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The 18th-century Old State House in Boston is surrounded by tall buildings of the 19th and 20th centuries. Boston is the capital and largest city in Massachusetts in the United States. It is the unofficial capital of the region known as New England. It is also one of the oldest and wealthiest cities in the United States, with an economy based on education, health care, finance, and high technology. Its nicknames include "Beantown", "The Hub" (shortened from Oliver Wendell Holmes's phrase The Hub of the Universe), and The Athens of America, due to its great influence on cultural, intellectual, and political matters.
As of the 2000 census, its population was 589,141. The Greater Boston metropolitan area, including nearby cities like Cambridge, Somerville, and Brookline, has about 5.7 million residents. Boston is the county seat of Suffolk County. It is located at 42°20'N, 71°W.
Founded on September 17, 1630, on a peninsula called Shawmut by the Native Americans who lived there, Boston is named after Boston, EnglandFor other uses, see Boston (disambiguation). Boston population 54,000 ( 1996), is a town on the North Sea coast of England in Lincolnshire which received its charter in 1545 and is a twin town with Laval, France. It is the main town in the borough of Bost, a town in LincolnshireThis article is about the English administrative county. For the Illinois village, see Lincolnshire, Illinois; for the Kentucky city, see Lincolnshire, Kentucky. Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs is a county in the East Midlands of England, traditionally th from which several prominent colonists originated. The Puritans who led the Winthrop FleetThe Winthrop Fleet of 1630 was a fleet of eleven ships that carried 700 immigrants from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in April to July 1630. The group was led by Governor John Winthrop. It was and is the largest fleet ever assembled to carry Eng to Boston were not Separatists like the Pilgrim Fathers, but chartered colonists. Boston's deep harbor and advantageous geographic position helped it to become the busiest port in the Massachusetts Bay ColonyThe Massachusetts Bay Colony (sometimes called by the name Massachusetts Bay Company for the institution that founded it) was the direct predecessor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay and then the state of Massachusetts. The colony was established under, surpassing Plymouth, and Salem. From its founding until the 1760s, Boston was America's largest, wealthiest, and most influential city.
Early colonists believed that Boston was a community with a special covenant with God. Winthrop's sermon, "a City upon a Hill," captured this idea, which influenced every facet of Boston life, and made it imperative that colonists legislate morality, enforce marriage, enforce church attendance, enforce education in the Word of God, and enforce the persecution of sinners. These values molded an extremely stable and well-structured society in Boston. Puritan values of hard work, moral uprightness, and education remain a part of Boston's culture.
The Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull.
On June 1, 1660, Mary Dyer was hanged on Boston Common for repeatedly defying a law banning Quakers from the colony. She is considered to be the last religious martyr in North America.
On March 20, 1760 the "Great Fire" of Boston destroyed 349 buildings.
Boston played a key role in the American Revolutionary War. The Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party and several of the early battles of the revolutionary war (such as the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston) occurred near the city. During this period, Paul Revere made his famous ride. As a result Boston is known as the Cradle of Liberty and historic sites remain a popular tourist draw to this day.
After the revolutionary war, the city became one of the world's wealthiest international trading ports, exporting products such as rum, fish, salt and tobacco. It was chartered as a city in 1822, and by the mid- 1800s it was one of the largest manufacturing centers in the nation noted for its garment, leather goods, and machinery industries.
In 1831, William Lloyd Garrison founded The Liberator, an abolitionist newsletter, in Boston. It advocated "immediate and complete emancipation of all slaves" in the United States, and established Boston as the center of the abolitionist movement.
A poem about Boston, attributed to various people, describes the city thus: "And here’s to good old Boston/The land of the bean and the cod/Where Lowells talk only to Cabots/And Cabots talk only to God." While wealthy colonial families like the Lowells and Cabots (often called the Boston Brahmins) ruled the city, the 1840s brought waves of new immigrants from Europe. These included large numbers of Irish, and Italians, giving the city a large Roman Catholic population. It is currently the third largest Catholic community in the United States (after Chicago and Los Angeles).
The first medical school for women, The Boston Female Medical School (which later merged with the Boston University School of Medicine), opened in Boston on November 1, 1848.
The Great Boston Fire of 1872 started on Lincoln Street on November 9 and in two days destroyed about 65 acres (260,000 m²) of city, 776 buildings, much of the financial district and caused US$60 million in damage.
In 1879, Mary Baker Eddy founded the Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston.
"As a literary centre Boston was long supreme in the United States and still disputes the palm with New York," says Baedeker's United States (1893). "A list of its distinguished literary men would be endless; but it may not be invidious to mention Hawthorne, Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, Everett, Agassiz, Whittier, Motley, Bancroft, Prescott, Parkman, Ticknor, Channing, Theodore Parker, Henry James, T. B. Aldrich and Howells among the names more or less closely associated with Boston." Most of the great publishing houses of Boston have been acquired or moved, leaving little but the magazine The Atlantic Monthly (founded 1857) and the publisher Houghton Mifflin to bear witness to Boston's former publishing glory. Despite this, many renowned authors continue to live and work in Boston.
