, was Waterbury, Connecticut.[120]

Overall tax burden

In 2018, four of the six New England states were among the top ten states in the country in terms of taxes paid per taxpayer. The rankings included #3 Maine (11.02%), #4 Vermont (10.94%), #6 Connecticut (10.19%) and #7 Rhode Island (10.14%). Additionally New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and Rhode Island took four of the top five spots for "Highest Property Tax as a Percentage of Personal Income".[121]

Government

Main articles: Government of Vermont, Government of New Hampshire, Government of Maine, Government of Massachusetts, Government of Connecticut, and Government of Rhode Island

Town meetings

Main articles: Town meeting and New England town

A New England town meeting in Huntington, Vermont

New England town meetings were derived from meetings held by church elders, and are still an integral part of government in many New England towns. At such meetings, any citizen of the town may discuss issues with other members of the community and vote on them. This is the strongest example of direct democracy in the U.S. today, and the strong democratic tradition was even apparent in the early 19th century, when Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America:

New England, where education and liberty are the daughters of morality and religion, where society has acquired age and stability enough to enable it to form principles and hold fixed habits, the common people are accustomed to respect intellectual and moral superiority and to submit to it without complaint, although they set at naught all those privileges which wealth and birth have introduced among mankind. In New England, consequently, the democracy makes a more judicious choice than it does elsewhere.[122]

By contrast, James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 55 that, regardless of the assembly, "passion never fails to wrest the scepter from reason. Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob."[123] The use and effectiveness of town meetings is still discussed by scholars, as well as the possible application of the format to other regions and countries.[124]

Politics

Main article: Politics of New England

Elections

Main article: Elections in New England

State and national elected officials in New England recently have been elected mainly from the Democratic Party.[125] The region is generally considered to be the most liberal in the United States, with more New Englanders identifying as liberals than Americans elsewhere. In 2010, four of six of the New England states were polled as the most liberal in the United States.[126]

Flag of the New England Governor's Conference (NEGC)

As of 2021, five of the six states of New England have voted for every Democratic presidential nominee since 1992. In that time, New Hampshire has voted for Democratic nominees in every presidential election except 2000, when George W. Bush narrowly won the state. 2020 was a particularly strong year for Democratic nominee Joe Biden in New England, winning 61.2% of the total vote in the six states, the highest percentage for Democrats since the landslide election of 1964.[127] As of the 117th Congress, all members of the House of Representatives from New England are members of the Democratic Party, and all but one of its senators caucus with the Democrats. Two of those senators, although caucusing with Democrats, are the only two independents currently serving in the Senate: Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist,[128][129] representing Vermont and Angus King, an Independent representing Maine.

In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama carried all six New England states by 9 percentage points or more.[130] He carried every county in New England except for Piscataquis County, Maine, which he lost by 4% to Senator John McCain (R-AZ). Pursuant to the reapportionment following the 2010 census, New England collectively has 33 electoral votes.

The following table presents the vote percentage for the popular-vote winner for each New England state, New England as a whole, and the United States as a whole, in each presidential election from 1900 to 2020, with the vote percentage for the Republican candidate shaded in red and the vote percentage for the Democratic candidate shaded in blue:

Year Connecticut Maine Massachusetts New Hampshire Rhode Island Vermont New England United States

2020 59.2% 53.1% 65.6% 52.7% 59.4% 66.1% 61.2% 51.3%

2016 54.6% 47.8% 60.0% 46.8% 54.4% 56.7% 55.3% 48.2%

2012 58.1% 56.3% 60.7% 52.0% 62.7% 66.6% 59.1% 51.1%

2008 60.6% 57.7% 61.8% 54.1% 62.9% 67.5% 60.6% 52.9%

2004 54.3% 53.6% 61.9% 50.2% 59.4% 58.9% 57.7% 50.7%

2000 55.9% 49.1% 59.8% 48.1% 61.0% 50.6% 56.1% 48.4%

1996 52.8% 51.6% 61.5% 49.3% 59.7% 53.4% 56.8% 49.2%

1992 42.2% 38.8% 47.5% 38.9% 47.0% 46.1% 44.4% 43.0%

1988 52.0% 55.3% 53.2% 62.5% 55.6% 51.1% 49.5% 53.4%

1984 60.7% 60.8% 51.2% 68.7% 51.7% 57.9% 56.2% 58.8%

1980 48.2% 45.6% 41.9% 57.7% 47.7% 44.4% 44.7% 50.8%

1976 52.1% 48.9% 56.1% 54.7% 55.4% 54.3% 51.7% 50.1%

1972 58.6% 61.5% 54.2% 64.0% 53.0% 62.7% 52.5% 60.7%

1968 49.5% 55.3% 63.0% 52.1% 64.0% 52.8% 56.1% 43.4%

1964 67.8% 68.8% 76.2% 63.9% 80.9% 66.3% 72.8% 61.1%

1960 53.7% 57.0% 60.2% 53.4% 63.6% 58.6% 56.0% 49.7%

1956 63.7% 70.9% 59.3% 66.1% 58.3% 72.2% 62.0% 57.4%

1952 55.7% 66.0% 54.2% 60.9% 50.9% 71.5% 56.1% 55.2%

1948 49.5% 56.7% 54.7% 52.4% 57.6% 61.5% 51.5% 49.6%

1944 52.3% 52.4% 52.8% 52.1% 58.6% 57.1% 52.4% 53.4%

1940 53.4% 51.1% 53.1% 53.2% 56.7% 54.8% 52.8% 54.7%

1936 55.3% 55.5% 51.2% 49.7% 53.1% 56.4% 50.9% 60.8%

1932 48.5% 55.8% 50.6% 50.4% 55.1% 57.7% 49.1% 57.4%

1928 53.6% 68.6% 50.2% 58.7% 50.2% 66.9% 53.2% 58.2%

1924 61.5% 72.0% 62.3% 59.8% 59.6% 78.2% 63.3% 54.0%

1920 62.7% 68.9% 68.5% 59.8% 64.0% 75.8% 66.7% 60.3%

1916 49.8% 51.0% 50.5% 49.1% 51.1% 62.4% 51.1% 49.2%

1912 39.2% 39.4% 35.5% 39.5% 39.0% 37.1% 36.6% 41.8%

1908 59.4% 63.0% 58.2% 59.3% 60.8% 75.1% 60.2% 51.6%

1904 58.1% 67.4% 57.9% 60.1% 60.6% 78.0% 60.4% 56.4%

1900 56.9% 61.9% 57.6% 59.3% 59.7% 75.7% 59.4% 51.6%

Political party strength

Judging purely by party registration rather than voting patterns, New England today is one of the most Democratic regions in the U.S.[131][132][133] According to Gallup, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont are "solidly Democratic", Maine "leans Democratic", and New Hampshire is a swing state.[134] Though New England is today considered a Democratic Party stronghold, much of the region was staunchly Republican before the mid-twentieth century. This changed in the late 20th century, in large part due to demographic shifts[135] and the Republican Party's adoption of socially conservative platforms as part of their strategic shift towards the South.[64] For example, Vermont voted Republican in every presidential election but one from 1856 through 1988 with the exception of 1964, and has voted Democratic every election since. Maine and Vermont were the only two states in the nation to vote against Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt all four times he ran for president. Republicans in New England are today considered by both liberals and conservatives to be more moderate (socially liberal) compared to Republicans in other parts of the U.S.[136]

† Elected as an independent, but caucuses with the Democratic Party.

