The written history of Boston begins with a letter drafted by the first European inhabitant of the
Shawmut Peninsula
Shawmut Peninsula is the promontory of land on which Boston, Massachusetts was built. The peninsula, originally a mere in area,Miller, Bradford A., "Digging up Boston: The Big Dig Builds on Centuries of Geological Engineering", GeoTimes, Octo ...
,
William Blaxton
Reverend William Blaxton (also spelled William Blackstone) (1595 – 26 May 1675) was an early English settler in New England and the first European settler of Boston and Rhode Island.
Biography
William Blaxton was born in Horncastle, Lincoln ...
. This letter is dated 7 September
1630
Events
January–March
* January 2 – A shoemaker in Turin is found to have the first case of bubonic plague there as the plague of 1630 begins spreading through Italy.
* January 5 – A team of Portuguese military advisers ...
and was addressed to the leader of the Puritan settlement of
Charlestown,
Isaac Johnson
Isaac Johnson (November 1, 1803 – March 15, 1853) was a US politician and the 12th Governor of the state of Louisiana.
Born on his father's plantation "Troy" near St. Francisville in West Feliciana Parish, Johnson was the fourth son of J ...
. The letter acknowledged the difficulty in finding potable water on that side of
Back Bay
Back Bay is an officially recognized neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, built on reclaimed land in the Charles River basin. Construction began in 1859, as the demand for luxury housing exceeded the availability in the city at the time, and t ...
. As a remedy, Blaxton advertised an excellent spring at the foot of what is now
Beacon Hill and invited the Puritans to settle with him on Shawmut.
Boston was named and officially incorporated on September 30, 1630 (
Old Style
Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) indicate dating systems before and after a calendar change, respectively. Usually, this is the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various European countries between 158 ...
). The city quickly became the political, commercial, financial, religious and educational center of
Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...
and grew to play a central role in the
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
of the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
.
When harsh British retaliation for the
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India Company to sell t ...
resulted in further violence by the colonists, the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
erupted in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
. Colonists besieged the British in the city, fighting a famous battle at
Breed's Hill in Charlestown on June 17, 1775—a battle lost by the colonists but one that inflicted great damage on British forces. The colonists later won the
Siege of Boston, forcing the British to evacuate the city on 17 March 1776. However, the combination of American and British blockades of the town and its port during the conflict seriously damaged the economy, leading to the
exodus
Exodus or the Exodus may refer to:
Religion
* Book of Exodus, second book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible
* The Exodus, the biblical story of the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan
Historical events
* Ex ...
of two thirds of its population in the 1770s.
The city recovered after 1800 and re-established its role as the transportation hub for New England with a network of railroads. Beyond a renewed economic success the re-invigorated Boston became the intellectual, educational and medical center of the nation. Along with New York, Boston became the financial center of the United States in the
19th century, and the large amount of capital available for investment there was crucial in funding the expansion of a nationwide railroad.
During and before the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
Boston was the launching pad and funding base for many of the country's
anti-slavery activities. In the 19th century city politics and society became dominated by a financial elite known as the
Boston Brahmin
The Boston Brahmins or Boston elite are members of Boston's traditional upper class. They are often associated with Harvard University; Anglicanism; and traditional Anglo-American customs and clothing. Descendants of the earliest English coloni ...
s. This entrenched power base squared off against the political challenge of more recent Catholic immigrants for the rest of the 19th century. Wealthy Irish Catholic political dynasties, typified by the
Kennedy Family
The Kennedy family is an American political family that has long been prominent in American politics, public service, entertainment, and business. In 1884, 35 years after the family's arrival from Ireland, Patrick Joseph "P. J." Kennedy beca ...
, assumed political control of the city by 1900. This control has been substantially maintained for more than a century, until the present day.
The industrial base of the region, financed by Boston capital, reached its zenith around 1950. The city went into
decline
Decline may refer to:
*Decadence, involves a perceived decay in standards, morals, dignity, religious faith, or skill over time
* "Decline" (song), 2017 song by Raye and Mr Eazi
* ''The Decline'' (EP), an EP by NOFX
*The Decline (band), Australian ...
after the middle of the
20th century when thousands of textile mills and other factories were closed down as the United States began a long
deindustrialization. By the early
21st century
The 21st (twenty-first) century is the current century in the ''Anno Domini'' era or Common Era, under the Gregorian calendar. It began on 1 January 2001 ( MMI) and will end on 31 December 2100 ( MMC).
Marking the beginning of the 21st centur ...
the city's economy recovered, moving from an industrial base to one centered on education, medicine, and high technology—especially
biotechnology
Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...
startups
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...
. The many towns surrounding Boston became residential suburbs that now house the city's large population of
white collar workers.
Indigenous era
Prior to
European colonization
The historical phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe and across time. Ancient and medieval colonialism was practiced by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Turks, and the Arabs.
Colonialism in the modern sense began ...
the region around modern-day Boston was inhabited by the
Indigenous
Indigenous may refer to:
*Indigenous peoples
*Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention
*Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band
*Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...
Massachusett people
The Massachusett were a Native American tribe from the region in and around present-day Greater Boston in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name comes from the Massachusett language term for "At the Great Hill," referring to the Blue Hills ...
. Their habitation consisted of small, seasonal communities along what is now the
Charles River
The Charles River ( Massachusett: ''Quinobequin)'' (sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles) is an river in eastern Massachusetts. It flows northeast from Hopkinton to Boston along a highly meandering route, that doubles b ...
. The river was accurately named ''Quinobequin'' in the Algonquin language of the Massachusett, and they knew it as "the meandering one". The people who lived in the area most likely moved between inland winter homes along the meanders of the
Charles and summer communities on the coast. Game was most easily hunted inland during bare-tree seasons while the fishing shoals and
shellfish beds on the tidal flats of Boston harbor were more comfortably exploited during the summer months.
Being surrounded by
mudflats
Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal fl ...
and
salt marshes, the
Shawmut Peninsula
Shawmut Peninsula is the promontory of land on which Boston, Massachusetts was built. The peninsula, originally a mere in area,Miller, Bradford A., "Digging up Boston: The Big Dig Builds on Centuries of Geological Engineering", GeoTimes, Octo ...
itself was more sparsely occupied than its surroundings before the arrival of Europeans. Nevertheless, archeological excavations have revealed one of the oldest
fish weirs
A fishing weir, fish weir, fishgarth or kiddle is an obstruction placed in tidal waters, or wholly or partially across a river, to direct the passage of, or trap fish. A weir may be used to trap marine fish in the intertidal zone as the tide rece ...
in New England on Boylston Street. Native people constructed this weir to trap fish as early as 7,000 years before
European arrival in the
Western Hemisphere
The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the te ...
.
The
Shawmut Peninsula
Shawmut Peninsula is the promontory of land on which Boston, Massachusetts was built. The peninsula, originally a mere in area,Miller, Bradford A., "Digging up Boston: The Big Dig Builds on Centuries of Geological Engineering", GeoTimes, Octo ...
was originally connected with the mainland to its south by a narrow
isthmus
An isthmus (; ; ) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea counterpart of an isthmus ...
,
Boston Neck
The Boston Neck or Roxbury Neck was an isthmus, a narrow strip of land connecting the then-peninsular city of Boston to the mainland city of Roxbury (now a neighborhood of Boston). The surrounding area was gradually filled in as the city of Bos ...
, and was surrounded by
Boston Harbor
Boston Harbor is a natural harbor and estuary of Massachusetts Bay, and is located adjacent to the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It is home to the Port of Boston, a major shipping facility in the northeastern United States.
History
...
and
Back Bay
Back Bay is an officially recognized neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, built on reclaimed land in the Charles River basin. Construction began in 1859, as the demand for luxury housing exceeded the availability in the city at the time, and t ...
, an
estuary
An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...
of the
Charles River
The Charles River ( Massachusett: ''Quinobequin)'' (sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles) is an river in eastern Massachusetts. It flows northeast from Hopkinton to Boston along a highly meandering route, that doubles b ...
. This neck of land was surrounded by infill beginning in 1803 and expanded to dozens of times its original width by the turn of the 20th century.
Foundation by Europeans
Blaxton Era (1624–1630)
The first European to live in what would become Boston was
William Blaxton
Reverend William Blaxton (also spelled William Blackstone) (1595 – 26 May 1675) was an early English settler in New England and the first European settler of Boston and Rhode Island.
