[
edit] History
Main article:
History of New EnglandAn early flag of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony.
[6]The
Flag of New England during the
Revolutionary War.
[7]New England's earliest inhabitants were
Algonquian-speaking
Native Americans including the
Abenaki, the
Penobscot, and the
Wampanoag. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Western Abenakis inhabited New Hampshire and Vermont, as well as parts of
Québec and western Maine. Their principal town was
Norridgewock, in present-day Maine. The Penobscot were settled along the
Penobscot River in Maine. The
Wampanoag occupied southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the islands of
Martha's Vineyard and
Nantucket. The Connecticut region was inhabited by the
Mohegan and
Pequot tribes prior to European colonization.
Compared to other North American settlements, New England was sparsely populated and densely forested, leading European settlers to believe North America was a "virgin land."
[8][
edit] The Virginia Companies compete
On April 10, 1606, King
James I of England issued two charters, one each for the
Virginia Companies, of
London and
Plymouth, respectively.
[9][10][11] Due to a duplication of territory (between Chesapeake Bay and Long Island Sound), the two companies were required to maintain a separation of 100 Miles, even where the two charters overlapped.
[9][10][11]These were privately-funded proprietary ventures, and the purpose of each was to claim land for England, trade, and return a profit.
[12] Competition between the two companies grew to where their potential New World territory overlapped, and would be finalized based upon results.
The London Company was authorized to make settlements from North Carolina to New York (
31 to
41 degrees North Latitude), provided there was no conflict with the Plymouth Company’s charter.
The
Popham Colony was planted at the mouth of Maine's Kennebec River by the Virginia Company of Plymouth in the fall of 1607. Unlike the Jamestown Settlement, it was not successful, and was abandoned the following spring.
[13] The Virginia Company of Plymouth's charter included land extending as far as present-day northern Maine.
[14] Captain John Smith, exploring the shores of the region in 1614, named the region "New England"
[15] in his account of two voyages there, published as
A Description of New England.
[
edit] Plymouth Council for New England
The first coins struck in the Colonies were the silver "Pine Tree"
Shillings.
The name "New England" was officially sanctioned on November 3, 1620
[16], when the charter of the Virginia Company of Plymouth was replaced by a
royal charter for the
Plymouth Council for New England, a
joint stock company established to colonize and govern the region.
[17] Shortly afterwards, in December 1620, a permanent settlement was established near present-day
Plymouth by the
Pilgrims, English religious separatists arriving via
Holland, after they famously disembarked at
Plymouth Rock. The
Massachusetts Bay Colony, which would come to dominate the area, was established in 1628 with its major city of
Boston established in 1630.
Banished from Massachusetts for heresy,
Roger Williams led a group south, and founded
Providence, Rhode Island in 1636. On March 3 of the same year,
Thomas Hooker also left Massachussetts and the
Connecticut Colony was granted a charter, establishing its own government in
Hartford. At this time, Vermont was yet unsettled, and the territories of
New Hampshire and
Maine were governed by
Massachusetts.
[
edit] New England Confederation
In these early years, relationships between colonists and Native Americans alternated between peace and armed skirmishes. Six years after the bloodiest of these, the
Pequot War in 1643, the colonies of
Massachusetts Bay,
Plymouth,
New Haven, and
Connecticut joined together in a loose compact called the
New England Confederation (officially "The United Colonies of New England"). The confederation was designed largely to coordinate mutual defense against possible wars with
Native Americans, the
Dutch in the
New Netherland colony to the west, the
Spanish in the south, and the French in
New France to the north, as well as to assist in the return of runaway
slaves. The confederation lost its influence when Massachusetts refused to commit itself to a war against the
Dutch.
The first
coins struck in the Colonies, prompted by a shortage of change, were the New England coins produced by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The first series was a simple design including "NE" on the obverse and the various denominations on the reverse. Other series included the "Willow," "Oak," and "Pine Tree." The "Pine Tree" coinage was the last type in the series, struck by coiner John Hull. Although the majority were dated 1652, it is generally acknowledged that production spanned about thirty years, despite the disapproval of
King Charles II.
[18][
edit] Dominion of New England
Main article:
Dominion of New EnglandNew England map of 1707 by
Pieter van der AaIn 1686,
King James II, concerned about the increasingly independent ways of the colonies, including their self-governing charters, open flouting of the
Navigation Acts, and increasing military power, established the
Dominion of New England, an administrative union comprising all of the New England colonies. On August 11, 1688
[19], the provinces of
New York and
New Jersey, seized from the Dutch in 1664, and confirmed on September 12, 1673, were added.
[19] The union, imposed from the outside and contrary to the rooted democratic tradition of the region, was highly unpopular among the colonists.
Nevertheless, those two present states are reckoned as "greater New England" in a social or cultural context, as that is where Yankee colonists expanded to; before 1776. Cultural identity in that era changed once one moved to
Pennsylvania, as the
Pennamite-Yankee War attests to. Colonists from New England proper in that era, were rather well received in the
Mohawk Valley and on
Long Island in New York.
After the
Glorious Revolution in 1689, Bostonians imprisoned the Royal Governor and other sympathizers of King James II on April 18, 1689, thus ending the Dominion Of New England de facto.