State Governor Senior U.S. Senator Junior U.S. Senator U.S. House Delegation Upper House Majority Lower House Majority

CT N. Lamont R. Blumenthal C. Murphy Democratic 5–0 Democratic 24–12 Democratic 97–54

ME J. Mills S. Collins A. King[†] Democratic 2-0 Democratic 21–13 Democratic 80–66–5

MA C. Baker E. Warren E. Markey Democratic 9–0 Democratic 37–3 Democratic 128–30–1

NH C. Sununu J. Shaheen M. Hassan Democratic 2-0 Republican 14–10 Republican 212-187

RI G. Raimondo J. Reed S. Whitehouse Democratic 2–0 Democratic 33–5 Democratic 65-10

VT P. Scott P. Leahy B. Sanders[†] Democratic 1–0 Democratic 21–7–2 Democratic 93–46–6–5

New Hampshire primary

Alumni Hall at Saint Anselm College has served as a backdrop for media reports during the New Hampshire primary.

Main article: New Hampshire primary

Historically, the New Hampshire primary has been the first in a series of nationwide political party primary elections held in the United States every four years. Held in the state of New Hampshire, it usually marks the beginning of the U.S. presidential election process. Even though few delegates are chosen from New Hampshire, the primary has always been pivotal to both New England and American politics. One college in particular, Saint Anselm College, has been home to numerous national presidential debates and visits by candidates to its campus.[137]

Education

Colleges and universities

New England is home to four of the eight Ivy League universities. Pictured here is Harvard Yard of Harvard University.

New England contains some of the oldest and most renowned institutions of higher learning in the United States and the world. Harvard College was the first such institution, founded in 1636 at Cambridge, Massachusetts, to train preachers. Yale University was founded in Saybrook, Connecticut, in 1701, and awarded the nation's first doctoral (PhD) degree in 1861. Yale moved to New Haven, Connecticut, in 1718, where it has remained to the present day.

Brown University was the first college in the nation to accept students of all religious affiliations, and is the seventh oldest U.S. institution of higher learning. It was founded in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1764. Dartmouth College was founded five years later in Hanover, New Hampshire, with the mission of educating the local American Indian population as well as English youth. The University of Vermont, the fifth oldest university in New England, was founded in 1791, the same year that Vermont joined the Union.

In addition to four out of eight Ivy League schools, New England contains the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the bulk of educational institutions that are identified as the "Little Ivies", four of the original Seven Sisters, one of the eight original Public Ivies, the Colleges of Worcester Consortium in central Massachusetts, and the Five Colleges consortium in western Massachusetts. The University of Maine, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Connecticut, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the University of Rhode Island, and the University of Vermont are the flagship state universities in the region.

See also: List of colleges and universities in Connecticut, List of colleges and universities in Maine, List of colleges and universities in Massachusetts, List of colleges and universities in New Hampshire, List of colleges and universities in Rhode Island, and List of colleges and universities in Vermont

Private and independent secondary schools

Phillips Academy Andover is an elite preparatory school in Andover, Massachusetts.

At the pre-college level, New England is home to a number of American independent schools (also known as private schools). The concept of the elite "New England prep school" (preparatory school) and the "preppy" lifestyle is an iconic part of the region's image.[138]

See the list of private schools for each state:

Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont.

Public education

New England is home to some of the oldest public schools in the nation. Boston Latin School is the oldest public school in America and was attended by several signatories of the Declaration of Independence.[139] Hartford Public High School is the second oldest operating high school in the U.S.[140]

As of 2005, the National Education Association ranked Connecticut as having the highest-paid teachers in the country. Massachusetts and Rhode Island ranked eighth and ninth, respectively.

New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont have cooperated in developing a New England Common Assessment Program test under the No Child Left Behind guidelines. These states can compare the resultant scores with each other.

The Maine Learning Technology Initiative program supplies all students with Apple MacBook laptops.

Academic journals and press

There are several academic journals and publishing companies in the region, including The New England Journal of Medicine, Harvard University Press and Yale University Press. Some of its institutions lead the open access alternative to conventional academic publication, including MIT, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Maine. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston publishes the New England Economic Review.[141]

Culture

Flag of New England flying in Massachusetts. New Englanders maintain a strong sense of regional and cultural identity.[142]

New England has a shared heritage and culture primarily shaped by waves of immigration from Europe.[143] In contrast to other American regions, many of New England's earliest Puritan settlers came from eastern England, contributing to New England's distinctive accents, foods, customs, and social structures.[144]:30–50 Within modern New England a cultural divide exists between urban New Englanders living along the densely populated coastline, and rural New Englanders in western Massachusetts, northwestern and northeastern Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, where population density is low.[145]

Religion

A classic New England Congregational church in Peacham, Vermont

Today, New England is the least religious region of the U.S. In 2009, less than half of those polled in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont claimed that religion was an important part of their daily lives. Connecticut and Rhode Island are among the ten least religious states, where 55% and 53% of those polled (respectively) claimed that it was important.[146] According to the American Religious Identification Survey, 34% of Vermonters claimed to have no religion; nearly one out of every four New Englanders identifies as having no religion, more than in any other part of the U.S.[147] New England had one of the highest percentages of Catholics in the U.S. This number declined from 50% in 1990 to 36% in 2008.[147]

Cultural roots

Many of the first European colonists of New England had a maritime orientation toward whaling (first noted about 1650)[148] and fishing, in addition to farming. New England has developed a distinct cuisine, dialect, architecture, and government. New England cuisine has a reputation for its emphasis on seafood and dairy; clam chowder, lobster, and other products of the sea are among some of the region's most popular foods.

New England has largely preserved its regional character, especially in its historic places. The region has become more ethnically diverse, having seen waves of immigration from Ireland, Quebec, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Scandinavia, Asia, Latin America, Africa, other parts of the U.S., and elsewhere. The enduring European influence can be seen in the region in the use of traffic rotaries, the bilingual French and English towns of northern Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire, the region's heavy prevalence of English town- and county-names, and its unique, often non-rhotic coastal dialect reminiscent of southeastern England.

Within New England, many names of towns (and a few counties) repeat from state to state, primarily due to settlers throughout the region having named their new towns after their old ones. For example, the town of North Yarmouth, Maine, was named by settlers from Yarmouth, Massachusetts, which was in turn named for Great Yarmouth in England. As another example, every New England state has a town named Warren, and every state except Rhode Island has a city or town named Andover, Bridgewater, Chester, Franklin, Manchester, Plymouth, Washington, and Windsor; in addition, every state except Connecticut has a Lincoln and a Richmond, and Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine each contains a Franklin County.