Biography
William Blaxton was born in Horncastle, Lincoln ...
. He was directly responsible for the foundation of Boston by Puritan colonizers in 1630. Blaxton had joined the failed
Ferdinando Gorges
Sir Ferdinando Gorges ( – 24 May 1647) was a naval and military commander and governor of the important port of Plymouth in England. He was involved in Essex's Rebellion against the Queen, but escaped punishment by testifying against the m ...
expedition to America in 1623, which never landed. He eventually arrived later in 1623, as a chaplain to the subsequent expedition of Ferdinando's son,
Robert Gorges
Robert Gorges (1595 – late 1620s) was a captain in the Royal Navy and briefly Governor-General of New England from 1623 to 1624. He was the son of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. After having served in the Venetian wars, Gorges was given a commissio ...
, aboard the ship ''Katherine''. This expedition landed in
Weymouth, Massachusetts ("To Work Is to Conquer")
, image_map = Norfolk County Massachusetts incorporated and unincorporated areas Weymouth highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250px
, map_caption = Location in Norfolk County in Massa ...
, five miles south of what is now Boston''.''
By 1625 the colony at Weymouth had failed and all of his fellow travelers returned to England. Blaxton remained, moving five miles north to a 1
mi2 rocky bulge at the end of a swampy isthmus surrounded on all sides by mudflats. Blaxton thus became the first colonist to settle in what would become
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
. He lived at the Western end of the
Shawmut Peninsula
Shawmut Peninsula is the promontory of land on which Boston, Massachusetts was built. The peninsula, originally a mere in area,Miller, Bradford A., "Digging up Boston: The Big Dig Builds on Centuries of Geological Engineering", GeoTimes, Octo ...
at the foot of what is now
Beacon Hill and was entirely alone for more than five years.
Puritan Era (1630–1750)
Invitation from Blaxton
In 1629
Isaac Johnson
Isaac Johnson (November 1, 1803 – March 15, 1853) was a US politician and the 12th Governor of the state of Louisiana.
Born on his father's plantation "Troy" near St. Francisville in West Feliciana Parish, Johnson was the fourth son of J ...
landed with the
Puritans
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...
in nearby
Charlestown, having left
Salem for want of food. Blaxton and Johnson had been university contemporaries at
Emmanuel College,
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...
. The rockier highlands of Charlestown lacked easily tappable wells. Knowing of this difficulty, Blaxton wrote an historic letter in September of 1630 to Johnson and his group of Puritans that advertised Boston's excellent natural spring, and invited them to settle on his land. This they did over the course of September 1630.
Renamed "Boston"
One of Johnson's last official acts as the leader of the Charlestown community before dying on 30 September 1630 was to name the new settlement across the river "Boston." He named the settlement after his
hometown
Hometown, HomeTown, or Home Town may refer to:
*A hometown, the town where someone lives or the town that they come from, typically their place of birth.
*In developing nations particularly: native place, village of origin in newly urbanized soci ...
in
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...
, from which he, his wife (namesake of the ''
Arbella
''Arbella'' or ''Arabella'' was the flagship of the Winthrop Fleet on which Governor John Winthrop, other members of the Company (including William Gager), and Puritan emigrants transported themselves and the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Co ...
'') and
John Cotton (grandfather of
Cotton Mather) had
emigrated
Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...
to
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...
. The name of the English city ultimately derives from that town's patron saint,
St. Botolph, in
whose church John Cotton served as the rector until his emigration with Johnson. In early sources the Lincolnshire Boston was known as "St. Botolph's town", later contracted to "Boston". Prior to this renaming the settlement on the peninsula had been known as "Shawmut" by Blaxton and "Trimountaine" by the Puritan settlers he had invited.
[Weston, George F. ''Boston Ways: High, By & Folk'', Beacon Press: Beacon Hill, Boston, p.11–15 (1957).][Kay, Jane Holtz, ]
Lost Boston
', Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, 2006. . Cf
p.4
/ref>[Thurston, H. (1907). "St. Botulph." ''The Catholic Encyclopedia''. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved June 17, 2014 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02709a.htm]
Settlement on Shawmut Peninsula
The Puritans settled around the advertised springs on the north side of what is now Beacon Hill (at the time called "Trimountaine" from its three peaks). Blaxton negotiated a grant of for himself in the final paperwork with Johnson, amounting to around 10% of the peninsula's total area. However by 1633 the new town's 4,000 citizens made retention of such a large parcel untenable and Blaxton sold all but six acres back to the Puritans in 1634 for ₤30 ($5,455 in adjusted USD). Governor Winthrop, Johnson's successor as leader of the settlement, purchased the land through a one-time tax on Boston residents of 6 shillings (around $50 adjusted) per head. This land became a town commons open to public grazing. It now forms the bulk of Boston Common
The Boston Common (also known as the Common) is a public park in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest city park in the United States. Boston Common consists of of land bounded by Tremont Street (139 Tremont St.), Park Street, Beac ...
, the largest public park
An urban park or metropolitan park, also known as a municipal park (North America) or a public park, public open space, or municipal gardens ( UK), is a park in cities and other incorporated places that offer recreation and green space to r ...
in present-day downtown Boston
Downtown Boston is the central business district of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The city of Boston was founded in 1630. The largest of the city's commercial districts, Downtown is the location of many corporate or regional headquarters; ...
.
After Johnson's death the Episcopalian Blaxton did not get along with the Puritan leaders of the Boston church, which rapidly became radically fundamentalist in its outlook as it began executing religious dissidents such as Quakers
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...
. In 1635 Blaxton moved about south of Boston to what the Indians then called the Pawtucket River and is today known as the Blackstone River
The Blackstone River is a river in the U.S. states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. It flows approximately 48 mi (80 km) and drains a watershed of approximately 540 sq. mi (1,400 km2). Its long history of industrial use has left ...
in Cumberland, Rhode Island. He was that region's first European settler, arriving one year before Roger Williams established Providence Plantations
Providence Plantations was the first permanent European American settlement in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. It was established by a group of colonists led by Roger Williams and Dr. John Clarke who left Massachusetts Bay ...
.
Original topography of the peninsula
The peninsula on which the Puritans settled was rocky scrubland with few trees. It held three major hills: Copps Hill (now the North End), Fort Hill (later the Financial District
A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies and other related finance corporations have their head offices. In major cities, financial districts are often home to s ...
), and Trimountaine ( Beacon Hill). Trimountaine was the tallest of the three, with its name coming from its three separate peaks. The name was retained for the hill and in later years Trimountaine would be shortened to Tremont, for which Tremont Street
Tremont Street is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts.
Tremont Street begins at Government Center in Boston's city center as a continuation of Cambridge Street, and forms the eastern edge of Boston Common. Continuing in a roughly so ...
was named.
The three peaks of Trimountaine were,
# Cotton Hill—named for John Cotton, and later renamed Pemberton Hill (now Pemberton Square),
# Centry or Sentry Hill—the present location of the Massachusetts State House, and
# Mount Whoredom—also known as Mount Vernon, now the location of Louisburg Square
Louisburg Square is a street in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, bisected by a small private park. The park is maintained by the Louisburg Square Proprietors. While the Proprietors pay taxes to the City of Boston, the city d ...
, home to some of the most expensive real estate in the nation .
Over the next two centuries the three hills would be regraded and the geography of the area transformed through landfill and annexation. Beacon Hill or Trimountaine, though shortened between 1807 and 1824, remains a prominent feature of the Boston cityscape. It received its current name from the signal beacon erected on its highest peak to warn outlying towns of danger.
Response to 1684 charter revocation
In 1684, fearing that the rumored revocation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony's Charter by King Charles II would come to pass, Boston city fathers sought to buttress their fifty year old claim to the land of the Shawmut Peninsula. To this end in early 1684 they attempted to secure legal ownership of the Shawmut Peninsula from the descendents of Chickatawbut (d. 1633), the Massachusett
The Massachusett were a Native American tribe from the region in and around present-day Greater Boston in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name comes from the Massachusett language term for "At the Great Hill," referring to the Blue Hills ...
sachem
Sachems and sagamores are paramount chiefs among the Algonquians or other Native American tribes of northeastern North America, including the Iroquois. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms (c. 1622) from different Eastern Al ...
at the time Blaxton first settled on the peninsula, fifty years prior. Such a descendent was located, a sachem named Josias Wampatuck. There is little evidence that this sachem, his grandfather Chickatawbut or any of their people ever inhabited the peninsula, however the lack of formal legal documents involving indians during the Blaxton transactions encouraged the creation of a backdated deed (known in English common law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipres ...
as a "quitclaim
Generally, a quitclaim is a formal renunciation of a legal claim against some other person, or of a right to land. A person who quitclaims renounces or relinquishes a claim to some legal right, or transfers a legal interest in land. Originally a c ...