[20][21] The charters of the colonies were significantly modified after this change in
English politics, with the appointment of Royal Governors to nearly every colony. An uneasy tension existed between the Royal Governors, their officers, and the elected governing bodies of the colonies. The governors wanted unlimited authority, and the different layers of locally elected officials would often resist them. In most cases, the local town governments continued operating as self-governing bodies, just as they had before the appointment of the Royal Governors. This tension culminated itself in the
American Revolution, boiling over with the breakout of the
American War of Independence in 1775.
[
edit] Region of the United States
Boston College: The Old World's enduring influence over New England is evident in the architecture
The colonies were now formally united as newly-formed states in a larger (but not yet federalist) union United States of America. In the 18th century and the early 19th century, New England was still considered to be a very distinct region of the colony and country, as it is today. During the
War of 1812, there was a limited amount of talk of secession from the Union, as New England merchants, just getting back on their feet, opposed the war with their greatest trading partner -
Great Britain.
[22] The
Hartford Convention of 1814 considered secession, but failed to act on it.
For the remainder of the Antebellum period, New England remained distinct. Politically, it often went against the grain of the rest of the country. Massachusetts and Connecticut were among the last refuges of the
Federalist Party, and when the
Second Party System began in the 1830s, New England became the strongest bastion of the new
Whig Party. The Whigs were usually dominant throughout New England, except in the more Democratic Maine and New Hampshire. Many of the leading statesmen — including most prominently
Daniel Webster - hailed from the region. New England was also distinct in other ways. It was, as a whole, the most urbanized part of the country (the 1860 Census showed that 32 of the 100 largest cities in the country were in New England), as well as the most educated. Many of the major literary and intellectual figures produced by the United States in the Antebellum period were New Englanders, including
Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Henry David Thoreau,
Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
John Greenleaf Whittier,
George Bancroft,
William H. Prescott, and others.
New England was also an early center of the industrial revolution.
Pawtucket, Rhode Island is considered the birthplace of America's industrial revolution,
[23] the city in which
Slater's Mill was founded. Despite the nickname, several textile mills were already under way before Slater Mill was established. The first textile mill in the United States was built in 1787 at
Beverly, Massachusetts by entrepreneur John
Cabot. Towns like
Lawrence, Massachusetts,
Lowell, Massachusetts,
Woonsocket, Rhode Island and
Lewiston, Maine became famed as centers of the textile industry following models from Slater Mill and Beverly. The textile manufacturing in New England was growing rapidly which caused a shortage of workers. Recruiters were hired by mill agents to bring young women from the countryside to work in the factories. Between 1830 and 1860, thousands of farm girls came from their rural homes in New England to work in the mills. Farmers’ daughters left their homes to aid their families financially, save for marriage, and widen their horizons. They also left their homes due to population pressures to look for opportunities in expanding New England cities. Stagecoach and railroad services made it easier for the rapid flow of workers to travel from the country to the city. The majority of female workers came from rural farming towns in northern New England. As the textile industry grew, immigration grew as well. As the number of Irish workers in the mills increased, the number of young women working in the mills decreased. Mill employment of women caused a population boom in urban centers.
[24]New England and areas settled from New England, like Upstate New York, Ohio's
Western Reserve and the upper midwestern states of
Michigan and
Wisconsin, also proved to be the center of the strongest
abolitionist sentiment in the country. Prominent abolitionists like
William Lloyd Garrison and
Wendell Phillips were New Englanders, and the region was also home to prominent anti-slavery politicians like
John Quincy Adams,
Charles Sumner, and
John P. Hale. When the anti-slavery
Republican Party was formed in the 1850s, all of New England, including areas which had previously been strongholds for both the Whig and the Democratic Parties, became strongly Republican, as it would remain until the early 20th century, when immigration would begin to turn the formerly solidly Republican states of Lower New England towards the Democrats.
Aside from the Canadian province of
Nova Scotia, or "New
Scotland," New England is the only North American region to inherit the name of a kingdom in the British Isles. New England has largely preserved its regional character, especially in its historic places. Its name is a reminder of the past, as many of the original English-Americans have migrated further west. Today, the region is more ethnically
diverse, having seen waves of
immigration from Ireland,
Québec, Italy, Portugal, Asia,
Latin America, Africa, other parts of the United States, and elsewhere. The enduring European influence can be seen in the region, from use of traffic
rotaries to the bilingual French and English towns of northern Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire, as innocuous as the sprinkled use of
British spelling, and as obvious as the region's heavy prevalence of English town and county names, and its unique, often non-
rhotic coastal dialect reminiscent of southeastern England.
New England is the traditional center of
ethnic English ancestry and culture in the United States. The only place in the U.S. outside New England with a significant majority English ethnicity is
Utah-
Eastern Idaho—the traditional core of the
Jello Belt region, whose proportion of
English Americans is actually higher today than New England, with Utah being the most English of U.S. states with 29.0% English ancestry, followed by New England states Maine with 21.5% and Vermont with 18.4%. This population is contrastingly far more conservative than modern New England and is mainly
LDS in religion, but its substratal cultural character is largely reminiscent of both early 19th century New England and
Victorian England (due to later direct
handcart immigration).
See also:
List of place names in New England of aboriginal origin[
edit] Geography
A
USGS map depicts a small piece of Maine's fjordlike coast.
New England's long rolling hills, mountains, and jagged coastline are
glacial landforms resulting from the retreat of ice sheets approximately 18,000 years ago, during the
last glacial period. The coast of the region, extending from southwestern Connecticut to northeastern Maine, is dotted with lakes, hills, swamps, and sandy beaches. Further inland are the
Appalachian Mountains, extending through Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Among them, in the
White Mountains of New Hampshire is
Mount Washington, which at 1,917 m (6,288 ft), is the highest peak in the northeast United States. It is also the site of the highest recorded wind speed on Earth.