Cuisine

See also

flag New England portal

flag United States portal

Atlantic Northeast

Autumn in New England

Brother Jonathan

Extreme points of New England

Fieldstone

Historic New England

List of beaches in New England

List of mammals of New England

Manor of East Greenwich

New Albion

New Albion (colony)

New England/Acadian forests

New England Confederation

New England (medieval)

New England Planters

New England Summer Nationals

Northeastern coastal forests

Offshore wind power

Southeastern New England AVA wine region

Swamp Yankee

The history of New England pertains to the New England region of the United States. New England is the oldest clearly defined region of the United States, and it predates the American Revolution by more than 150 years. The English Pilgrims were Puritans fleeing religious persecution in England who established the Plymouth Colony in 1620, the first English colony in New England and the second in America (The first European settlement in New England was a French colony established by Samuel de Champlain on Saint Croix Island, Maine in 1604.[4]). A large influx of Puritans populated the greater region during the Puritan migration to New England (1620–1640), largely in the Boston and Salem area. Farming, fishing, and lumbering prospered, as did whaling and sea trading.

New England writers and events in the region helped launch and sustain the American War of Independence, which began when fighting erupted between British troops and Massachusetts militia in the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The region later became a stronghold of the conservative Federalist Party.

By the 1840s, New England was the center of the American anti-slavery movement and was the leading force in American literature and higher education. It was at the center of the Industrial Revolution in America, with many textile mills and machine shops operating by 1830. The region was the manufacturing center of the entire United States for much of the nineteenth century, and it played an important role during and after the American Civil War as a fervent intellectual, political, and cultural promoter of abolitionism and civil rights.

Manufacturing in the United States began to shift south and west during the 20th century, and New England experienced a sustained period of economic decline and de-industrialization. By the beginning of the 21st century, however, the region had become a center for technology, weapons manufacturing, scientific research, and financial services.

Pre-Colonial

Main article: Prehistory of New England

New England was inhabited by Algonquian-speaking tribes when the first colonists arrived, including the Abenaki, the Penobscots, the Pequots, the Wampanoags, and many others. During the 15th and 16th centuries, Europeans charted the New England coast, including Giovanni da Verrazzano, Jacques Cartier, and John Cabot (known as Giovanni Caboto before being based in England). They referred to the region as Norumbega, named for a fabled city that was supposed to exist there.

Prior to the arrival of colonists, the Western Abenakis inhabited New Hampshire and Vermont, as well as parts of Quebec and western Maine.[1] Their principal town was Norridgewock in Maine.[2] The Penobscots were settled along the Penobscot River in Maine. The Wampanoags occupied southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket; the Pocumtucks were in Western Massachusetts. The Narragansetts occupied most of Rhode Island, particularly around Narragansett Bay.

The Connecticut region was inhabited by the Mohegan and Pequot tribes prior to colonization. The Connecticut River Valley linked different tribes in cultural, linguistic, and political ways.[3] The tribes grew maize, tobacco, kidney beans, squash, and Jerusalem artichoke.

The first European to visit the area was the Portuguese explorer Estêvão Gomes in 1525. Gomes, who worked for the Spanish Empire, reached the shores of Maine and mapped them. After that, Gomes sailed along the coast of North America (including New England). The first European settlement in New England was a French colony established by Samuel de Champlain on Saint Croix Island, Maine in 1604.[4]As early as 1600, French, Dutch, and English traders began to trade metal, glass, and cloth for local beaver pelts.[3][5]

Colonial era

Early British settlement (1607–1620)

Further information: Popham Colony

A 17th-century map shows New England as a coastal enclave extending from Cape Cod to New France

On April 10, 1606, King James I of England issued two charters, one each for the Virginia Company of London (often referred to as the London Company) and the Virginia Company of Plymouth, England (often referred to as the Plymouth Company).[6][7] The two companies were required to maintain a separation of 100 miles (160 km), even where the two charters overlapped.[8][9][10] The London Company was authorized to make settlements from North Carolina to New York (31 to 41 degrees North Latitude), provided that there was no conflict with the Plymouth Company's charter. The purpose of both was to claim land for England and to establish trade.

Under the charters, the territory allocated was defined as follows:

Virginia Company of London: All land within 100 miles (160 km) from the coast, including islands, and implying a westward limit of 100 miles (160 km), between 34 degrees (Cape Fear, North Carolina) and 41 degrees (Long Island Sound, New York) north latitude.[6][7]

Virginia Company of Plymouth: All land within 100 miles (160 km) from the coast, including islands, and implying a westward limit of 100 miles (160 km), between 38 degrees (Chesapeake Bay, Virginia) and 45 degrees (border between Canada and Maine) north latitude.[6][7] Its charter included land extending as far as northern Maine.

These were privately funded proprietary ventures, and the purpose of each was to claim land for England, establish trade, and return a profit. The London Company successfully established a colony in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. The Plymouth Company did not fulfill its charter, but the region chartered to it was named "New England" by Captain John Smith of Jamestown in his account of two voyages there, published as A Description of New England.

Plymouth Colony (1620–1643)

Main article: Plymouth Colony

The name "New England" was officially sanctioned on November 3, 1620 when the charter of the Plymouth Company was replaced by a royal charter for the Plymouth Council for New England, a joint stock company established to colonize and govern the region. In December 1620, the permanent settlement of Plymouth Colony was established by the Pilgrims, English Puritan separatists who arrived on the Mayflower. They held a feast of gratitude which became part of the American tradition of Thanksgiving. Plymouth Colony had a small population and size, and it was absorbed into Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691.

Massachusetts Bay

Main article: Massachusetts Bay Colony

Puritans began to immigrate from England in large numbers, and they established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629 with 400 settlers. They sought to reform the Church of England by creating a new, pure church in the New World. By 1640, 20,000 had arrived, although many died soon after arrival.

The Puritans created a deeply religious, socially tight-knit, and politically innovative culture that still influences the United States.[11] They fled England and attempted to create a "nation of saints" or a "City upon a Hill" in America, a community designed to be an example for all of Europe.

It does bear mentioning the issuance of the pine tree shilling and the "Hull Mint". John Hull partnered with Robert Sanderson and they struck the "pine tree shilling" in 1652.[12] Inscription: "The Hull Mint - Near this site stood first mint in the British colonies of North America. Prior to 1652, the Massachusetts financial system was based on bartering and foreign coinage. The scarcity of coin currency was a problem for the growth of the New England economy. On May 27, 1652, the Massachusetts General Court appointed John Hull, a local silversmith, to be Boston's mint master without notifying or seeking permission from the British government. The Hull Mint produced several denominations of silver coinage, including the famous silver pine tree schilling, for over 30 years until the political and economic situation made operating the mint no longer practical."[13]

Rhode Island and Connecticut

Main articles: Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and Connecticut Colony

Incorporated Towns in New England as they appeared around 1700

Roger Williams preached religious liberty, separation of Church and State, and a complete break from the Church of England. He was banished from Massachusetts for his theological views and led a group south to found Providence Plantations in 1636. It merged with other settlements to form the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, which became a haven for Baptists, Quakers, Jews, and others, including Anne Hutchinson who had been banished during the Antinomian Controversy.[14]

On March 3, 1636, the Connecticut Colony was granted a charter and established its own government, absorbing the nearby New Haven Colony. Vermont was still unsettled, and the territories of New Hampshire and Maine were governed by Massachusetts.