") which Josias duly signed on 19 March 1684 (see document at right, an
its transcription
. The charter was revoked as promised later that year on the advice of colonial administrator Edward Randolph.[OBJECT OF THE MONTH OBJECT OF THE MONTH ARCHIVE ABOUT Indian deed for Boston, March 19, 1685, September 2006, Carrie Supple, Assistant Reference Librarian https://www.masshist.org/object-of-the-month/objects/indian-deed-for-boston-2006-09-01]
Colonial era
Early colonists believed that Boston was a community with a special covenant with God, as captured in Winthrop's " City upon a Hill" metaphor. This influenced every facet of Boston life, and made it imperative that colonists legislate morality as well as enforce marriage, church attendance, education in the Word of God, and the persecution of sinners. One of the first schools in America, Boston Latin School (1635), and the first college in America, Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...
(1636), were founded shortly after Boston's European settlement.
Town officials in colonial Boston were chosen annually; positions included selectman, assay master, culler of staves, fence viewer A fence viewer is a town or city official who administers fence laws by inspecting new fences and settles disputes arising from trespass by livestock that have escaped enclosure.
The office of fence viewer is one of the oldest appointments in New E ...
, hayward, hogreeve, measurer of boards, pounder, sealer of leather, tithing
A tithing or tything was a historic English legal, administrative or territorial unit, originally ten hides (and hence, one tenth of a hundred). Tithings later came to be seen as subdivisions of a manor or civil parish. The tithing's leader or ...
man, viewer of bricks, water bailiff
A water bailiff is a law-enforcement officer responsible for the policing of bodies of water, such as a river, lake or coast. The position has existed in many jurisdictions throughout history.
Scotland
In Scotland, under the Salmon and Freshwater ...
, and woodcorder.
Boston's Puritans looked askance at unorthodox religious ideas, and exiled or punished dissenters. During the Antinomian Controversy
The Antinomian Controversy, also known as the Free Grace Controversy, was a religious and political conflict in the Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1636 to 1638. It pitted most of the colony's ministers and magistrates against some adherents of ...
of 1636 to 1638 religious dissident leader Anne Hutchinson
Anne Hutchinson (née Marbury; July 1591 – August 1643) was a Puritan spiritual advisor, religious reformer, and an important participant in the Antinomian Controversy which shook the infant Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1636 to 1638. Her ...
and Puritan clergyman John Wheelwright
John Wheelwright (c. 1592–1679) was a Puritan clergyman in England and America, noted for being banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the Antinomian Controversy, and for subsequently establishing the town of Exeter, New Hamp ...
were both banished from the colony. Baptist minister Obadiah Holmes
Obadiah Holmes (1610 – 15 October 1682) was an early Rhode Island settler, and a Baptist minister who was whipped in the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious beliefs and activism. He became the pastor of the Baptist Church in Newport, ...
was imprisoned and publicly whipped in 1651 because of his religion and Henry Dunster
Henry Dunster (November 26, 1609 (baptized) – February 27, 1658/59) was an Anglo-American Puritan clergyman and the first president of Harvard College. Brackney says Dunster was "an important precursor" of the Baptist denomination in America, ...
, the first president of Harvard College during the 1640s–50s, was persecuted for espousing Baptist beliefs. By 1679, Boston Baptists were bold enough to open their own meetinghouse, which was promptly closed by colonial authorities. Expansion and innovation in practice and worship characterized the early Baptists despite the restrictions on their religious liberty. On June 1, 1660, Mary Dyer
Mary Dyer (born Marie Barrett; c. 1611 – 1 June 1660) was an English and colonial American Puritan turned Quaker who was hanged in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony. ...
was hanged on Boston Common for repeatedly defying a law banning Quakers
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...
from being in the colony.
John Hull played a central role in the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Old South Church
Old South Church in Boston, Massachusetts, (also known as New Old South Church or Third Church) is a historic United Church of Christ congregation first organized in 1669. Its present building was designed in the Gothic Revival style by Charle ...
and was also one of principal merchants of 1700th century Boston. “Hull commanded an astonishing array of products, services, and markets” and “conducted his affairs as if his contributions to civil society were providential mandates. One of many merchants who increasingly bore the cost of poor relief in Boston, he donated much of his hard won profits to charitable projects such as the construction of an almshouse.” In 1652 the Massachusetts legislature
The Massachusetts General Court (formally styled the General Court of Massachusetts) is the state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name "General Court" is a hold-over from the earliest days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, w ...
authorized Hull to produce coinage ( mintmaster). Charles II deemed the "Hull Mint" high treason in the United Kingdom
Under the law of the United Kingdom, high treason is the crime of disloyalty to the Crown. Offences constituting high treason include plotting the murder of the sovereign; committing adultery with the sovereign's consort, with the sovereign's el ...
which had a punishment of Hanging, drawing and quartering
To be hanged, drawn and quartered became a statutory penalty for men convicted of high treason in the Kingdom of England from 1352 under King Edward III (1327–1377), although similar rituals are recorded during the reign of King Henry III ( ...
. "On April 6, 1681, Edward Randolph (colonial administrator)
Edward Randolph (1632 – April 1703) was an English colonial administrator, best known for his role in effecting significant changes in the structure of England's North American colonies in the later years of the 17th century.
Life
He was born ...
petitioned the king, informing him the colony was still pressing their own coins which he saw as high treason and believed it was enough to void the charter. He asked that a writ of Quo warranto (a legal action requiring the defendant to show what authority they have for exercising some right, power, or franchise they claim to hold) be issued against Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
for the violations."
The Boston Post Road connected the city to New York and the major settlements in Central and Western Massachusetts. The lower route ran near present-day U.S. 1 via Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...
. The upper route, laid out in 1673, left via Boston Neck and followed present-day U.S. Route 20
U.S. Route 20 or U.S. Highway 20 (US 20) is an east–west United States Numbered Highway that stretches from the Pacific Northwest east to New England. The "0" in its route number indicates that US 20 is a major coast-to-coast route. S ...
until around Shrewsbury, Massachusetts
Shrewsbury (/ˈʃruzberi/ ''SHROOZ-bury'') is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Shrewsbury, unlike the surrounding towns of Grafton, Millbury, Westborough, Northborough, Boylston, and West Boylston did not become a ...
. It continued through Worcester
Worcester may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England
** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament
* Worcester Park, London, Engla ...
, Springfield, and New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...
.
From 1686 until 1689, Massachusetts and surrounding colonies were united. This larger province, known as the Dominion of New England
The Dominion of New England in America (1686–1689) was an administrative union of English colonies covering New England and the Mid-Atlantic Colonies (except for Delaware Colony and the Province of Pennsylvania). Its political structure rep ...
, was governed by Sir Edmund Andros
Sir Edmund Andros (6 December 1637 – 24 February 1714) was an English colonial administrator in British America. He was the governor of the Dominion of New England during most of its three-year existence. At other times, Andros served ...
, an appointee of King James II
James VII and II (14 October 1633 16 September 1701) was King of England and King of Ireland as James II, and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II, on 6 February 1685. He was deposed in the Glorious Re ...
. Andros, who supported the Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...
in a largely Puritan city, grew increasingly unpopular. On April 18, 1689, he was overthrown due to a brief revolt. The Dominion was not reestablished.
Boston's first circulating library was established in 1756 which included 1,200 volumes of books. During this period, many wealthy persons amassed large libraries and loaned books within their social circles.