[25] Vermont's
Green Mountains, which become the
Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts and Connecticut, are smaller than the White Mountains. Valleys in the region include the
Connecticut River Valley and the
Merrimack Valley.
The longest river is the
Connecticut River, which flows from northeastern New Hampshire for 655 km (407 mi), emptying into the
Long Island Sound, roughly bisecting the region.
Lake Champlain, wedged between Vermont and New York, is the largest lake in the region, followed by
Moosehead Lake in Maine and
Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire.
[
edit] Climate
Weather patterns vary throughout the region. Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont have a humid continental short summer climate, with mild summers and cold winters. Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, have a humid continental long summer climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Owing to thick
deciduous forests, fall in New England brings bright and colorful
foliage, which comes earlier than in other regions, attracting tourism by 'leaf peepers'.
[26] Springs are generally wet and cloudy. Average rainfall generally ranges from 1,000 to 1,500 mm (40 to 60 in) a year, although the northern parts of Vermont and Maine see slightly less, from 500 to 1,000 mm (20 to 40 in). Snowfall can often exceed 2,500 mm (100 in) annually. As a result, the mountains and ski resorts of Vermont and New Hampshire are popular destinations in the winter.
[5][27]The lowest recorded temperature in New England was -50 °F (-46 °C), at
Bloomfield, Vermont, on
December 30,
1933. This was tied by Big Black River, Maine in 2009.
[28][
edit] Population
Boston is considered to be the cultural and historical capital of New England, though today New York City exerts strong influence on the region's extreme southwest corner.
In 2005, the total population of New England was 14,239,724 people, roughly a 50% increase from its 1929 population of 9,813,000.
[29] If New England were one state, its population would rank 5th in the nation, behind
Florida. Its land area, at 62,808.96 sq mi (162,672.45 km²), would rank 21st, behind
Washington and ahead of
Georgia. The region's average
population density is 221.66 inhabitants/sq mi (85.59/km²), although a great disparity exists between its northern and southern portions, as noted below. It is much greater than that of the United States as a whole (79.56/sq mi) or even just the contiguous 48 states (94.48/sq mi).
[
edit] Southern New England
Three-quarters of the population of New England and most of the major cities are in the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Their combined population density is 786.83/sq mi, compared to northern New England's 63.56/sq mi (2000 census). The most populous state is Massachusetts, and the most populous city is Massachusetts' political and cultural capital,
Boston.
Providence claims the largest contiguous area of
National Register of Historic Places-listed buildings in the U.S.
[
edit] Coastal New England
The coastline is more urban than western New England, which is typically rural, even in urban states like Massachusetts. This characteristic of the region's population is due mainly to historical factors; the original colonists settled mostly on the coastline of
Massachusetts Bay. The only New England state without access to the Atlantic Ocean, Vermont, is also the least urbanized
[30]. After nearly 400 years, the region still maintains, for the most part, its historical population layout.
New England's coast is dotted with urban centers, such as
Portland,
Portsmouth,
Boston,
New Bedford,
Fall River,
Providence,
New Haven,
Bridgeport, and
Stamford as well as smaller cities, like
Newburyport,
Gloucester,
Biddeford,
Bath,
Rockland,
Newport, and
New London.
[
edit] Urban New England
Southern New England forms an integral part of the
BosWash megalopolis, a conglomeration of urban centers that spans from Boston to
Washington, D.C.. The region includes three of the four
most densely populated states in the United States; only New Jersey has a higher population density than the states of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
Worcester, Massachusetts
Greater Boston, which includes parts of southern New Hampshire, has a total population of approximately 4.4 million,
[31], while over half the population of New England falls inside Boston's
Combined Statistical Area of over 7.4 million.
[32] The
most populous cities are as of 2000 Census (2008 estimates in parenthesis):
[33][34]Boston, Massachusetts: 589,141
[35] (609,023)
Providence, Rhode Island: 173,618 (175,255)
Worcester, Massachusetts: 172,648 (175,454)
Springfield, Massachusetts: 152,082 (150,640)
Bridgeport, Connecticut: 139,529 (136,405)
Hartford, Connecticut: 124,558 (124,062)
New Haven, Connecticut: 123,626 (123,669)
Stamford, Connecticut: 117,083 (119,303)
Waterbury, Connecticut: 107,271 (107,037)
Manchester, New Hampshire: 107,006 (108,586)
Lowell, Massachusetts: 105,167 (103,615)
Cambridge, Massachusetts: 101,355 (105,596)
During the 20th century, urban expansion in regions surrounding New York City has become an important economic influence on neighboring Connecticut, parts of which belong to the
New York Metropolitan Area. The US Census Bureau groups
Fairfield,
New Haven and
Litchfield counties in western Connecticut together with New York City, and other parts of New York and
New Jersey as a
combined statistical area.