The Dominion of New England (1686–1689)

Main article: Dominion of New England

King James II of England became concerned about the increasingly independent ways of the colonies, in particular their self-governing charters, open flouting of the Navigation Acts, and increasing military power. He decreed the Dominion of New England in 1686, an administrative union of all the New England colonies, and the Province of New York and the Province of New Jersey were added into it two years later. The union was imposed upon the colonies and removed nearly all the leaders who had been elected by the colonists themselves, and it was highly unpopular as a result. The Connecticut Colony refused to deliver their charter to dominion Governor Edmund Andros in 1687, so he sent an armed contingent to seize it. According to tradition, the colonists hid the charter inside the Charter Oak tree. King James was removed from the throne in the Glorious Revolution of 1689, and Andros was arrested and sent back to England by the colonists during the 1689 Boston Revolt.[15]

Map of the British and French dominions in North America in 1755, showing what the English considered New England

Government of the colonies

Most of the colonial charters were significantly modified after the Glorious Revolution in 1689, with the appointment of royal governors to nearly every colony. An uneasy tension existed between the Royal Governors and the officials who had been elected by the colonists themselves. The governors wanted essentially unlimited powers, and the different layers of elected officials resisted as best they could. In most cases, towns continued operating as self-governing bodies, as they had done previously, and ignored the royal governors whenever possible. The New England colonies were not formally united again until 1776, when all thirteen colonies declared themselves independent states in a larger union called the United States of America.

Population and demographics

The regional economy grew rapidly in the 17th century, thanks to heavy immigration, high birth rates, low death rates, and an abundance of inexpensive farmland.[16] The population grew from 3,000 in 1630 to 14,000 in 1640, 33,000 in 1660, 68,000 in 1680, and 91,000 in 1700. Between 1630 and 1643, about 20,000 Puritans arrived, settling mostly near Boston; after 1643, fewer than 50 immigrants arrived per year. The average size of a family 1660-1700 was 7.1 children; the birth rate was 49 babies per year per thousand people, and the death rate was about 22 deaths per year per thousand people. About 27 percent of the population was composed of men between 16 and 60 years old.[17]

Economics

The New England colonies were settled largely by farmers who became relatively self-sufficient. The region's economy gradually began to focus on crafts and trade, in contrast to the Southern colonies whose agrarian economy focused more heavily on foreign and domestic trade.[18]

New England fulfilled the economic expectations of its Puritan founders. The Puritan economy was based on the efforts of self-supporting farmsteads which traded only for goods that they could not produce themselves, unlike the cash crop-oriented plantations of the Chesapeake region.[19] New England became an important mercantile and shipbuilding center, along with agriculture, fishing, and logging, serving as the hub for trading between the southern colonies and Europe.[20]

The region's economy grew steadily over the entire colonial era, despite the lack of a staple crop that could be exported. All the colonies fostered economic growth by subsidizing projects that improved the infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, inns, and ferries. They gave bounties and monopolies to sawmills, grist mills, iron mills, fulling mills (which treated cloth), salt works, and glassworks. Most important, colonial legislatures set up a legal system that was conducive to business enterprise by resolving disputes, enforcing contracts, and protecting property rights. Hard work and entrepreneurship characterized the region, as the Puritans and Yankees endorsed the "Protestant Work Ethic" which enjoined men to work hard as part of their divine calling.[21]

New England conducted a robust trade within the English domain in the mid-18th century. They exported pickled beef and pork to the Caribbean, onions and potatoes from the Connecticut Valley, northern pine and oak staves from which the planters constructed containers to ship their sugar and molasses, Narragansett Pacers from Rhode Island, and "plugs" to run sugar mills.[22]

The benefits of growth were widely distributed, with even farm laborers better off at the end of the colonial period. The growing population led to shortages of good farm land on which young families could establish themselves; one result was to delay marriage, and another was to move to new lands farther west. In the towns and cities, there was strong entrepreneurship and a steady increase in the specialization of labor. Wages went up steadily before 1775, and new occupations were opening for women, including weaving, teaching, and tailoring. The region bordered New France, and the British poured money in to purchase supplies, build roads, and pay colonial soldiers in several wars. The coastal ports began to specialize in fishing, international trade, ship building, and whaling after 1780. These factors combined with growing urban markets for farm products and allowed the economy to flourish despite the lack of technological innovation.[23]

Benjamin Franklin examined the hovels in Scotland in 1772 which surrounded opulent mansions occupied by the land owners. He said that every man in New England is a property owner, "has a Vote in public Affairs, lives in a tidy, warm House, has plenty of good Food and Fuel, with whole clothes from Head to Foot, the Manufacture perhaps of his own family."[24]

Education

The first public schools in America were established by the Puritans in New England during the 17th century. Boston Latin School was founded in 1635 and is the oldest public school in the United States.[25] Lawrence Cremin writes that colonists tried at first to educate by the traditional English methods of family, church, community, and apprenticeship, with schools later becoming the key agent in "socialization". At first, the rudiments of literacy and arithmetic were taught inside the family. By the mid-19th century, the role of the schools had expanded to such an extent that many of the educational tasks traditionally handled by parents became the responsibility of the schools.[26][27]

First Boston Latin School house

All the New England colonies required towns to set up schools. In 1642, the Massachusetts Bay Colony made education compulsory, and other New England colonies followed. Similar statutes were adopted in other colonies in the 1640s and 1650s. The schools were all male, with few facilities for girls.[28] Common schools appeared in the 18th century, where students of all ages were under the control of one teacher in one room. They were publicly supplied at the local town level; they were not free but were supported by tuition or rate bills.

The larger towns in New England opened grammar schools, the forerunner of the modern high school.[29] The most famous was the Boston Latin School, which is still in operation as a public high school. Hopkins School in New Haven, Connecticut was another. By the 1780s, most had been replaced by private academies. By the early 19th century, New England operated a network of elite private high schools (now called "prep schools") typified by Phillips Andover Academy (1778), Phillips Exeter Academy (1781), and Deerfield Academy (1797). They became coeducational in the 1970s and remain highly prestigious in the 21st century.[30][31]

Colleges and churches were often copied from European architecture; Boston College was originally dubbed Oxford in America

Harvard College was founded by the colonial legislature in 1636 and named in honor of benefactor John Harvard. Most of the funding came from the colony, but the college began to collect an endowment. Harvard was founded for the purpose of training young men for the ministry, and it won general support from the Puritan colonies. Yale College was founded in 1701 and was relocated to New Haven in 1716. The conservative Puritan ministers of Connecticut had grown dissatisfied with the more liberal theology of Harvard and wanted their own school to train orthodox ministers. Dartmouth College was chartered in 1769 and grew out of a school for Indians; it was moved to Hanover, New Hampshire in 1770. Brown University was founded by Baptists in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. It was the first college in America to admit students from any denominational background.[32]

1764-1900

American Revolution

See also: American Revolution and Boston campaign

Boston in 1775.