Disasters in the 1700s
A particularly virulent sequence of six smallpox outbreaks took place from 1636 to 1698. In 1721–1722, the most severe epidemic occurred, killing 844 people. Out of a population of 10,500, 5889 caught the disease, 844 (14%) died, and at least 900 fled the city, thereby spreading the virus. Colonists tried to prevent the spread of smallpox by isolation. For the first time in America, inoculation was tried; it causes a mild form of the disease. Inoculation was itself very controversial because of the threat that the procedure itself could be fatal to 2% of those who were treated, or otherwise spread the disease. It was introduced by Zabdiel Boylston
Zabdiel Boylston, FRS (March 9, 1679 – March 1, 1766) was a physician in the Boston area. As the first medical school in North America was not founded until 1765, Boylston apprenticed with his father, an English-born surgeon named Thomas Boyls ...
and Cotton Mather.
In 1755, Boston endured the largest earthquake ever to hit the Northeastern United States, (estimated at 6.0 to 6.3 on the Richter magnitude scale
The Richter scale —also called the Richter magnitude scale, Richter's magnitude scale, and the Gutenberg–Richter scale—is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Francis Richter and presented in his landmark 1935 ...
), called the '' Cape Ann earthquake''. There was some damage to buildings, but no deaths.
The first " Great Fire" of Boston destroyed 349 buildings on March 20, 1760. It was one of many significant fires fought by the Boston Fire Department
The Boston Fire Department provides fire protection and first responder emergency medical services to the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It also responds to such incidents as motor vehicle accidents, hazardous material spills, utility mishaps, ...
.
Boston and the American Revolution, 1765–1775
Boston had taken an active role in the protests against the Stamp Act of 1765. Its merchants avoided the customs duties which angered London officials and led to a crackdown on smuggling. Governor Thomas Pownall
Thomas Pownall (bapt. 4 September 1722 N.S. – 25 February 1805) was a British colonial official and politician. He was governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay from 1757 to 1760, and afterwards sat in the House of Commons from 1767 t ...
(1757 to 1760) tried to be conciliatory, but his replacement Governor Francis Bernard 1760–69) was a hard-liner who wanted to stamp out the opposition voices that were growing louder and louder in town meetings and pamphlets. Historian Pauline Maier says that his letters to London greatly influenced officials there, but they "distorted" reality. "His misguided conviction that the 'faction' had espoused violence as its primary method of opposition, for example, kept him from recognizing the radicals' peace-keeping efforts....Equally dangerous, Bernard's elaborate accounts were sometimes built on insubstantial evidence." Warden argues that Bernard was careful not to explicitly ask London for troops, but his exaggerated accounts strongly suggested they were needed. In the fall of 1767 he warned about a possible insurrection in Boston any day, and his exaggerated report of one disturbance in 1768, "certainly had given Lord Hillsboro the impression that troops were the only way to enforce obedience in the town." Warden notes that other key British officials in Boston wrote London with the "same strain of hysteria." Four thousand British Army troops arrived in Boston in October 1768 as a massive show of force; tensions escalated.
By the late 1760s Americans focused on their rights as Englishmen, especially the principle of "No Taxation without Representation
"No taxation without representation" is a political slogan that originated in the American Revolution, and which expressed one of the primary grievances of the American colonists for Great Britain. In short, many colonists believed that as they ...
," as articulated by John Rowe, James Otis, Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams ( – October 2, 1803) was an American statesman, political philosopher, and a Founding Father of the United States. He was a politician in colonial Massachusetts, a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, an ...
and other Boston firebrands. Boston played the primary role in sparking both the American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
and the ensuing American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
. The Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre (known in Great Britain as the Incident on King Street) was a confrontation in Boston on March 5, 1770, in which a group of nine British soldiers shot five people out of a crowd of three or four hundred who were harassing t ...
came on March 5, 1770, when British soldiers fired into unarmed demonstrators outside the British custom house, resulting in the deaths of five civilians and dramatically escalating tensions. Parliament, meanwhile, insisted on its right to tax the Americans and finally came up with a small tax on tea. Up and down the 13 colonies, Americans prevented merchants from selling the tea, but a shipment arrived in Boston Harbor. On December 16, 1773, 30–60 local Sons of Liberty
The Sons of Liberty was a loosely organized, clandestine, sometimes violent, political organization active in the Thirteen American Colonies founded to advance the rights of the colonists and to fight taxation by the British government. It pl ...
, disguised as Native Americans, dumped 342 chests of tea in the harbor in the Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India Company to sell t ...
. The Sons of Liberty decided to take action in order to defy Britain's new tax on tea, but the British government retaliated with a series of harsh laws, closing down the Port of Boston and stripping Massachusetts of its self-government. The other colonies rallied in solidarity behind Massachusetts, setting up the First Continental Congress, while arming and training militia units. The British sent more troops to Boston, and made its commander General Thomas Gage
General Thomas Gage (10 March 1718/192 April 1787) was a British Army general officer and colonial official best known for his many years of service in North America, including his role as British commander-in-chief in the early days of th ...
the governor. Gage believed the Patriots were hiding munitions in the town of Concord, and he sent troops to capture them. Paul Revere
Paul Revere (; December 21, 1734 O.S. (January 1, 1735 N.S.)May 10, 1818) was an American silversmith, engraver, early industrialist, Sons of Liberty member, and Patriot and Founding Father. He is best known for his midnight ride to a ...
, William Dawes
William Dawes Jr. (April 6, 1745 – February 25, 1799) was one of several men who in April 1775 alerted colonial minutemen in Massachusetts of the approach of British army troops prior to the Battles of Lexington and Concord at the outset ...
, and Dr. Samuel Prescott made their famous midnight rides to alert the Minutemen in the surrounding towns, who fought the resulting Battle of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, ...
in April 1775. It was the first battle of the American Revolution.
Militia units across New England rallied to the defense of Boston, and Congress sent in General George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...
to take command. The British were trapped in the city, and suffered very heavy losses in their victory at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Washington brought in artillery and forced the British out as the patriots took full control of Boston. The American victory on March 17, 1776, is celebrated as Evacuation Day. The city has preserved and celebrated its revolutionary past, from the harboring of the USS ''Constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When these princ ...
'' to the many famous sites along the Freedom Trail
The Freedom Trail is a path through Boston, Massachusetts, that passes by 16 locations significant to the history of the United States. Marked largely with brick, it winds from Boston Common in downtown Boston through the North End to the Bu ...
.
19th century
Economic and population growth
Boston was transformed from a relatively small and economically stagnant town in 1780 to a bustling seaport and cosmopolitan center with a large and highly mobile population by 1800. It had become one of the world's wealthiest international trading ports, exporting products like rum, fish, salt and tobacco. The upheaval of the American Revolution, and the British naval blockade that shut down its economy, had caused a majority of the population to flee the city. From a base of 10,000 in 1780, the population approached 25,000 by 1800. The abolition of slavery in the state in 1783 gave blacks greater physical mobility, but their social mobility was slow.
Boston was part of the New England corner of triangular trade
Triangular trade or triangle trade is trade between three ports or regions. Triangular trade usually evolves when a region has export commodities that are not required in the region from which its major imports come. It has been used to offset ...
, receiving sugar from the Caribbean and refining it into rum
Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is usually aged in oak barrels. Rum is produced in nearly every sugar-producing region of the world, such as the Ph ...
and molasses, partly for export to Europe. Later, confectionery manufacturing would become another refined product made from similar raw materials. Related companies with facilities in Boston included the Boston Sugar Refinery
The Boston Sugar Refinery was a sugar refinery based in East Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The refinery was established in 1834, and in 1860 it was credited as the first refinery to create granulated sugar. Additionally, it was the first ...
(inventors of granulated sugar
White sugar, also called table sugar, granulated sugar, or regular sugar, is a commonly used type of sugar, made either of beet sugar or cane sugar, which has undergone a refining process.
Description
The refining process completely removes ...
), Domino Sugar
Domino Foods, Inc. (also known as DFI and formerly known as W. & F.C. Havemeyer Company, Havemeyer, Townsend & Co. Refinery, and Domino Sugar) is a privately held sugar marketing and sales company based in Yonkers, New York, United States, that ...
, the Purity Distilling Company, Necco
Necco (or NECCO ) was an American manufacturer of candy created in 1901 as the New England Confectionery Company through the merger of several small confectionery companies located in the Greater Boston area, with ancestral companies dating b ...
, Schrafft's
Schrafft's was a candy, chocolate and cake company based in Sullivan Square, Charlestown, Massachusetts. The famous Schrafft's neon sign is a significant landmark in Boston, although the former factory it sits above, constructed in 1928, has been ...