[36][
edit] Economy
Several factors contribute to the uniquenesses of the New England
economy. The region is geographically isolated from the rest of the United States, and is relatively small. It has a climate and a supply of natural resources (such as granite, lobster, and codfish) that are different from many other parts of the country. Its population is concentrated on the coast and in its southern states, and its residents have a strong regional identity. America's textile industry began along the
Blackstone River with the
Slater Mill at
Pawtucket, Rhode Island,
[37] and was duplicated at similar sources of water power such as
Woonsocket, Rhode Island,
Uxbridge, Massachusetts, and
Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Exports consist mostly of industrial products, including specialized
machines and
weaponry, built by the region's educated workforce. About half of the region's exports consist of industrial and commercial machinery, such as
computers and electronic and electrical equipment. This, when combined with instruments,
chemicals, and transportation equipment, makes up about three-quarters of the region's exports. Granite is quarried at
Barre, Vermont,
[38] guns made at
Springfield, Massachusetts and
Saco, Maine, boats at
Groton, Connecticut and
Bath, Maine, and hand tools at
Turners Falls, Massachusetts. Insurance is a driving force in and around
Hartford, Connecticut.
Hartford, the "Insurance Capital of the World".
New England also exports food products, ranging from
fish to lobster, cranberries, Maine potatoes, and
maple syrup. The service industry is also highly important, including tourism, education, financial and insurance services, plus architectural, building, and construction services. The
U.S. Department of Commerce has called the New England economy a microcosm for the entire United States economy.
[39]As of December 2008, the unemployment rate in New England was 6.9%, below the national average. New Hampshire, with the lowest of the six states, had a rate of 4.6%. The highest was Rhode Island, with 10.0%. The
metropolitan statistical area (MSA) with the lowest rate, 2.5%, was
Manchester, New Hampshire; the MSA with the highest rate, 10.8%, was
Lawrence-Methuen-Salem, in Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire.
[40]New England has two of the ten poorest cities (by percentage living below the poverty line) in the United States: the state capital cities of
Providence, Rhode Island and
Hartford, Connecticut.
[41] These cities have struggled as manufacturing, their traditional economic mainstay, has declined.
[42]On the other hand, New Hampshire and Connecticut had some of the lowest poverty rates in the country in 2006.
[43]With its rocky soil and climate, New England is not a strong agricultural region. Some New England states, however, are ranked highly among U.S. states for particular areas of production. Maine is ranked ninth for
aquaculture,
[44] Vermont fifteenth for dairy products,
[45] and Connecticut and Massachusetts seventh and eleventh for
tobacco, respectively.
[46][47] Cranberries are grown in Massachusetts'
Cape Cod-Plymouth-South Shore area, and blueberries in Maine. As of 2007, the inflation-adjusted combined
GSPs of the six states of New England was $744.6 billion, with Massachusetts contributing the most, and Vermont the least.
[48] If a single state, this would
rank fourth, behind
New York,
Texas, and
California.
[
edit] Energy
The region is mostly very energy efficient compared to the country at large. Rhode Island has the lowest per capita energy consumption of any state in the country and five of the New England states placed in the lowest eleven. Maine, by contrast, had the 17th-highest per capita consumption.
[49]The six New England states collectively have the highest electricity costs in the nation. The best rates are in Vermont which stands 41st in the country; the worst, Rhode Island, is 50th (out of 51).
[50]Three of the six New England states are among the country's highest consumers of nuclear power: Vermont (first, 73.7%), Connecticut (fourth, 48.9%), and New Hampshire (sixth, 46%).
[51][
edit] Agriculture
In the US, milk prices collapsed in 2009. Vermont Senator
Bernie Sanders accused
Dean Foods of controlling 70% of New England's milk market. He has requested the
United States Department of Justice to pursue an
anti-trust investigation.
[52][
edit] Politics
The early European settlers of New England were English
Protestants fleeing religious persecution. This, however, did not prevent them from establishing colonies where religion was legislated to an extreme, and where those who deviated from the established doctrine were persecuted greatly. The early history of much of New England is marked by religious intolerance and harsh laws. In the beginning, there was no
separation of church and state in these places, and the activities of the individual were severely restricted.
[53] This contrasts sharply with the strong separation of church and state upon which Rhode Island was founded. Providence had no
public burial ground and no Common until the year 1700 (64 years after its founding) because religious and government institutions were so rigorously kept distinct.
[54][
edit] New England and political thought
Samuel Adams, a brewer and
patriot during the revolutionary period
During the colonial period and the early years of the American republic, New England leaders like
John Hancock,
John Adams, and
Samuel Adams joined those in Philadelphia and Virginia to assist and lead the newly-forming country.
Daniel Webster was influential in expressing the political views of many New-Englanders in the early 19th century. At the time of the
American Civil War, New England, the mid-Atlantic, and the Midwest, which had long since abolished slavery, united against the
Confederate States of America, ending the practice in the United States.
Henry David Thoreau, iconic New England writer and philosopher, made the case for
civil disobedience and
individualism, and has been adopted by the
anarchist tradition.
Benjamin Tucker, of Massachusetts, was a proponent of
individualist anarchism. A modern example of this individualist spirit is the
Free State Project in New Hampshire, and The
Second Vermont Republic in Vermont.
While modern New England is known for its liberal tendencies, Puritan New England was highly intolerant of any deviation from strict social norms. During the 1960s civil rights era, Boston brewed with racial tension over school busing to end de facto segregation of its public schools.
[55]Eight presidents of the United States have been born in New England, however only five are usually affiliated with the area. They are, in chronological order:
John Adams (Massachusetts),
John Quincy Adams (Massachusetts),
Franklin Pierce (New Hampshire),
Chester A. Arthur (born in Vermont, affiliated with New York),
Calvin Coolidge (born in Vermont, affiliated with Massachusetts),
John F. Kennedy (Massachusetts),
George H. W. Bush (born in Massachusetts, affiliated with Texas) and
George W. Bush (born in Connecticut, affiliated with Texas).
