History of Boston, Massachusetts
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2 Colonial Boston 3 Boston in rebellion 4 19th-century Boston 5 20th-century Boston 6 21st-century Boston |
European settlement
Founded on September 17, 1630, on a peninsula called Shawmut by the Native Americans who lived there, Boston is named after Boston, England, a town in Lincolnshire from which several prominent colonists originated. The Puritans, who were part of the Winthrop Fleet led by John Winthrop to Boston, were not Separatists like the Pilgrim Fathers, but chartered colonists. Boston's deep harbor and advantageous geographic position helped it to become the busiest port in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, surpassing Plymouth and Salem. From its founding until the 1760s, Boston was America's largest, wealthiest, and most influential city.
Colonial Boston
Early colonists believed that Boston was a community with a special covenant with God. Winthrop's sermon, "a City upon a Hill," captured this idea. 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. These values molded an extremely stable and well-structured society in Boston. Puritan values of hard work, moral uprightness, and education remain a part of Boston's culture. Both the first school in America, Boston Latin School (1635), and the first college in America, Harvard College (1636), were founded in the early days of Boston.
in Boston is surrounded by tall buildings of the 19th and 20th centuries.On June 1, 1660, Mary Dyer was hanged on Boston Common for repeatedly defying a law banning Quakers from the colony. She is considered to be the last religious martyr in North America. (A statue of Mary Dyer now stands in front of the Massachusetts State House.)
Boston in rebellion
See also: American Revolution, American Revolutionary War
Boston played a key role in the sparking both the American Revolution and the ensuing American Revolutionary War. The Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and several of the early battles of the Revolution (such as the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston) occurred near or in the city. During this period, Paul Revere made his famous midnight ride.
Today Boston is sometimes called the Cradle of Liberty and its historic sites remain a popular tourist draw. The city has attempted to preserve its colonial and revolutionary past, from the harboring of the USS Constitution to the many famous sites along the Freedom Trail.
19th-century Boston
After the revolutionary war, the city became one of the world's wealthiest international trading ports, exporting products such as rum, fish, salt and tobacco. It was chartered as a city in 1822, and by the mid-1800s it was one of the largest manufacturing centers in the nation, noted for its garment production, leather goods, and machinery industries.
In 1831, William Lloyd Garrison founded The Liberator, an abolitionist newsletter, in Boston. It advocated "immediate and complete emancipation of all slaves" in the United States, and established Boston as the center of the abolitionist movement.
A poem about Boston, attributed to various people, describes the city thus: "And here’s to good old Boston / The land of the bean and the cod / Where Lowells talk only to Cabots / And Cabots talk only to God." While wealthy colonial families like the Lowells and Cabots (often called the Boston Brahmins) ruled the city, the 1840s brought waves of new immigrants from Europe. These included large numbers of Irish and Italians, giving the city a large Roman Catholic population. It is currently the third largest Catholic community in the United States (after Chicago and Los Angeles).
The first medical school for women, The Boston Female Medical School (which later merged with the Boston University School of Medicine), opened in Boston on November 1, 1848.
The Great Boston Fire of 1872 started at the corner of Summer Street and Kingston Street on November 9, and in two days destroyed about 65 acres (260,000 m²) of city, 776 buildings, much of the financial district and caused US$60 million in damage. The first "Great Fire" of Boston destroyed 349 buildings on March 20, 1760.
In 1879, Mary Baker Eddy founded the Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston.
"As a literary centre Boston was long supreme in the United States and still disputes the palm with New York," says Baedeker's United States (1893). "A list of its distinguished literary men would be endless; but it may not be invidious to mention Hawthorne, Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, Everett, Agassiz, Whittier, Motley, Bancroft, Prescott, Parkman, Ticknor, Channing, Theodore Parker, Henry James, T. B. Aldrich and Howells among the names more or less closely associated with Boston." Most of the great publishing houses of Boston have been acquired or moved, leaving little but the magazine The Atlantic Monthly (founded 1857) and the publisher Houghton Mifflin to bear witness to Boston's former publishing glory. Despite this, many renowned authors continue to live and work in Boston.