, Squirrel Brands (as the predecessor Austin T. Merrill Company of Roxbury) American Nut and Chocolate (1927) This legacy continued into the 20th century; by 1950, there were 140 candy companies in Boston. (Others were located in and some moved to nearby Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...
.) The Boston Fruit Company
The Boston Fruit Company (1885-1899) was a fruit production and import business based in the port of Boston, Massachusetts. Andrew W. Preston and nine others established the firm to ship bananas and other fruit from the West Indies to north-easte ...
began importing tropical fruit from the Caribbean in 1885; it is a predecessor of United Fruit Company and Chiquita Brands International.
Boston had the status of a town; it was Boston City Charter, chartered as a city in 1822. The second mayor was Josiah Quincy III, who undertook infrastructure improvements in roads and sewers, and organized the city's dock area around the newly erected Faneuil Hall Marketplace, popularly known as Quincy Market. By the mid-19th century Boston was one of the largest manufacturing centers in the nation, noted for its garment production, leather goods, and machinery industries. Manufacturing overtook international trade to dominate the local economy. A network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region made for easy shipment of goods and allowed for a proliferation of mills and factories. The building of the Middlesex Canal extended this small river network to the larger Merrimack River and its mills, including the Lowell mills and mills on the Nashua River in New Hampshire. By the 1850s, an even denser network of railroads (''see also List of railroad lines in Massachusetts'') facilitated the region's industry and commerce. For example, in 1851, Eben Jordan and Benjamin L. Marsh opened the Jordan Marsh Department store in downtown Boston. Thirty years later William Filene opened his own department store across the street, called Filene's.
Several turnpikes were constructed between cities to aid transportation, especially of cattle and sheep to markets. A major east-west route, the Worcester Turnpike (now Massachusetts Route 9), was constructed in 1810. Others included the Newburyport Turnpike (now Route 1) and the Salem Lawrence Turnpike (now Route 114).
Brahmin elite
Boston's Boston Brahmin, "Brahmin elite" developed a particular semi-aristocratic value system by the 1840s—cultivated, urbane, and dignified, the ideal Brahmin was the very essence of enlightened aristocracy. He was not only wealthy, but displayed suitable personal virtues and character traits. The term was coined in 1861 by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. The Brahmin had high expectations to meet: to cultivate the arts, support charities such as hospitals and colleges, and assume the role of community leader. Although the ideal called on him to transcend commonplace business values, in practice many found the thrill of economic success quite attractive. The Brahmins warned each other against "avarice" and insisted upon "personal responsibility." Scandal and divorce were unacceptable. The total system was buttressed by the strong extended family ties present in Boston society. Young men attended the same prep schools and colleges, and had their own Boston Brahmin accent, way of talking. Heirs married heiresses. Family not only served as an economic asset, but also as a means of moral restraint. Most belonged to the Unitarian or Episcopal churches, although some were Congregationalists or Methodists. Politically, they were successively Federalists, Whigs, and Republicans.
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 Brahmin
The Boston Brahmins or Boston elite are members of Boston's traditional upper class. They are often associated with Harvard University; Anglicanism; and traditional Anglo-American customs and clothing. Descendants of the earliest English coloni ...
s'') ruled the city, the 1840s brought waves of new immigrants from Europe. These included large numbers of Ireland, Irish and Italy, Italians, giving the city a large Roman Catholic population.
Abolitionists
In 1831, William Lloyd Garrison founded ''The Liberator (anti-slavery newspaper), The Liberator'', an Abolitionism in the United States, 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. After the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, Boston became a bastion of abolitionist thought. Attempts by slave-catchers to arrest fugitive slaves often proved futile, which included the notable case of Anthony Burns and Kevin McLaughlin. After the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854, Boston also became the hub of efforts to send anti-slavery New Englanders to settle in Kansas Territory through the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company.
Irish
The earliest Irish settlers began arriving in the early 18th century. Initially, they were indentured servants who came to work in Boston and New England for five to seven years, before gaining their independence. They were mainly individuals and families, and they were forced to hide their religious roots since Catholicism was banned in the Bay Colony. Then in 1718, congregations of Presbyterians from Ulster in the north of Ireland began arriving in Boston Harbor. They were referred to as Ulster Irish but later were referred to as Scots-Irish because many of them had roots in Scotland. The Puritan leaders initially sent the Ulster Irish to the fringes of the Bay Colony, where they settled places like Belfast, Maine, Londonderry and Derry, New Hampshire, and Worcester, Massachusetts. But by 1729 they were permitted to set up a church in downtown Boston.
Throughout the 19th century, Boston became a haven for Irish Catholic immigrants, especially following the Great Famine (Ireland), Great Famine of the late 1840s. Their arrival transformed Boston from a singular, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant city to one that has progressively become more diverse. The Yankees hired Irish as workers and servants, but there was little social interaction. In the 1850s, an anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant movement was directed against the Irish, called the Know Nothing Party. But in the 1860s, many Irish immigrants joined the Union ranks to fight in the American Civil War, and that display of patriotism and valor began to soften the harsh sentiments of Yankees about the Irish. Nonetheless, as in New York City draft riots, New York City, on July 14, 1863, a draft riot attempting to raid Union armories broke out among Irish Catholics in the North End, resulting in approximately 8 to 14 deaths. In the 1860 United States presidential election, 1860 presidential election, Abraham Lincoln received only 9,727 votes out of 20,371 cast in Boston (or 48 percent) while receiving 63 percent of the vote 1860 United States presidential election in Massachusetts, statewide, and Boston Irish Catholics mostly voted against Lincoln.
Even to the present day, Boston still commands the largest percentage of Irish-descended people of any city in the United States. With an expanding population, group loyalty, and block by block political organization, the Irish took political control of the city, leaving the Yankees in charge of finance, business and higher education. The Irish left their mark on the region in a number of ways: in still heavily Irish neighborhoods such as Charlestown, Massachusetts, Charlestown and South Boston; in the name of the local basketball team, the Boston Celtics; in the dominant Irish-American political family, the Kennedys; in a large number of prominent local politicians, such as James Michael Curley; in the establishment of Catholic Boston College as a rival to Harvard; and in underworld figures such as James "Whitey" Bulger.
Great Fire of 1872
The Great Boston Fire of 1872 started at the corner of Summer Street and Kingston Street on November 9. In two days the conflagration destroyed about 65 acres (260,000 m²) of the city, including 776 buildings in the Financial District (Boston, Massachusetts), financial district, totaling $60 million in damage.
High culture
From the mid-to-late-19th century, the Boston Brahmins flourished culturally—they became renowned for its rarefied literary culture and lavish artistic patronage. Literary residents included, among many others, writers Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., James Russell Lowell, and Julia Ward Howe, as well as historians John Lothrop Motley, John Gorham Palfrey, George Bancroft, William Hickling Prescott, Francis Parkman, Henry Adams, James Ford Rhodes, Edward Channing and Samuel Eliot Morison. Also there were theologians and philosophers such as William Ellery Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mary Baker Eddy. When Bret Harte visited Howells, he remarked that in Boston "it was impossible to fire a revolver without bringing down the author of a two-volume work." Boston had many great publishers and magazines, such as ''The Atlantic Monthly'' (founded 1857) and the publishers Little, Brown and Company, Houghton Mifflin, and Harvard University Press.
Higher education became increasingly important, principally at Harvard (based across the river in Cambridge), but also at other institutions. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) opened in the city in 1865. 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 Jesuits opened Boston College in 1863; Emerson College opened in 1880, and Simmons College (Massachusetts), Simmons College for women in 1899.
The Brahmins were the foremost authors and audiences of high culture, despite being a minority. Emerging Irish, Jewish, and Italian cultures made little to no impact on the elite.
To please a different audience, 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.
The public Boston Museum of Natural History (founded in 1830 and renamed the New England Museum of Natural History in 1864, and the Museum of Science (Boston), Boston Museum of Science in the mid-twentieth century), was run by the Boston Society of Natural History. It served the function of public and professional education in natural history, including ocean life, geology and mineralogy. Around the end of the 19th century a scientific library and children's rooms were added. In addition, the private Warren Museum of Natural History at Boston operated 1858–1906. It was acquired by the American Museum of Natural History in New York City in 1906.