Nine vice presidents of the United States have been born in New England, however, again only five are usually affiliated with the area. They are, in chronological order: John Adams,
Elbridge Gerry (Massachusetts),
Hannibal Hamlin (Maine),
Henry Wilson (born in New Hampshire, affiliated with Massachusetts), Chester A. Arthur,
Levi P. Morton (born in Vermont, affiliated with New York), Calvin Coolidge,
Nelson Rockefeller (born in Maine, affiliated with New York), George H.W. Bush.
Ten of the Speakers of the United States House of Representatives have been elected from New England. They are, in chronological order:
Theodore Sedgwick (5th Speaker, Massachusetts),
Joseph Bradley Varnum (7th Speaker, Massachusetts),
Robert Charles Winthrop (22nd Speaker, Massachusetts),
Nathaniel Prentice Banks (25th Speaker, Massachusetts),
James G. Blaine (31st Speaker, Maine),
Thomas Brackett Reed (36th and 38th, Maine),
Frederick Gillett (42nd, Massachusetts),
Joseph William Martin, Jr. (49th and 51st, Massachusetts),
John William McCormack (53rd, Massachusetts) and
Tip O'Neill (55th, Massachusetts).
[
edit] Contemporary politics
Since 1962, the dominant party in New England has been the
Democratic Party. In every New England state, both legislative houses have a majority of Democratic representatives. Since 2006, the parties have split the governor's positions with Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts being Democratic and Connecticut, Rhode Island and Vermont being held by Republicans. The latter three states have legislatures with veto-overriding Democratic super-majorities.
[56][57][58]In the election of 2008, the Democratic Party won all of New England's seats in the lower house of Congress, as
Congressman Chris Shays of Connecticut's fourth Congressional District, New England's lone Republican in the House of Representatives, lost to Democrat
Jim Himes.
Due to the liberal lean of the region, the state Republican parties and the elected Republican officials have been more politically and socially moderate than the national Republican Party, including Senators
Susan Collins and
Olympia Snowe of
Maine as well as Governors
Donald Carcieri (RI),
Jodi Rell (CT) and
Jim Douglas (VT). Republican Senator
Judd Gregg of New Hampshire has been moderate-to-conservative, but this is reflective of New Hampshire being the most conservative state in the region, as New Hampshire, prior to the 2006 election, had the only Republican-controlled legislature in New England.
Collectively, New England has
as many electoral votes (34) as
Texas, though they are decided by each state. Comparatively, New England has better electoral representation — the population of New England is over 14 million while the population of Texas just under 24 million. In the
2000 presidential election, Democratic candidate
Al Gore carried all of the New England states except for
New Hampshire, and in
2004,
John Kerry, a New Englander himself, won all six New England states.
[59] In both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, every congressional district with the exception of
New Hampshire's 1st district were won by Gore and Kerry respectively. During the 2008 Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton won the three New England states containing
Greater Boston (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire), while Barack Obama won the three that did not (Connecticut, Maine, and Vermont). In the
2008 presidential election, the Democratic candidate,
Barack Obama, carried all six states by 9 percentage points or more.
[60] He also carried every county in New England except for Piscataquis County, Maine, which he lost by 4% to Senator
John McCain (R-AZ).
As does the rest of the United States, New England has
winner-take-all single-member districts for representation in the national Congress. As a result of majority Democratic support in every district in 2008, there were no opposition (Republican) members of
United States House of Representatives elected in New England.
[
edit] Government
[
edit] Town meetings
Main article:
Town meetingA derivative of meetings held by church elders,
town meetings were and are an integral part of governance of many
New England towns. At such meetings, any citizen of the town may discuss issues with other members of the community and vote on them. This is the strongest example of
direct democracy in the United States today, and the form of dialogue has been adopted under certain circumstances elsewhere, most strongly in the states closest to the region, such as New York,
New Jersey and
Pennsylvania. Such a strong democratic tradition was even apparent in the early 19th century, when
Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in
Democracy in America that in:
“
New England, where education and liberty are the daughters of morality and religion, where society has acquired age and stability enough to enable it to form principles and hold fixed habits, the common people are accustomed to respect intellectual and moral superiority and to submit to it without complaint, although they set at naught all those privileges which wealth and birth have introduced among mankind. In New England, consequently, the democracy makes a more judicious choice than it does elsewhere.
”
James Madison, a critic of town meetings, however, wrote in
Federalist No. 55 that, regardless of the assembly, "passion never fails to wrest the scepter from reason. Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob."
[61] Today, the use and effectiveness of town meetings, as well as the possible application of the format to other regions and countries, is still discussed by scholars.
[62][
edit] Notable laws
New England abolished the
death penalty for crimes like robbery and burglary in the 19th century, before much of the rest of the United States did. New Hampshire and Connecticut are the only New England states that allow
capital punishment,
[63] although New Hampshire currently has one
death row inmate but has not held an execution since 1939. Connecticut held an execution in 2005, the first in New England since 1960, when Connecticut last executed a prisoner.
[64]In 2006, Massachusetts adopted a
health care reform that requires nearly all state residents obtain health insurance.
[65][
edit] Education
[
edit] Colleges and universities
New England is home to four of the eight
Ivy League universities. Pictured here is Dartmouth Hall on the campus of
Dartmouth College.