New England was the center of revolutionary activity in the decade before 1775. On June 9, 1772, Rhode Island residents banded together and burned HMS Gaspee in response to that ship's harassment of merchant shipping—and smuggling—in Narragansett Bay.

Massachusetts politicians Samuel Adams, John Adams, and John Hancock rose up as leaders in the growing resentment toward English rule. New Englanders were very proud of their political freedoms and local democracy, which they felt was increasingly threatened by the English government. The main grievance was taxation, which colonists argued could only be imposed by their own legislatures and not by the Parliament in London. Their political cry was "no taxation without representation."

Certificate of government of Massachusetts Bay acknowledging loan of £20 to state treasury 1777

A ship was planning to land tea in Boston on December 16, 1773, and Patriots associated with the Sons of Liberty raided the ship and dumped all the tea into the harbor. This Boston Tea Party outraged British officials, and the King and Parliament decided to punish Massachusetts, passing the Intolerable Acts in 1774. This closed the port of Boston, the economic lifeblood of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and it ended self-government, putting the people under military rule.

The Patriots set up a shadow government which the British Army attacked on April 18, 1775 at Concord, Massachusetts. British troops were forced back to Boston by the local militias on the 19th in the Battles of Lexington and Concord where the famous "shot heard 'round the world" was fired. The British army controlled only the city of Boston, and it was quickly brought under siege. The Continental Congress took control of the war, sending General George Washington to take charge. He forced the British to evacuate in March 1776. After that, the main warfare moved south, but the British made repeated raids along the coast, seizing Newport, Rhode Island and parts of Maine for a while.[33]

Early national period

After independence, New England ceased to be a unified political unit but remained a defined historical and cultural region consisting of its constituent states. By 1784, all of the states in the region had introduced the gradual abolition of slavery, with Vermont and Massachusetts introducing total abolition in 1777 and 1783, respectively.[34] During the War of 1812, some Federalists considered seceding from the Union, and some New England merchants opposed the war with Britain because she was their greatest trading partner. Twenty-seven delegates from all over New England met in Hartford in the winter of 1814-15 for the Hartford Convention to discuss changes to the US Constitution that would protect the region and retain political power. The war ended triumphantly, and the Federalist Party was permanently discredited and faded away.[35]

The territory of Maine was a part of Massachusetts, but it was admitted to the Union as an independent state in 1820 as part of the Missouri Compromise. Today, New England is defined as the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.[36]

New England remained distinct from the other states in terms of politics, often going against the grain of the rest of the country. Massachusetts and Connecticut were among the last refuges of the Federalist Party, and New England became the strongest bastion of the new Whig Party when the Second Party System began in the 1830s. Leading statesmen hailed from the region, including conservative Whig orator Daniel Webster.

New England proved to be the center of the strongest abolitionist sentiment in the country, along with areas that were settled from New England, such as upstate New York, Ohio's Western Reserve, and the states of Michigan and Wisconsin. Abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips were New Englanders, and the region was home to anti-slavery politicians John Quincy Adams, Charles Sumner, and John P. Hale. The anti-slavery Republican Party was formed in the 1850s, and all of New England became strongly Republican, including areas that had previously been strongholds for the Whig and Democrat Parties. The region remained Republican until the early 20th century, when immigration turned the states of southern New England towards the Democrats.

The 1860 Census showed that 32 of the 100 largest cities in the country were in New England, as well as the most highly educated. New England produced numerous literary and intellectual figures in the nineteenth century, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, George Bancroft, William H. Prescott, and others.[37]

Industrialization

The Slater Mill Historic Site in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

New England was an early center of the industrial revolution. The Beverly Cotton Manufactory was the first cotton mill in America, founded in Beverly, Massachusetts in 1787,[38] and was considered the largest cotton mill of its time. Technological developments and achievements from the Manufactory led to the development of other, more advanced cotton mills, including Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Several textile mills were already underway during the time. Towns became famed as centers of the textile industry, such as Lawrence, Massachusetts, Lowell, Massachusetts, Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and Lewiston, Maine, following models from Slater Mill and the Beverly Cotton Manufactory.

The textile manufacturing in New England was growing rapidly, which caused a shortage of workers. Recruiters were hired by mill agents to bring young women and children from the countryside to work in the factories, and thousands of farm girls left their rural homes in New England to work in the mills between 1830 and 1860, hoping to aid their families financially, save up for marriage, and widen their horizons. They also left their homes due to population pressures to look for opportunities in expanding New England cities. The majority of female workers came from rural farming towns in northern New England. Immigration also grew along with the growth of the textile industry—but the number of young women working in the mills decreased as the number of Irish workers increased.[39]

Agriculture

As New England's urban, industrial economy transformed from the beginning of the early national period (~1790) to the middle of the nineteenth century, so too did its agricultural economy. At the beginning of this period, when the United States was just emerging from its colonial past, the agricultural landscape of New England was defined overwhelmingly by subsistence farming.[40] The primary crops produced were wheat, barley, rye, oats, turnips, parsnips, carrots, onions, cucumbers, beets, corn, beans, pumpkins, squashes, and melons.[41] Because there was not a sufficiently large New England-based home market for agricultural products due to the absence of a large nonagricultural population, New England farmers by and large had no incentive to commercialize their farms.[40] Thus, as farmers could not find very many markets nearby to sell to, they generally could not earn enough income with which to buy many new products for themselves. This not only meant that farmers would largely produce their own food, but also that they tended to produce their own furniture, clothing, and soap, among other household items.[40] Hence, according to historian Percy Bidwell, at the onset of the early national period, much of the New England agricultural economy was characterized by a “lack of exchange; lack of differentiation of employments or division of labor; the absence of progress in agricultural methods; a relatively low standard of living; emigration and social stagnation.”[40] As Bidwell writes, the farming in New England at this time was “practically uniform” with many farmers distributing their land “in about the same proportions into pasturage, woodland, and tillage, and raised about the same crops and kept about the same kind and quantity of stock” as other farmers.[42] This situation would, however, be radically different by 1850, by which time a highly specialized agricultural economy producing a host of new and differentiated products had emerged. There were two factors that were primarily responsible for the revolutionary changes in the agricultural economy of New England during the period from 1790 to 1850: (1) The rise of the manufacturing industry in New England (industrialization), and (2) agricultural competition from the western states.[43]

During this period, the industrial jobs created in New England's towns and cities affected the agricultural economy profoundly by generating a rapidly growing nonagricultural, urbanizing population. The farmers finally had a nearby market to which they could sell their crops, and thus an opportunity to obtain incomes beyond what they produced for subsistence.[44] This new market enabled farmers to make their farms more productive.[44] There was a resultant move away from subsistence farming toward the production of specialized crops. The demands of the consumers of the crops, whether factories or individuals, now determined the kinds of crops that each farm cultivated. Potash, pearlash, charcoal, and fuel wood were among the agricultural products that were produced in greater quantities during this time.[45] The increasing specialization of agriculture even led to production of tobacco, a predominantly southern crop, from central Connecticut to northern Massachusetts, where natural conditions were amenable to its growth.[46] Many agricultural societies were formed to promote improved farming,[47] and they did so by dispensing information on new technological innovations such as the cast-iron plough, which rapidly replaced the wooden plough by the 1830s, as well as mowing machines and horse-rakes.[48] Another important result of the manufacturing boom in New England was the new abundance of cheap products that formerly had to be produced on the farm. For example, myriad new mills produced inexpensive textiles, and it now made more economic sense for many farm women to purchase these textiles rather than spin and weave them at home. Women consequently found new employment elsewhere, typically at the mills, many of which had a shortage of workers, and they began to earn cash incomes.[49]