Transportation
As the population increased rapidly, Boston-area streetcar lines facilitated the creation of a profusion of streetcar suburbs. Middle-class businessmen, office workers and professionals lived in the suburbs and commuted into the city by subway. Downtown congestion worsened, prompting the opening of the first Subway (rail), subway in North America on September 1, 1897, the Tremont Street Subway. Between 1897 and 1912, subterranean rail links were built to Cambridge and East Boston, and elevated and underground lines expanded into other neighborhoods from downtown. Today, the regional passenger rail and bus network has been consolidated into the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. Two union stations, North Station (Boston), North Station and South Station, Boston, South Station were constructed to consolidate downtown railroad terminals.
Censorship
From the late 19th century until the mid-20th century, the phrase "Banned in Boston" was used to describe a literary work, motion picture, or play 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". The phrase "banned in Boston" came to suggest something sexy and lurid; some distributors advertised that their products had been banned in Boston, when in fact they had not.
20th century
Early decades
In 1900, Julia Harrington Duff (1850–1932) became the first woman from the Irish Americans, Irish Catholic community to be elected to the Boston School Committee. Extending her role as teacher and mother she became an ethnic spokesperson as she confronted the power of the Yankee Protestant men of the Public School Association. She worked to replace 37-year-old textbooks, to protect the claims of local Boston women for career opportunities in the school system, and to propose a degree-granting teachers college. In 1905, the 25 member committee was reduced to five, which blocked women's opportunities for direct participation in school policies.
Around the start of the 20th century, caught up in the automobile revolution, Boston was home to the Porter Motor Company, headquartered in the Tremont Building, 73 Tremont Street.
On January 15, 1919, the Great Molasses Flood occurred in the North End. Twenty-one people were killed and 150 injured as an immense wave of molasses, which rushed through the streets at an estimated , crushed and asphyxiated 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.
During the summer of 1919, over 1,100 members of the Boston Police Department went on strike. Boston fell prey to several riots as there were minimal law officers to maintain order in the city. Calvin Coolidge, then governor of Massachusetts, garnered national fame for quelling violence by almost entirely replacing the police force. The Boston Police Strike, 1919 Boston Police Strike would ultimately set precedent for police unionization across the country.
The most infamous swindler was from Boston in the 1920’s. "Charles Ponzi, a dapper, five-foot-two-inch rogue who in 1920 raked in an estimated $15 million in eight months by persuading tens of thousands of Bostonians that he had unlocked the secret to easy wealth. Ponzi's meteoric success at swindling was so remarkable that his name became attached to the method he employed," the "Ponzi scheme." "Charles named his concern the Securities Exchange Company" on 27 School Street in Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, Massachusetts.
On August 23, 1927, Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo 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.
More effective securities laws were required to manage the effects of the depression. Governor of Massachusetts Frank G. Allen appointed John C. Hull (politician), John C. Hull the first Securities Director of Massachusetts in the country in January 1930. At the Massachusetts Statehouse, Hull authored and introduced a bill to the committee on Banks and Banking in the Massachusetts House of Representatives the law relative to the sale of securities (Chapter 110A), on May 4, 1932.
The act was approved in Boston on June 6. 1932.
Three Harvard University, Harvard professors, Felix Frankfurter, Benjamin V. Cohen and James M. Landis drafted both Securities Act of 1933 and Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The 1st Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. was from Boston. . In his address to the Boston Chamber of Commerce on November 15, 1934 Kennedy said this: “Deplorable loss was the consequence of ill-considered conception, preparation, and execution. We don't want the staccato tempo of much of the frenzied financing of the late twenties.” Kennedy continued,
“We have the tremendous task of educating the American public to protect itself against high-pressure salesmanship. No law has ever been devised or administered which successfully eradicated crookedness. The Federal Government, however, hopes to fill a much needed want, hopes to be a vigorous factor in the relentless war on stock frauds.”
Mid-century transportation and urban renewal
The Interstate 695 (Massachusetts), I-695 Inner Belt shown on this map was never built. Interstate 95 in Massachusetts, I-95 is shown here approaching the urban core from the southwest, but it was never built beyond the outer loop shown on this map (which was built as Route 128 (Massachusetts), Route 128 and which I-95 was later re-routed over).
In 1934, the Sumner Tunnel created the first direct road connection under Boston Harbor, between the North End and East Boston.
In May 1938, the first public housing project, Old Harbor Housing Project, Old Harbor Village was opened in South Boston.
By 1950, Boston was slumping. Few major buildings were being built anywhere in the city. Factories were closing and moving their operations south, where labor was cheaper. The assets 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 New York Streets district in the South End, Boston, Massachusetts, South End, the West End, Boston, Massachusetts, old West End, a largely Jewish and Italian-American, Italian neighborhood, and Scollay Square. In their places went a new headquarters for the Boston Herald, the Charles River Park apartment complex, additions to Massachusetts General Hospital, and Scollay Square, Government Center. These projects displaced thousands, closed hundreds of businesses, and provoked a furious backlash, which in turn ensured the survival of many historic neighborhoods.
In 1948, William F. Callahan had published the Master Highway Plan for Metropolitan Boston. Parts of the financial district, Chinatown, and the North End were demolished to make way for construction. By 1956, the northern part of the Central Artery had been constructed, but strong local opposition resulted in the southern downtown portion being built underground. The Dewey Square Tunnel connected downtown to the Southeast Expressway (Boston), Southeast Expressway. In 1961, the Callahan Tunnel opened, paralleling the older Sumner Tunnel.
By 1965, the first Massachusetts Turnpike Extension was completed from Route 128 to near South Station (Boston), South Station. The proposed Interstate 695 (Massachusetts), Inner Belt in Boston, Cambridge, Brookline, and Somerville was canceled due to public outcry. In 1971, public protest canceled the routing of Interstate 95 in Massachusetts, I-95 into downtown Boston. Demolition had already begun along the Southwest Corridor (Boston), Southwest Corridor, which was instead used to re-route the Orange Line (MBTA), Orange Line and Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.
World War II and later
On November 28, 1942, Boston's Cocoanut Grove nightclub was the site of the Cocoanut Grove fire, the deadliest nightclub fire in United States history, killing 492 people and injuring hundreds more.
During the war years, antisemitic violence escalated in Boston. Gangs largely composed of Irish Catholic youths desecrated Jewish cemeteries and synagogues, vandalized Jewish stores and homes, and physically assaulted Jews in the streets. The Boston police force, which was made up largely of Irish Catholics, seldom intervened.
In 1950, the Great Brink's Robbery was committed; at the time it was the largest bank robbery in the United States, with the thieves stealing $2.775 million.
In 1953, the Columbia Point (Boston), Columbia Point public housing projects were completed on the Dorchester peninsula. There were 1,502 units in the development on of land. In 1966, the Columbia Point Health Center opened and was the first community health center in the country.
On January 15, 1961, American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell and a fellow Nazi Party member attempted to Picketing, picket the local premiere of the film ''Exodus (1960 film), Exodus'' at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, Saxon Theatre on Tremont Street
Tremont Street is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts.
Tremont Street begins at Government Center in Boston's city center as a continuation of Cambridge Street, and forms the eastern edge of Boston Common. Continuing in a roughly so ...
in Downtown Boston while staying at the Hotel Touraine across the street. After Mayor of Boston, Boston Mayor John F. Collins (1960–1968) declined to deny Rockwell the right to picket, members of the local Jewish Defense League chapter organized a counterdemonstration of 2,000 Jewish protestors in response on the corner of Tremont and Boylston Streets on the day of the premiere, which forced police to converge on the theater and force Rockwell into a Police car, police cruiser that took him to Logan International Airport where Rockwell was then boarded onto a flight to Washington, D.C., Washington, DC.
Between June 14, 1962, and January 4, 1964, as many as thirteen single women between the ages of 19 and 85 were murdered in Boston by the infamous The Boston Strangler, Boston Strangler. (The actual number remains in dispute.)