New England contains some of the oldest and most renowned institutions of higher learning in the United States. The first such institution, subsequently named
Harvard College, was founded at
Cambridge, Massachusetts, to train preachers, in 1636.
Yale University was founded in
Old Saybrook, Connecticut, in 1701, and awarded the nation's first doctoral (Ph.D.) degree in 1861. Yale moved to
New Haven, Connecticut, in 1718 where it has remained to the present day.
Brown University, the first college in the nation to accept students of all religious affiliations and seventh-oldest institution of higher learning, was founded in
Providence, Rhode Island, in 1764.
Dartmouth College was founded five years later in
Hanover, New Hampshire, with the mission of educating the local
American Indian population as well as English youth.
In addition to four out of eight
Ivy League schools, New England also contains the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the
Little Three, four of the original
seven sisters, the bulk of institutions identified as the
Little Ivies, and the
Five Colleges consortium in western Massachusetts.
See also: the lists of colleges for each state:
Connecticut,
Maine,
Massachusetts,
New Hampshire,
Rhode Island, and
Vermont.
[
edit] Private and independent secondary schools
At the pre-college level, New England is home to a number of prominent American
independent schools (also known as
private schools). The concept of the elite "
New England prep school" (preparatory school) and the "
preppy" lifestyle is an iconic part of the region's image.
See the list of private schools for each state:
Connecticut,
Massachusetts,
Maine,
New Hampshire,
Rhode Island,
Vermont.
[
edit] Public education
Boston Latin School is the oldest public high school in America. Several signers of the Declaration of Independence attended Boston Latin.
[66]New England states fund their public schools with expenditures per student, and teacher salaries above the national median. As of 2005, the
National Education Association ranked Connecticut with the highest-paid teachers in the country. Massachusetts and Rhode Island ranked eighth and ninth, respectively.
Three New England states, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, have cooperated in developing a
New England Common Assessment Program test under the
No Child Left Behind guidelines. These states can compare the resultant scores with each other.
[
edit] Academic journals and press
New England is home to several prominent academic journals and publishing companies, including
The New England Journal of Medicine,
Harvard University Press, and
Yale University Press. Also, many of its institutions lead the
open access alternative to conventional academic publication, including
MIT, the
University of Connecticut, and the
University of Maine. The
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston publishes the New England Economic Review.
[67][
edit] Public health and safety
The six states ranked within the top thirteen "healthiest states" in 2007.
[68] In 2008 they all placed within the top eleven states. New England had the largest proportion of its population covered by health insurance.
[69]In comparing national
obesity rates by state, four of the six lowest obesity states were Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and Rhode Island. New Hampshire and Maine had the 15th and 18th lowest obesity rates, making New England the least overweight part of the country.
[70]In 2008, three of New England's states had the least number of uninsured motorists (out of the top five states) - Massachusetts - 1%, Maine - 4%, and Vermont - 6%.
[71]Nursing home care can be expensive in the region. A private room in Connecticut averaged $125,925 annually. A one-bedroom in an assisted living facility averaged $55,137 in Massachusetts. Both are national highs.
[72][
edit] Culture
New England has a history of shared heritage and culture primarily shaped by waves of immigration from Europe. A cultural divide, however, also exists between urban New Englanders living along the densely-populated coastline and rural New Englanders in western Massachusetts, northwestern Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, where population density is low.
[73][
edit] Cultural roots
The first European colonists of New England were focused on
maritime affairs such as
whaling and
fishing, rather than more
continental inclinations such as
surplus farming. One of the older American regions, New England has developed a distinct
cuisine,
dialect,
architecture, and government. New England cuisine is known for its emphasis on seafood and dairy;
clam chowder, lobster, and other products of the sea are among some of the region's most popular foods.
See also:
Cuisine of New England[
edit] Accents
There are several
American-English accents spoken in the region.
The often-
parodied Boston accent (see
Mayor Quimby of
The Simpsons) is native to the region. Many of its most stereotypical features (such as
r-dropping and the so-called
broad A) are believed to have originated in Boston from the influence of
South-East England English, which shares those features. While at one point Boston accents were most strongly associated with the so-called "
Eastern Establishment" and
Boston's upper class, today the accent is predominantly associated with blue-collar natives as exemplified by movies like
Good Will Hunting and
The Departed. The Boston accent and accents closely related to it cover eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, though there is of course significant dialect variation within this area.
[74][
edit] Social activities and music
In much of rural New England, particularly Maine,
Acadian and
Québécois culture are included in the region's music and dance.
Contra dancing and country
square dancing are popular throughout New England, usually backed by live Irish, Acadian, or other folk music.
Traditional
knitting,
quilting and
rug hooking circles in rural New England have become less common;
church,
sports, and
town government are more typical social activities. New Englanders of all ages also enjoy
ice cream socials.[
citation needed] These traditional gatherings are often hosted in individual homes or civic centers; larger groups regularly assemble at special-purpose
ice cream parlors that dot the countryside. In fact, New England leads the country in ice cream consumption per capita.
[75][76]In the United States,
candlepin bowling is essentially confined to New England, where it was invented in the 19th century.