The agricultural competition that emerged from the western states due to improvements in transportation (e.g., railroads and steamboats) also helped shape agriculture in New England. Competition from the western states was principally responsible for the decline in local pork production and cattle-fattening, as well as that in wheat production.[49] New England farmers now aimed to produce goods with which western farmers could not compete. Consequently, many New England farms came to specialize in “highly perishable and bulky produce,” according to historian Darwin Kelsey. These crops included milk, butter, potatoes, and broomcorn.[50] Thus, both the rise of manufacturing during the industrial revolution and the rise of western competition generated substantial agricultural specialization.

The largely differentiated agricultural landscape of the New England of 1850[51] was distinct from the subsistence-dominated landscape that existed 40–60 years prior. This period of time, therefore, was not only noteworthy in terms of New England's industrial revolution, but also in terms of New England's agricultural revolution. MIT economic historian Peter Temin has pointed out that the “transformation of the New England economy in the middle fifty years of the nineteenth century was comparable in scope and intensity to the Asian ‘miracles’ of Korea and Taiwan in the half-century since World War II.”[52] The extensive changes in agriculture that occurred were an important aspect of this economic process.

Autumn in Grafton County, New Hampshire, a notable feature of New England

There have been waves of immigration from Ireland, Quebec, Italy, Portugal, Asia, Latin America, Africa, other parts of the United States, and elsewhere.

New England and political thought

The writings of Henry David Thoreau influenced thinkers as diverse as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and the modern environmental movement

During the colonial period and the early years of the American republic, New England leaders like James Otis, John Adams, and Samuel Adams joined Patriots in Philadelphia and Virginia to define Republicanism, and lead the colonies to a war for independence against Great Britain. New England was a Federalist stronghold, and strongly opposed the War of 1812. After 1830 it became a Whig party, stronghold as exemplified by Daniel Webster in the Second Party System. At the time of the American Civil War, New England, the mid-Atlantic, and the Midwest, which had long since abolished slavery, united against the Confederate States of America, ending the practice in the United States. Henry David Thoreau, iconic New England writer and philosopher, made the case for civil disobedience and individualism.

French Canadians

Further information: French Americans and New England French

French-Canadians living in rural Canada were attracted to New England textile mills after 1850,[53][54]and about 600,000 migrated to the U.S., especially to New England.[55] The first immigrants went to nearby areas of northern Vermont and New Hampshire, but southern Massachusetts became the principle destination from the late 1870s until the end of the last immigration wave in the early 1900s.[56] Many of these later immigrants were looking for short-term employment that would allow them to make enough money to go back home and settle comfortably, but approximately half of the Canadian settlers remained permanently.[57] By 1900, 573,000 French Canadians had immigrated to New England.[58]

These people settled together in neighborhoods colloquially called Little Canada, but those neighborhoods faded away after 1960.[59] There were few French language institutions in New England other than Catholic churches. There were French newspapers; more than 250 came into being and became defunct from the mid-19th century to the 1930s, some lasting months at a time, others remaining for decades.[60] By 1937, there were 21,[60] but they were found to have a total of only 50,000 subscribers at that time.[61] The World War II generation avoided bilingual education for their children, and insisted they speak English.[62] By 1976, nine in ten Franco Americans usually spoke English and scholars generally agreed that "the younger generation of Franco-American youth had rejected their heritage."[63]

Since 1900

Railroads

The New Haven system

The New Haven railroad was the leading carrier in New England from 1872 to 1968. New York's leading banker, J. P. Morgan, had grown up in Hartford and had a strong interest in the New England economy. Starting in the 1890s Morgan began financing the major New England railroads, such as the New Haven and the Boston and Maine, dividing territory so they would not compete. In 1903 he brought in Charles Mellen as president of the New Haven (1903-1913). The goal, richly supported by Morgan's financing, was to purchase and consolidate the main railway lines of New England, merge their operations, lower their costs, electrify the heavily used routes, and modernize the system. With less competition and lower costs, there supposedly would be higher profits. The New Haven purchased 50 smaller companies, including streetcars, freight steamers, passenger steamships, and a network of light rails (electrified trolleys) that provided inter-urban transportation for all of southern New England. By 1912, the New Haven operated over 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of track, with 120,000 employees, and practically monopolized traffic in a wide swath from Boston to New York City.

Morgan's quest for monopoly angered reformers during the Progressive Era, most notably Boston lawyer Louis Brandeis, who fought the New Haven for years. Mellen's abrasive tactics alienated public opinion, led to high prices for acquisitions and to costly construction. The accident rate rose when efforts were made to save on maintenance costs. Debt soared from $14 million in 1903 to $242 million in 1913. Also in 1913 it was hit by an anti-trust lawsuit by the federal government and was forced to give up its trolley systems.[64] The advent of automobiles, trucks and buses after 1910 slashed the profits of the New Haven. The line went bankrupt in 1935, was reorganized and reduced in scope, went bankrupt again in 1961, and in 1969 was merged into the Penn Central system, which itself went bankrupt. The remnants of the system are now part of Conrail.[65]

The automotive revolution came much faster than anyone expected, especially the railroad executives. In 1915 Connecticut had 40,000 automobiles; five years later it had 120,000. There was even faster growth in trucks from 7,000 to 24,000.[66]

Weather

In the 1930s and 1940s there were winter "outing clubs" in a number of areas in New England which held dog sled races, ski jumping, and cross country competitions; sulky races on cleared streets, and dances.[67]

The 1938 New England hurricane hit the region (and Long Island) hard, killing about 700 people. Having deviated from the path predicted by the U.S. Weather Bureau, the hurricane gave little warning and leveled thousands of buildings. Federal as well as local agencies provided assistance to New Englanders, and the modern disaster relief system was created in the process of that collaboration.[68] It blew down 15,000,000 acres (61,000 km2) of trees, one-third of the total forest at the time in New England. 3 billion board feet were salvaged. Many of the older trees in the region are about 75 years old, dating from after this storm.[69]

Economy

The New England economy was radically transformed after World War II. The factory economy practically disappeared. The textile mills one by one went out of business from the 1920s to the 1970s. For example, the Crompton Company, after 178 years in business, went bankrupt in 1984, costing the jobs of 2,450 workers in five states. The major reasons were cheap imports, the strong dollar, declining exports, and a failure to diversify.[70] Shoes followed. What remains is very high technology manufacturing, such as jet engines, nuclear submarines, pharmaceuticals, robotics, scientific instruments, and medical devices. MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) invented the format for university-industry relations in high tech fields, and spawned many software and hardware firms, some of which grew rapidly.[71] By the 21st century the region had become famous for its leadership roles in the fields of education, medicine and medical research, high-technology, finance, and tourism.[72]

Famous leaders

Eight presidents of the United States have been born in New England, however only five are usually affiliated with the area. They are, in chronological order: John Adams (Massachusetts), John Quincy Adams (Massachusetts), Franklin Pierce (New Hampshire), Chester A. Arthur (born in Vermont, affiliated with New York), Calvin Coolidge (born in Vermont, affiliated with Massachusetts), John F. Kennedy (Massachusetts), George H. W. Bush (born in Massachusetts, affiliated with Texas) and George W. Bush (born in Connecticut, affiliated with Texas).