The first vaudeville theater opened on February 28, 1883, in Boston. The last one, the Old Howard in Scollay Square, which had evolved from opera to vaudeville to burlesque, closed in 1953.
On September 1, 1897, the Tremont Street Subway opened as the first underground streetcar subway in North America. Today it is affectionately known as "The T" and is run by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
From the late 19th century until the mid-20th century, the phrase "Banned in Boston" was used to describe a literary work, motion picture, play, or other work prohibited from distribution or exhibition. During this time, Boston city officials took it upon themselves to "ban" anything that they found to be salacious, immoral, or offensive: theatrical shows were run out of town, books confiscated, and motion pictures were prevented from being shown—sometimes stopped in mid-showing after an official had "seen enough". This movement had several effects. One was that Boston, arguably the cultural center of the United States since its founding, now came across as less sophisticated than many lesser cities without such stringent censorship practices. Another is that the phrase "banned in Boston" began to be associated in the popular mind with something sexy and lurid; many distributors of such works were happy when they were banned in Boston, as it gave them more appeal elsewhere; many distributors also advertised that their products had been banned in Boston when in fact they had not to increase their appeal.
20th-century Boston
On January 15, 1919, the Boston Molasses Disaster occurred in the North End. Twenty-one people were killed and 150 injured as hot molasses crushed, asphyxiated, and cooked many of the victims to death. It took over six months to remove the molasses from the cobblestone streets, theaters, businesses, automobiles, and homes. Boston Harbor ran brown until summer.
On August 23, 1927, Italian anarchists 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.
On November 28, 1942, Boston's Cocoanut Grove nightclub was the site of the deadliest nightclub fire in United States history, killing 492 people and injuring hundreds more.
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 that Boston had—excellent banks, hospitals, universities and technical know-how—were minimal parts of the U.S. economy. To combat this downturn, Boston's politicians enacted urban renewal policies, which resulted in the demolition of several neighborhoods, including the Old West End, a largely Jewish and Italian neighborhood, and Scollay Square. In their places went additions to Massachusetts General Hospital and 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.
Between June 14, 1962, and January 4, 1964, thirteen single women between the ages of 19 and 85 were murdered in Boston by the infamous Boston Strangler.
and CambridgeIn 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, Beth Israel Deaconess, and Brigham and Women's led the nation in medical innovation and patient care. Higher education also became more expensive, and universities such as Harvard, MIT, BU and Tufts attracted hordes of students to the Boston area; many stayed and became citizens. MIT graduates, in particular, founded many successful high-tech companies, which made Boston second only to Silicon Valley as a high-tech center.
In 1974, the city dealt with a crisis when a federal district court judge, W. Arthur Garrity, ordered busing to integrate the city's public schools. Racially-motivated violence erupted in several neighborhoods (many white parents resisted the busing plan). Public schools—particularly public high schools—became scenes of unrest and violence. Tension continued throughout the mid-1970s, reinforcing Boston's reputation for discrimination.
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. As of 2004 these paintings have not been recovered.
is a result of the Big DigAs of 2005, the city is in the final stages of the Central Artery/Tunnel project, nicknamed the Big Dig. Planned and approved in the 1980s under Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, with construction beginning in 1991, the Big Dig moved the jumble of elevated highway that made up Route 93 underground, produced the Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, and will create over 70 acres (280,000 m²) of public parks in the heart of the city. The Big Dig should ease Boston's notorious traffic congestion; however, it is now the most expensive construction project in United States history, and currently the most expensive construction project in the world.
21st-century Boston
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 more homogenized BosWash 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; the increasing rarity of ice-cream shops using cone-shaped scoops; the financial crisis currently being experienced by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society; and the loss to mergers, failures, and acquisitions of once-prominent financial institutions such as Shawmut Bank, BayBank, Bank of New England, and Bank of Boston. In 2004, this trend continued as Charlotte-based Bank of America acquired FleetBoston Financial, and P&G; has announced plans to acquire Gillette.
Despite these losses, Boston's ambiance remains unique among 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, crime and poverty remain remarkably low for an American city, and once again Boston has become a hub of intellectual, technological, and political ideas.