[77][
edit] Media
The leading national cable sports broadcaster
ESPN is headquartered in
Bristol, Connecticut. New England has several regional cable networks, including
New England Cable News (NECN) and the
New England Sports Network (NESN). New England Cable News is the largest regional news network in the United States, broadcasting to more than 3.2 million homes in all of the New England states. Its studios are located in
Newton, Massachusetts, outside of Boston, although it maintains bureaus in
Manchester, New Hampshire;
Hartford, Connecticut;
Worcester, Massachusetts;
Portland, Maine; and
Burlington, Vermont.
[78] In Connecticut, Litchfield, Fairfield, and New Haven counties broadcast New York based news programs--this is due to the immense influence New York has on this region's economy and culture.
NESN broadcasts the
Boston Red Sox and
Boston Bruins throughout the region, save for Fairfield County, Connecticut.
[79] Most of Connecticut (save for Tolland and Windham counties in the state's northeast corner) and even southern Rhode Island gets YES network, the channel which the New York Yankees are broadcasted on. For the most part, the same areas also carry SNY, Sports New York, which is the channel New York Mets games are broadcasted on.
Comcast SportsNet New England carries the
Boston Celtics and
Boston Cannons.
While most New England cities have daily newspapers, the
Boston Globe and
New York Times are distributed widely throughout the region. Major newspapers also include the
The Providence Journal, and
Hartford Courant, the nation's oldest continuously published newspaper.
[80][
edit] Literature
Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston and spent most of his literary career in
Concord, Massachusetts.
New England has been the birthplace of many American authors and poets.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in
Boston.
Henry David Thoreau was born in
Concord, Massachusetts, where he famously lived, for some time, by
Walden Pond, on Emerson's land.
Nathaniel Hawthorne,
romantic era writer, was born in historical
Salem; later, he would live in Concord at the same time as Emerson and Thoreau.
Emily Dickinson lived most of her life in
Amherst, Massachusetts.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was from Portland, Maine.
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston. According to many reports, the famed
Mother Goose, the author of fairy tales and nursery rhymes was originally a person named Elizabeth Foster Goose or Mary Goose who lived in Boston. Poets
James Russell Lowell,
Amy Lowell, and
Robert Lowell, a
Confessionalist poet and teacher of
Sylvia Plath, were all New England natives.
Anne Sexton, also taught by Lowell, was born and died in Massachusetts. Much of the work of Nobel Prize laureate
Eugene O'Neill is often associated with the city of
New London, Connecticut where he spent many summers. The 14th U.S.
Poet Laureate Donald Hall, a New Hampshire resident, continues the line of renowned New England poets.
Noah Webster, the Father of American Scholarship and Education, was born in
West Hartford, Connecticut.
Pulitzer Prize winning poets
Edwin Arlington Robinson,
Edna St. Vincent Millay and
Robert P. T. Coffin were born in
Maine. Poets
Stanley Kunitz and
Elizabeth Bishop were both born in
Worcester, Massachusetts. Pulitzer Prize winning poet
Galway Kinnell was born in
Providence, Rhode Island.
Oliver La Farge was a New Englander of French and Narragansett descent, won the
Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, the predecessor to the
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, in 1930 for his book
Laughing Boy.
John P. Marquand grew up in
Newburyport, Massachusetts. Novelist
Edwin O'Connor, who was also known as a radio personality and journalist, won the
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel
The Edge of Sadness. Pulitzer Prize winner
John Cheever, a novelist and short story writer, was born in
Quincy, Massachusetts set most of his fiction in old New England villages based on various South Shore towns around his birthcity.
E. Annie Proulx was born in
Norwich, Connecticut.
David Lindsay-Abaire, who won the
Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2007 for his play
Rabbit Hole, was raised in Boston.
Ethan Frome, written in 1911 by
Edith Wharton, is set in turn-of-the-century New England, in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. Like much literature of the region, it plays off themes of isolation and hopelessness. New England is also the setting for most of the
gothic horror stories of
H. P. Lovecraft, who lived his life in
Providence, Rhode Island. Real New England towns such as
Ipswich,
Newburyport,
Rowley, and
Marblehead are given fictional names such as Dunwich, Arkham, Innsmouth, Kingsport, and Miskatonic and then featured quite often in his stories. Lovecraft had an immense appreciation for the New England area, and when he had to re-locate to New York City, he longed to return to his beloved native land.
The region has also drawn the attention of authors and poets from other parts of the United States.
Mark Twain found
Hartford to be the most beautiful city in the United States and made it his home, and wrote his masterpieces there. He lived directly next door to
Harriett Beecher Stowe, a local whose most famous work is
Uncle Tom's Cabin.
John Updike, originally from
Pennsylvania, eventually moved to
Ipswich, Massachusetts, which served as the model for the fictional New England town of
Tarbox in his 1968 novel Couples.
Robert Frost was born in
California, but moved to Massachusetts during his teen years and published his first poem in
Lawrence; his frequent use of New England settings and themes ensured that he would be associated with the region.
Arthur Miller, a New York City native, used New England as the setting for some of his works, most notably
The Crucible.
Herman Melville, originally for New York City, bought the house now known as
Arrowhead in
Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and while he lived there he wrote his greatest novel
Moby-Dick. Poet
Maxine Kumin was born in
Philadelphia, currently resides in
Warner, New Hampshire. Pulitzer Prize winning poet
Mary Oliver was born in
Maple Heights, Ohio has lived in
Provincetown, Massachusetts for the last forty years.