Nine vice presidents of the United States have been born in New England, however, again only five are usually affiliated with the area. They are, in chronological order: John Adams, Elbridge Gerry (Massachusetts), Hannibal Hamlin (Maine), Henry Wilson (born in New Hampshire, affiliated with Massachusetts), Chester A. Arthur, Levi P. Morton (born in Vermont, affiliated with New York), Calvin Coolidge, Nelson Rockefeller (born in Maine, affiliated with New York), George H.W. Bush.

Eleven of the Speakers of the United States House of Representatives have been elected from New England. They are, in chronological order: Jonathan Trumbull, Jr. (2nd Speaker, Connecticut), Theodore Sedgwick (5th Speaker, Massachusetts), Joseph Bradley Varnum (7th Speaker, Massachusetts), Robert Charles Winthrop (22nd Speaker, Massachusetts), Nathaniel Prentice Banks (25th Speaker, Massachusetts), James G. Blaine (31st Speaker, Maine), Thomas Brackett Reed (36th and 38th, Maine), Frederick Gillett (42nd, Massachusetts), Joseph William Martin, Jr. (49th and 51st, Massachusetts), John William McCormack (53rd, Massachusetts) and Tip O'Neill (55th, Massachusetts). :)

Notes

"Abenaki History". abenakination.org. Retrieved 2011-03-28.

Allen, William (1849). The History of Norridgewock. Norridgewock ME: Edward J. Peet. p. 10. Retrieved 2011-03-28.

Bain, Angela Goebel; Manring, Lynne; and Mathews, Barbara. Native Peoples in New England. Retrieved July 21, 2010, from Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association.

Maine: A Guide 'Down East,' Federal Writers' Project, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1937

Wiseman, Fred M. "The Voice of the Dawn: An Autohistory of the Abenaki Nation". p. 70. Retrieved 2011-03-28.

Charles O. Paullin, Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States.; Edited by John K. Wright (1932), Plate 42

William F. Swindler, ed. Sources and Documents of United States Constitutions. (1979) Vol. 10; Pps. 17-23.

Paullin, Charles O.; Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States; Edited by John K. Wright; New York, New York and Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington and American Geographical Society of New York, 1932: Plate 42

Swindler, William F.., ed. Sources and Documents of United States Constitutions 10 Volumes; Dobbs Ferry, New York; Oceana Publications, 1973–1979; Vol. 10; pp. 17–23

Van Zandt, Franklin K.; Boundaries of the United States and the Several States; Geological Survey Professional Paper 909. Washington, D.C.; Government Printing Office; 1976, Page 92

Ernest Lee Tuveson, Redeemer nation: the idea of America's millennial role (University of Chicago Press, 1980)

https://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMDJHN_The_Hull_Mint_Boston_MA

https://historyofmassachusetts.org/massachusetts-bay-colony-charter-revoked/

Benjamin Woods Labaree, Colonial Massachusetts: a history (1979)

Dominion of New England

Daniel Scott Smith, "The Demographic History of Colonial New England," Journal of Economic History, 32 (March 1972), 165-183 in JSTOR

Terry L. Anderson and Robert Paul Thomas, "White Population, Labor Force and Extensive Growth of the New England Economy in the Seventeenth Century, Journal of Economic History, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Sept 1973), pp. 634-667 at p 647, 651 in JSTOR

Morison, Samuel Eliot (1972). The Oxford History of the American People. New York City: Mentor. p. 112. ISBN 0-451-62600-1.

Anne Mackin, Americans and their land: the house built on abundance (University of Michigan Press, 2006) p 29

James Ciment, ed. Colonial America: An Encyclopedia of Social, Political, Cultural, and Economic History, 2005.

Margaret Alan Newell, "The Birth of New England in the Atlantic Economy: From its Beginning to 1770, in Peter Temin, ed., Engines of Enterprise: An Economic History of New England (Harvard UP, 2000), pp. 11-68, esp. p. 41

Morison, Samuel Eliot (1972). The Oxford History of the American People. New York City: Mentor. pp. 199–200. ISBN 0-451-62600-1.

Gloria L. Main and Jackson T. Main, "The Red Queen in New England?," William and Mary Quarterly, Jan 1999, Vol. 56 Issue 1, pp 121-50 in JSTOR

George Otto Trevelyan (1899). The American Revolution. p. 93.

"History of Boston Latin School—oldest public school in America". BLS Web Site. Archived from the original on 2007-05-02. Retrieved 2007-06-01.

Lawrence Cremin American Education: The Colonial Experience, 1607-1783 (Harper & Row, 1970)

Maris A. Vinovskis, "Family and Schooling in Colonial and Nineteenth-Century America," Journal of Family History," Jan 1987, Vol. 12 Issue 1-3, pp 19-37

"Schooling, Education, and Literacy, In Colonial America". faculty.mdc.edu. 2010-04-01. Archived from the original on 2011-01-10.

Small, Walter H. “The New England Grammar School, 1635-1700.” School Review 7 (September 1902): 513-31

James McLachlan, American boarding schools: A historical study (1970)

Arthur Powell, Lessons from Privilege: The American Prep School Tradition (Harvard UP, 1998)

John R. Thelin, A History of American Higher Education (2004) pp 1-40

David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere's Ride (1994)

Douglas Harper, "Slavery in New Hampshire" (2003)

Lawrence Delbert Cress, "'Cool and Serious Reflection': Federalist Attitudes toward War in 1812," Journal of the Early Republic 7#2 (1987), pp. 123-145 in JSTOR

"New England". Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 2008-07-24.

Van Wyck Brooks, The flowering of New England, 1815-1865 (1941)

William R. Bagnall, The Textile Industries of the United States: Including Sketches and Notices of Cotton, Woolen, Silk, and Linen Manufacturers in the Colonial Period. (1893) Vol. I. Pg 97.

Thomas Dublin, "Lowell Millhands" in Transforming Women's Work (Cornell UP) pp 77-118.

Bidwell, p. 684.

Kelsey, p. 1.

Bidwell, p. 688.

Kelsey, p. 4.

Bidwell, p. 685.

Gates, p. 39-40.

Bidwell, p. 689.

Russell, p. vi.

Bidwell, p. 687.

Russell, p. 337.

Kelsey, p. 5.

Kelsey, p. 6.

Temin, p. 109.