In March 1965, an investigative study of Property tax in the United States, property tax Tax assessment#United States, assessment practices published by the National Tax Association of 13,769 properties sold within the City of Boston from January 1, 1960 to March 31, 1964 found that the assessed values in the neighborhood of Roxbury, Boston, Roxbury in 1962 were at 68 percent of market values while the assessed values in West Roxbury were at 41 percent of market values, and the researchers Housing discrimination in the United States#Wealth Disparities, could not find a nonracial explanation for the difference. In 1963, Mayor of Boston, Boston Mayor John F. Collins and Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) executive Edward J. Logue organized a consortium of savings banks, Credit union, cooperatives, and federal and state savings and loan associations in the city called the Boston Banks Urban Renewal Group (B-BURG) that would John F. Collins#Urban renewal, reverse redline parts of Dorchester, John F. Collins#Redlining and busing, Roxbury, and Mattapan along Blue Hill Avenue. Despite the passage of legislation by the 1949–1950 Massachusetts legislature, 156th Massachusetts General Court banning racial discrimination or segregation in housing in 1950, as well as the issuance of Executive Order 11063 by President of the United States, President John F. Kennedy in 1962 requiring all federal agencies to prevent racial discrimination in all federally-funded subsidized housing in the United States, the Boston Housing Authority (BHA) Board actively John F. Collins#Public housing, segregated the public housing developments in the city during the Collins administration as well, with BHA departments engaging in bureaucratic resistance against integration through at least 1966 and the Board retaining control over tenant assignment until 1968.
In the 1970s, after years of economic downturn, Boston boomed again. Financial institutions were granted 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 Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Brigham and Women's Hospital led the nation in medical innovation and patient care. Higher education also became more expensive, and universities such as Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, Boston College, Boston University, BU and Tufts University, Tufts attracted hordes of students to the Boston area; many stayed and became permanent residents. MIT graduates, in particular, founded many successful high-tech companies, which made Boston second only to Silicon Valley as a high-tech center.
On April 1, 1965, a special committee appointed by Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Massachusetts Education Commissioner Owen Kiernan released its final report finding that more than half of black students enrolled in Boston Public Schools (BPS) attended institutions with enrollments that were at least 80 percent black and that Housing segregation in the United States, housing segregation in the city had caused the School segregation in the United States, racial imbalance. From its creation under the National Housing Act of 1934 signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Federal Housing Administration used its official mortgage insurance underwriting policy explicitly to prevent school desegregation. Massachusetts Governor John Volpe filed a request for legislation from the state legislature that defined schools with nonwhite enrollments greater than 50 percent to be imbalanced and granted the State Board of Education the power to withhold state funds from any List of school districts in Massachusetts, school district in the state that was found to have racial imbalance, which Volpe would sign into law the following August.
From September 1974 through September 1976, Boston desegregation busing crisis#Violence, at least 40 riots occurred in the city following the Phase I and Phase II rulings by United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Massachusetts U.S. District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr. in ''Morgan v. Hennigan'' that ordered desegregation 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. A famous photograph, ''The Soiling of Old Glory'', was taken in front of Boston City Hall, viscerally depicting the conflict.
The Columbia Point housing complex deteriorated until only 350 families remained living there in 1988. In 1984, the city of Boston gave control of the complex to a private developer, Corcoran-Mullins-Jennison, who re-developed and re-vitalised the property into a residential mixed-income community called Harbor Point Apartments. It is a very significant example of revitalisation and re-development and was the first federal housing project to be converted to private, mixed-income housing in the USA. Harbor Point has won much acclaim for this transformation, including awards from the Urban Land Institute, the FIABCI Award for International Excellence, and the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence. It was used as a model for the federal HUD HOPE VI public housing program begun in 1992.[Cf. Roessner, p.293. "The HOPE VI housing program, inspired in part by the success of Harbor Point, was created by legislation passed by Congress in 1992."]
On March 18, 1990, the largest art theft in modern history occurred in Boston. Twelve paintings, collectively worth over $100 million, were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum by two thieves posing as police officers. The paintings were not recovered.
Big Dig and public transit in the 2000s
In 2007, the Central Artery/Tunnel project was completed. Nicknamed the Big Dig (Boston, Massachusetts), Big Dig, it had been planned and approved in the 1980s under Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. With construction beginning in 1991, the Big Dig moved the remainder of the Central Artery underground, widened the north-south highway, and created local bypasses to prevent east-west traffic from contributing to congestion. The Ted Williams Tunnel became the third highway tunnel to East Boston and Logan International Airport as part of the project. The Big Dig also produced the landmark Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, and will create over 70 acres (280,000 m²) of public parks in the heart of the city. The project as a whole has eased (but not eliminated) Boston's notorious traffic congestion; however, it is the most expensive construction project in United States history.
The city also saw other transportation projects, including improvement and expansion to its mass transit system, notably to its commuter rail system to southeastern Massachusetts and the development of a bus rapid transit (BRT) system dubbed "The Silver Line." The maritime Port of Boston and Logan International Airport were also developed.
21st century
Recently, Boston has experienced a loss of regional institutions and traditions, which once gave it a very distinct social character, as it has become part of the Northeast megalopolis, northeastern megalopolis. 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; 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, and P&G has announced plans to acquire Gillette (brand), Gillette.
Despite these losses, Boston's ambiance remains unique among Global city, world cities and, in many ways, has improved in recent years—racial tensions have eased dramatically, city streets bustle with a vitality not seen since the 1920s, and once again Boston has become a hub of intellectual, technological, and political ideas. Nevertheless, the city had to tackle gentrification issues and rising living expenses. According to ''Money Magazine'', Boston is one of the world's 100 most expensive cities.
Boston was the host city of the 2004 Democratic National Convention. The city also found itself at the center of national attention in early 2004 during the controversy over Same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, same-sex marriages. After the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that such marriages cannot be banned under the state's constitution, opponents and supporters of such marriages converged on the Massachusetts State House as the Massachusetts General Court, state legislature voted on a state constitutional amendment that would define marriage as only between a man and a woman. Much attention was focused on the city and the rest of Massachusetts when marriage licenses for same-sex couples were issued.
Also in 2004 World Series, 2004, the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years, following it up three years later with a victory in 2007 World Series, 2007, another in 2013 World Series, 2013, and another World Series win in 2018 World Series, 2018. Boston sports continue to dominate.
On April 15, 2013, Boston Marathon bombing, two bombs were detonated during the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring hundreds.
On August 20, 2017 the .boston top-level internet domain (GeoTLD) officially started taking registrations.
Geographic expansion
The City of Boston has expanded in two ways—through landfill and through annexation of neighboring municipalities.
Between 1630 and 1890, the city tripled its physical size by land reclamation, specifically by filling in marshes and mud flats and by filling gaps between wharves along the waterfront, a process Walter Muir Whitehill called "cutting down the hills to fill the coves." The most intense reclamation efforts were in the 19th century. Beginning in 1807, the crown of Beacon Hill was used to fill in a mill pond that later became the Bulfinch Triangle Historic District, Bulfinch Triangle (just south of today's North Station area). The present-day Massachusetts State House, State House sits atop this shortened Beacon Hill. Reclamation projects in the middle of the century created significant parts of the areas now known as the South End, West End, Financial District, and Chinatown. After Great Boston Fire of 1872, The Great Boston Fire of 1872, building rubble was used as landfill along the downtown waterfront.
The most dramatic reclamation project was the filling in of the Back Bay in the mid to late 19th century. Almost six hundred acres (240 hectares) of brackish Charles River marshlands west of the Boston Common were filled in with gravel brought in by rail from the hills of Needham, Massachusetts, Needham Heights.
Boston also grew by annexing the adjacent communities of East Boston, Massachusetts, East Boston, Roxbury, Massachusetts, Roxbury, Dorchester, Massachusetts, Dorchester, West Roxbury, Massachusetts, West Roxbury (including Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, Jamaica Plain and Roslindale, Massachusetts, Roslindale), South Boston, Massachusetts, South Boston, Brighton, Boston, Massachusetts, Brighton, Allston, Boston, Massachusetts, Allston, Hyde Park, Boston, Massachusetts, Hyde Park, and Charlestown, Massachusetts, Charlestown, some of which were also augmented by landfill reclamation. Several proposals to regionalize municipal government failed due to concerns about loss of local control, corruption, and Irish immigration, including:
* 1896 – "County of Boston" proposal in the state legislature
* 1910 – "Real Boston" proposal by Edward Filene to create a regional advisory board
* 1912 – "Greater Boston" proposal by Daniel J. Kiley that would have enlarged the City of Boston to include all 32 municipalities within 10 miles
* 1919 – Annexation proposal by Boston Mayor Andrew Peters
The state government has regionalized some functions in Eastern Massachusetts, including the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (public transit), the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (water and sewer), and the Department of Conservation and Recreation, Metropolitan District Commission (parks, later folded into the statewide Department of Conservation and Recreation).