Charles Simic who was born in
Belgrade,
Serbia (at that time
Yugoslavia) grew up in Chicago and lives in
Strafford, New Hampshire, on the shore of
Bow Lake and is the
professor emeritus of
American literature and
creative writing at the
University of New Hampshire. Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and short story writer
Steven Millhauser, who was born in New York City and short story Eisenheim the Illusionist was adapted into the
2006 film was raised in
Connecticut.
More recently,
Stephen King, born in
Portland, Maine, has used the small towns of his home state as the setting for much of his horror fiction, with several of his stories taking place in or near the fictional town of Castle Rock. Just to the south,
Exeter, New Hampshire was the birthplace of best-selling novelist
John Irving and
Dan Brown, author of
The Da Vinci Code.
Rick Moody has set many of his works in southern New England, focusing on wealthy families of suburban Connecticut's
Gold Coast and their battles with addiction and anomie.
Derek Walcott, a playwright and poet, who won
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992, teaches poetry at
Boston University. Pulitzer Prize winner
Cormac McCarthy, whose novel
No Country for Old Men was made into the
Academy Award for Best Picture winning film in
2007, was born in
Providence (although he moved to Tennessee when he was a boy).
Largely on the strength of its local writers, Boston was for some years the center of the U.S. publishing industry, before being overtaken by New York in the middle of the nineteenth century. Boston remains the home of publishers
Houghton Mifflin and
Pearson Education, and was the longtime home of literary magazine
The Atlantic Monthly.
Merriam-Webster is based in
Springfield, Massachusetts.
Yankee, a magazine for New Englanders, is based in
Dublin, New Hampshire.
[
edit] Sports
Main article:
Sports in New EnglandTwo popular American sports were invented in New England.
Basketball was invented by
James Naismith (a Canadian) in
Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891.
[81] Volleyball was invented by
William G. Morgan in
Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1895.
[82][
edit] Professional and semi-professional sports teams in New England
The major professional sports teams in New England are based in the Boston area: the
Boston Red Sox, the
New England Patriots (based in
Foxborough, Massachusetts), the
Boston Celtics, the
Boston Bruins and the
New England Revolution (also based in Foxborough).
Hartford had a professional NHL hockey team from 1972 through 1997 called the
Hartford Whalers. However, in 1997, the owner moved the team to North Carolina (changing the name to the
Carolina Hurricanes) citing financial reasons.[
citation needed]
There are also minor league baseball and hockey teams based in larger cities such as the
Pawtucket Red Sox (baseball), the
Providence Bruins (hockey), the
Worcester Tornadoes (baseball) and the
Worcester Sharks (hockey), the
Lowell Spinners (baseball) and the
Lowell Devils (hockey), the
Portland Sea Dogs (baseball) and the
Portland Pirates (hockey), the
Nashua Pride (baseball), the
Connecticut Defenders (baseball), the
New Britain Rock Cats (baseball), the
Vermont Lake Monsters (baseball), the
New Hampshire Fisher Cats (baseball), the
Bridgeport Sound Tigers (hockey), the
Brockton Rox (baseball),the
Hartford Wolf Pack (hockey), the
Manchester Monarchs (hockey) and the
Springfield Falcons (hockey).
New England is also represented in the
Premier Basketball League by the
Vermont Frost Heaves of
Barre, Vermont and the
Manchester Millrats from
Manchester, New Hampshire.
Thanksgiving Day high school football rivalries date back to the 19th century, and the Harvard-Yale rivalry ("
The Game") is the oldest active rivalry in college football. The
Boston Marathon, run on
Patriot's Day every year, is a New England cultural institution and the oldest annual marathon in the world. While the race offers far less prize money than many other marathons, and the
Newton hills have helped ensure that no world record has been set on the course since 1947, the race's difficulty and long history make it one of the world's most prestigious marathons.
[83][
edit] Notable places
Boats on the
Kennebunk River between Kennebunk and Kennebunkport, Maine.
[
edit] Historic
New England features many of the oldest cities and towns in the country. The following places are replete with historic buildings, parks, and streetscapes (following the coast from New Haven):
New Haven, ConnecticutHartford, ConnecticutSpringfield, MassachusettsProvidence, Rhode IslandNewport, Rhode IslandPlymouth, MassachusettsBoston and its
surrounding areaSalem, MassachusettsGloucester, MassachusettsNewburyport, MassachusettsPortsmouth, New HampshirePortland, MaineThe
New Haven Green was created in 1638 and remains preserved today as the heart of what could be considered to be the first planned city in America.
[84][
edit] Recreational
The
Appalachian Mountains run through northern New England which make for excellent skiing. Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine are home to various ski resorts.
Cape Cod,
Nantucket, and
Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts are popular tourist destinations for their small-town charm and beaches. All have restrictive zoning laws to prevent sprawl and overdevelopment.
Acadia National Park, off the coast of Maine, preserves most of
Mount Desert Island and includes mountains, an ocean shoreline, woodlands, and lakes.
Additionally, the coastal New England states are home to many oceanfront beaches.
The financial magazine
Money, in a 2006 survey entitled "Best Places to Live," ranked several New England towns and cities in the top one hundred. In Connecticut,
Fairfield, part of the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut area, was ranked ninth, while
Stamford was ranked forty-sixth. In Maine,
Portland ranked eighty-ninth. In Massachusetts,
Newton was ranked twenty-second. In New Hampshire,
Nashua, a past number one, was ranked eighty-seventh. In Rhode Island,
Cranston was ranked seventy-eighth, while
Warwick was ranked eighty-third.
[85]See also:
Beaches of New England
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