Gerard J. Brault, The French-Canadian Heritage in New England (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1986) pg 52-54

Claire Quintal, ed., Steeples and Smokestacks. A Collection of essays on The Franco-American Experience in New England (1996)

Sacha Richard, "American Perspectives on La fièvre aux États-Unis, 1860–1930: A Historiographical analysis of Recent Writings on the Franco-Americans in New England." Canadian Review of American Studies (2002) 32#1 pp: 105-132.

Iris Podea Saunders, "Quebec to 'Little Canada': The Coming of the French Canadians to New England in the Nineteenth Century," New England Quarterly (1950) 23#3 pp. 365-380 in JSTOR

Brault, The French-Canadian Heritage in New England pg.52

Roby, Yves. The Franco-Americans of New England: Dreams and Realities. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004 pg.42

Quintal pp 618-9

Ham, Edward Billings (March 1938). "Journalism and the French Survival in New England". The New England Quarterly. The New England Quarterly, Inc. 11 (1): 89–107. doi:10.2307/360562. JSTOR 360562.

Quintal p 614

Quintal p 618

Richard, "American Perspectives on La fièvre aux États-Unis, 1860–1930," p 105, quote on p 109

Vincent P. Carosso (1987). The Morgans: Private International Bankers, 1854-1913. Harvard UP. pp. 607–10. ISBN 9780674587298.

John L. Weller, The New Haven Railroad: its rise and fall (1969)

Peter Temin, ed., Engines of Enterprise: An Economic History of New England (2000) p 185

Barel, Gerry (April 2011). "Ski Jumping Article Brings Back Memories for a Reader". Vermont's Northland Journal. 10 (1): 31.

Lourdes B. Aviles, Taken by Storm, 1938: A Social and Meteorological History of the Great New England Hurricane (2012)

Long, Stephen (September 7, 2011). "Remembering the hurricane of 1938". the Chronicle. Barton, Vermont. p. 3.

Timothy J. Minchin, "The Crompton Closing: Imports and the Decline of America's Oldest Textile Company, Journal of American Studies (2013) 47#1 pp 231-260 online.

Henry Etzkowitz, MIT and the Rise of Entrepreneurial Science (Routledge 2007)

David Koistinen, Confronting Decline: The Political Economy of Deindustrialization in Twentieth-Century New England (2013)

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Bidwell, Percy. “The Agricultural Revolution in New England" American Historical Review, Vol. 26, No. 4. (1921). online

Black, John D. The rural economy of New England: a regional study (1950) onlineonline

Bremer, Francis J. The Puritan Experiment: New England Society from Bradford to Edwards (1995).

Brewer, Daniel Chauncey. Conquest of New England by the Immigrant (1926). online

Buell, Lawrence. New England Literary Culture: From Revolution through Renaissance. (Cambridge University Press, 1986), a literary history of New England. ISBN 0-521-37801-X

Conforti, Joseph A. Imagining New England: Explorations of Regional Identity from the Pilgrims to the Mid-Twentieth Century (2001)

Cumbler, John T. Reasonable Use: The People, the Environment, and the State, New England, 1790–1930 (2001), environmental history

Daniels, Bruce. New England Nation (2012) 256pp; focus on Puritans

Judd, Richard W. Second Nature: An Environmental History of New England (University of Massachusetts Press, 2014) xiv, 327 pp.

Karlsen, Carol F. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England (1998)

Kelsey, Darwin, ed. “Agriculture in New England, 1790-1840.” Old Sturbridge Village Research Paper. Old Sturbridge, Inc., January 1973.

Koistinen, David. "Business and Regional Economic Decline: The Political Economy of Deindustrialization in Twentieth-Century New England" Business and economic history online (2014) #12

Leighton, Ann. "'Meate and Medicine' in early New England." History Today (June 1968), Vol. 18 Issue 6, pp 398-405, covers practice of medicine 1620 to 1700, with emphasis on blood-letting and the use of herbs.

Lockridge, Kenneth A. A New England Town: The First Hundred Years: Dedham, Massachusetts, 1636–1736 (1985), new social history online

McWilliams, John. New England's Crisis and Cultural Memory: Literature, Politics, History, Religion, 1620–1860. (Cambridge University Press, 2009) excerpt and text search

McPhetres, S. A. A political manual for the campaign of 1868, for use in the New England states, containing the population and latest election returns of every town (1868)

Newell; Margaret Ellen. From Dependency to Independence: Economic Revolution in Colonial New England (Cornell UP, 1998) online edition

Old Colony Trust Company, New England: Old and New, Cambridge : University Press, 1920

Palfrey, John Gorham. History of New England (5 vol 1859–90), classic narrative to 1775; online

Richard, Mark Paul. Not a Catholic Nation: The Ku Klux Klan Confronts New England in the 1920s (University of Massachusetts Press, 2015). x, 259 pp.

Roberts, Strother E. Colonial Ecology, Atlantic Economy: Transforming Nature in Early New England (U of Pennsylvania Press, 2019) online review

Russell, Howard. A Long, Deep Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming in New England (University Press of New England, 1976)

Sletcher, Michael, ed. New England: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Regional Cultures (2004), articles on culture and society by experts

Temin, Peter, ed. Engines of Enterprise: An Economic History of New England (Harvard UP, 2000) online edition[permanent dead link]

Tucker, Spencer, ed. American Civil War: A State-by-State Encyclopedia (2 vol 2015) 1019pp excerpt

Vaughan, Alden T. New England Frontier: Puritans and Indians 1620–1675 (1995) online

Weeden, William Babcock, "Economic and Social History of New England, 1620-1789" (2 vol. 1890), old but highly detailed and reliable

Zimmerman, Joseph F. The New England Town Meeting: Democracy in Action (1999)

Daniel Neal (14 December 1678 – 4 April 1743) was an English historian.

Biography

Born in London, he was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School, and at the universities of Utrecht and Leiden. In 1704 he became assistant minister, and in 1706 sole minister, of an independent congregation worshipping in Aldersgate Street, and afterwards in Jewin Street, London, where he remained almost until his death. He married Elizabeth Lardner (d. 1748), by whom he had one son, Nathanael, and two daughters.[1]

In 1720 Neal published his History of New England, which obtained for its author the honorary degree of MA from Harvard College. He also undertook to assist Dr John Evans in writing a history of Nonconformity. Evans, however, died in 1730, and, making use of his papers for the period before 1640, Neal wrote the whole of the work himself.[1]

This History of the Puritans (book) deals with the time between the Protestant Reformation and 1689; the first volume appearing in 1732, and the fourth and last in 1738. The first volume was attacked in 1733 for unfairness and inaccuracy by Isaac Maddox, afterwards bishop of St Asaph and bishop of Worcester, to whom Neal replied in a pamphlet, A Review of the principal facts objected to in the first volume of the History of the Puritans; and the remaining volumes by Zachary Grey (1688–1766), to whom the author made no reply.[1]

The History of the Puritans was edited, in five volumes, by Dr Joshua Toulmin (1740–1815), who added a life of Neal in 1797. This was reprinted in 1817, and an edition in two volumes was published in New York in 1844.[1]