The first vaudeville theater opened on February 28, 1883 in Boston. The last one, the Old Howard, (in Scollay Square,) which had evolved from opera to vaudeville to burlesque, closed in 1953.
On September 1, 1897 the Boston subway opened as the first underground metro in North America. Today it is affectionately known as "The T" and is run by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
From the late 19th century until the mid-20th century, the phrase " Banned in Boston" was used to describe a literary work, motion picture, play, or other work prohibited from distribution or exhibition. During this time, Boston city officials took it upon themselves to "ban" anything that they found to be salacious, immoral, or offensive; theatrical shows were run out of town, books confiscated, and motion pictures were prevented from being shown, sometimes stopped in mid-showing after an official had "seen enough". This movement had several effects. One was that Boston, arguably the cultural center of the United States since its founding, now came across as less sophisticated than many lesser cities without such stringent censorship practices. Another is that the phrase "banned in Boston" began to be associated in the popular mind with something sexy and lurid; many distributors of such works were happy when they were banned in Boston, as that made them have more appeal elsewhere; many distributors also advertised that their products had been banned in Boston when in fact they had not in order to increase their appeal.
On January 15, 1919, the Boston Molasses Disaster occurred in the North End. Twenty-one people were killed and 150 injured as hot molasses crushed, asphyxiated, and cooked many of the victims to death. It took over six months to remove the molasses from the cobblestone streets, theaters, businesses, automobiles, and homes. Boston Harbor ran brown until summer.
On August 23, 1927, Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti were sent to the electric chair after a seven year trial in Boston. Their execution sparked riots in London, Paris and Germany, and helped to reinforce the image of Boston as a hotbed of intolerance and discipline.
On November 28, 1942, Boston's Cocoanut Grove speakeasy was the site of the deadliest nightclub fire in United States history, killing 492 people and injuring hundreds more.
Between June 14, 1962 and January 4, 1964 thirteen single women between the ages of 19 and 85 were murdered in Boston by the infamous Boston Strangler.
By 1950, Boston was slumping. Few major buildings were being built anywhere in the city. Factories were closing up, and moving their operations south, where labor was cheaper. The assets that Boston had -- excellent banks, hospitals, universities and technical know-how -- were minimal parts of the U.S. economy. To combat this downturn, Boston's politicians enacted urban renewal policies, which resulted in the demolition of several neighborhoods, including the Old West End, a largely Jewish neighborhood, and Scollay Square. In their places went additions to Massachusetts General Hospital, and Government Center. These projects displaced thousands of people, closed hundreds of businesses, and provoked a furious backlash among Bostonians; this backlash ensured the continued survival of many historic neighborhoods.
Aerial view of the Back Bay, Boston and Cambridge
In the 1970s, after years of economic downturn, Boston boomed. Financial institutions were granted far more latitude, more people began to play the market, and Boston became a leader in the mutual fund industry. Health care became more extensive and expensive, and hospitals such as Massachusetts General, Beth Israel Deaconess, and Brigham and Women's led the nation in medical innovation and patient care. Higher education also became more expensive, and universities such as Harvard, MIT, BU and Tufts attracted hordes of students to the Boston area; many stayed and became citizens. MIT graduates, in particular, founded many successful high-tech companies, which made Boston second only to Silicon Valley as a high-tech center.
In 1974, the city dealt with a crisis when a federal district court judge, W. Arthur Garrity, ordered busing to integrate the city's public schools. Racially-motivated violence erupted in several neighborhoods -- many white parents resisted the busing plan. Public schools - particularly public high schools - became scenes of unrest and violence. Tension continued throughout the mid- 1970s, reinforcing Boston's reputation for discrimination.
Boston's Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge is a result of the Big Dig As of 2004, the city is in the final stages of a massive construction project called the Big Dig. Planned and approved in the 1980s under Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, with construction beginning in 1991, the Big Dig moved a jumble of elevated highway routes underground, produced the Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, and will create over 70 acres of public parks in the heart of the city. The Big Dig should ease Boston's notorious traffic congestion; however, it is now the most expensive construction project in United States history, and currently the most expensive construction project in the world.
On March 18, 1990, the largest art theft in modern history occurred in Boston. 12 paintings, collectively worth over $100 million, were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum by two thieves posing as police officers. As of 2004 these paintings have not been recovered.
Downtown Boston as seen from Charlestown Recently, Boston has experienced a loss of regional institutions and traditions, which once gave it a very distinct social character. Examples include: the acquisition of the Boston Globe by The New York Times; the loss of Boston-headquartered publishing houses (noted above), the acquisition of the century-old Jordan Marsh department store by Macy's; the increasing rarity of ice-cream shops using cone-shaped scoops; the financial crisis currently being experienced by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society; and the loss, to mergers, failures, and acquisitions of once-prominent financial institutions such as Shawmut Bank, BayBank, Bank of New England, and Bank of Boston. In 2004, this trend continued as Charlotte-based Bank of America acquired FleetBoston Financial.
Despite these losses, Boston's urban ambiance remains unique among world cities, and in many ways, it has improved in recent years -- racial tensions have eased dramatically; city streets bustle with a vitality not seen since the 1920s; crime and poverty remain remarkably low for an American city, and once again, Boston has become a hub of intellectual, technological, and political ideas.