Timeline of annexations, secessions, and related developments (incomplete):
* 1705 – Hamlet of Muddy River split off to incorporate as Brookline, Massachusetts, Brookline
* 1804 – First part of Dorchester, Massachusetts, Dorchester by act of the state legislature
* 1851 – West Roxbury (including Jamaica Plain and Roslindale) is split off from Roxbury as an independent municipality.
* 1855 – Washington Village, part of South Boston, by act of the state legislature
* 1868 – Roxbury, Massachusetts, Roxbury
* 1870 – Last part of Dorchester
* 1873 – Boston-Brookline annexation debate of 1873 (Brookline was ''not'' annexed)
* 1874 – West Roxbury, Massachusetts, West Roxbury, including Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, Jamaica Plain and Roslindale, Massachusetts, Roslindale (approved by voters in 1873)
* 1874 – Town of Brighton, Boston, Massachusetts, Brighton (including Allston, Boston, Massachusetts, Allston) (approved by voters in 1873)
* 1874 – Charlestown, Massachusetts, Charlestown (approved by voters in 1873)
* 1912 – Hyde Park, Massachusetts, Hyde Park
* 1986 – Vote to create Mandela, Massachusetts, Mandela from parts of Roxbury, Dorchester, and the South End passes locally but fails citywide.
Timeline of land reclamation (incomplete):
* 1857 – Filling of the Back Bay, Boston, Back Bay begins
* 1882 – Present-day Back Bay fill complete
* 1890 – Charles River landfill reaches Kenmore Square, formerly the western end of the Back Bay mill pond
* 1900 – Back Bay Fens fill complete
File:Oldandnewboston.jpg, Original Boston shoreline vs. 1903
File:Boston 1630 1675.jpg, Boston in 1630 vs. 1880. The original area of the Shawmut Peninsula was substantially expanded by landfill.
File:Boston 1772.png, Boston in 1772 vs. 1880
File:1852 Middlesex Canal (Massachusetts) map.jpg, Greater Boston in 1850 (Middlesex Canal highlighted)
File:Situationsplan von Boston (Massachusetts).jpg, A larger view of Boston in 1888 (''see also :File:Boston area colonial map.jpg, Colonial wide-area view, :File:Boston 1814.jpg, 1814 map, :File:Boston 1842.jpg, 1842 map, :File:Boston railroad 1880.jpg, 1880 railroad map, :File:Boston 1903 map.jpg, 1903 map'')
See also
* American urban history
* List of newspapers in Massachusetts in the 18th century
* Timeline of Boston
* History of Irish Americans in Boston
* History of Italian Americans in Boston
Notes
References
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*Dutton, E.P
''Chart of Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay with Map of Adjacent Country''
Published 1867. A good map of roads and rail lines in and around Boston.
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Historical 1842 map of Boston
-"Boston" from Tanner, H.S. ''The American Traveller; or Guide Through the United States''. Eighth Edition. New York, 1842.
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Further reading
* Beatty, Jack. ''The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley, 1874–1958'' (1992)
* Blake, John B. ''Public Health in the Town of Boston, 1630–1822'' (Harvard UP, 1959).
* Bridenbaugh, Carl. Cities in the Wilderness-The First Century of Urban Life in America 1625–1742 (1938)
* Bridenbaugh, Carl. ''Cities in Revolt: Urban Life in America, 1743–1776'' (1955)
* Carp, Benjamin L. ''Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America'' (2010)
* Connolly, James J. ''The Triumph of Ethnic Progressivism: urban political culture in Boston, 1900–1925'' (2009).
* Conzen, Michael P., and George King Lewis, eds. ''Boston: A geographical portrait'' (1976)
* Deutsch, Sarah. ''Women and the City: Gender, Space, and Power in Boston, 1870-1940'' (Oxford University Press, 2000).
* Fischer, David Hackett. ''Paul Revere's Ride'' (Oxford UP, 1994)
* Eisinger, Peter K. "Ethnic political transition in Boston, 1884–1933: Some lessons for contemporary cities." ''Political Science Quarterly'' (1978): 217–239
in JSTOR
* Formisano, Ronald P., Constance K. Burns, eds. ''Boston, 1700–1980: The Evolution of Urban Politics'' (Greenwood Press, 1984
online
* Gamm, Gerald H. ''The making of the New Deal Democrats: Voting behavior and realignment in Boston, 1920–1940'' (University of Chicago Press, 1989).
* Handlin, Oscar. ''Boston's Immigrants: A Study in Acculturation'' (1941), statistical analysis of census data
* Johnson, Marilynn S. ''The New Bostonians: How Immigrants Have Transformed the Metro Area since the 1960s'' (University of Massachusetts Press, 2015) xii, 291 pp
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* Kane, Paula M. ''Separatism and Subculture: Boston Catholicism, 1900–1920'' (2001)
* McCaughey, Robert A. ''Josiah Quincy 1772–1864: The Last Federalist'' (Harvard UP, 1974)
* Miller, John C. ''Sam Adams, Pioneer in Propaganda'' (1936)
* O'Connor, Thomas H. ''The Boston Irish: A Political History'' (1995)
* O'Toole, James M. ''Militant and Triumphant: William Henry O'Connell and the Catholic Church in Boston, 1859–1944'' (1992)
* Peterson, Mark. ''The City-State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630–1865'' (Princeton UP, 2019)
* Russell, Francis. ''A City in Terror—1919--: The Boston Police Strike'' (1975).
* Rutman, Darrett B. ''Winthrop's Boston: Portrait of a Puritan Town, 1630–1649'' (U of North Carolina Press, 1965).
* Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell; Price, Michael
''Boston's immigrants, 1840–1925''
Arcadia Publishing, Images of America series, 2000
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* Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell
''The Great Boston Fire of 1872''
Arcadia Publishing, Images of America series, 1997
* Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell, ''Lost Boston'', Pavilion Press, May 1, 2014.
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* Trout, Charles H. ''Boston, the Great Depression, and the New Deal'' (1977
online
*Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher
''Big Dig, Little Dig, Hidden Worlds: Boston''
''Common-Place,'' American Antiquarian Society, v.3, n.4, July 2003
* Vale, Lawrence J.
"From the Puritans to the Projects: Public Housing and Public Neighbors"
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Press, 2000).
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* Warden, Gerard B. ''Boston, 1689–1776'' (1970), the standard history for the period
* Warner, Sam Bass. ''Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870–1900'' (2nd ed. 1978)
* Waters, John J. ''The Otis Family in Provincial and Revolutionary Massachusetts'' (1968)
* Whitehill, Walter Muir. ''Boston: A Topographical History,'' (2nd ed. Harvard UP, 1968), on geography and neighborhoods
Older titles
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* Edwin Monroe Bacon, Bacon, Edwin Munroe, and Edward, George
"Ellis Bacon's Dictionary of Boston"
Houghton, Mifflin and company, 1886.
* Hartnell, Edward Mussey; McGlenen, Edward Webster; Skelton, Edward Oliver
''Boston and its story, 1630–1915''
City of Boston (Mass.), Printing Department, 1916.
* Moses King, King, Moses
''King's hand-book of Boston'
Cambridge, Mass., M. King, 1878
* Josiah Quincy III, Quincy, Josiah
''A Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston During Two Centuries from September 17, 1630 to September 17, 1830''
Boston : Charles C. Little & James Brown, 1852.
External links
The Boston Historical Society
Boston Mapjunction
– Over 200 historical maps since 1630 and aerial photos compared with Maps of Today
City of Boston Archaeology Program and Lab
– The City of Boston has a City Archaeologist on staff to oversee any lots of land to be developed for historical artifacts and significance, and to manage the archaeological remains located on public land in Boston, and also has a City Archaeology Program and an Archaeology Laboratory, Education and Curation Center.
The Freedom House Photographs
collection contains over 2,000 images of Roxbury people, places and events, 1950–1975 (Archives and Special Collections of the Northeastern University Libraries in Boston, MA).
Reading and Everyday Life in Antebellum Boston: The Diary of Daniel F. and Mary D. Child
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Mapping Boston History
{{DEFAULTSORT:History Of Boston
History of Boston,