Encyclopedia
Boston is the
capital of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts in the
United States. It is the unofficial capital of and largest city in
New England. Founded in 1630, Boston is one of the oldest, wealthiest and most culturally significant cities in the United States. Its economy is based on higher education, research, health care, finance, and technology, principally biotechnology.
Boston has many nicknames.
The City on a Hill came from original Massachusetts Bay Colony's governor
John Winthrop's goal to create the biblical "City on a Hill." It also refers to the original three hills of Boston.
Beantown refers to early Bostonian tradition of making baked beans with imported molasses.
The Hub is a shortened form of a phrase recorded by writer
Oliver Wendell Holmes,
The Hub of the Solar System. William Tudor, co-founder of the
North American Review was the first literary magazine in the United States [i] ...
, christened the city
The Athens of America for its great cultural and intellectual influence. Boston is sometimes called the
Puritan City because its founders were Puritans, and also called
The Cradle of Liberty for its role in instigating the
American Revolution. In the nineteenth century, it was also known as the "City of Notions." Citizens of Boston are called
Bostonians.
The city lies at the center of
Greater Boston, which also includes the cities of
Cambridge,
Quincy, and
Newton, the town of
Brookline, and many suburban communities farther from Boston. The Greater Boston area encompasses parts of the state of New Hampshire. The city also lies at the center of the Boston-Worcester-Manchester Combined Statistical Area , the fifth largest
metropolitan area in the United States.
History
"In the political events which have affected the history of the entire country, and in shaping the thought of a people who have come to be a great nation, Boston has played a leading part."
Boston by Henry Cabot Lodge
Boston was founded on September 17, 1630, by Puritan colonists from England, on a
peninsula called
Shawmut by its original
Native American inhabitants. The peninsula was connected to the mainland by a narrow
isthmus, and surrounded by the waters of
Massachusetts Bay and the marshes at the mouth of the
Charles River. Boston's early European settlers first called the area
Trimountaine. They later renamed the town for
Boston,
England, in
Lincolnshire, from which several prominent
"pilgrim" colonists emigrated. A majority of Boston's early citizens were Puritans. Massachusetts Bay Colony's original governor,
John Winthrop, gave a famous sermon entitled "a City upon a Hill," which captured the idea that Boston had a special covenant with God. Puritan ethics molded an extremely stable and well-structured society in Boston. For example, shortly after Boston's settlement, Puritans founded America's first public school,
Boston Latin School , and America's first college,
Harvard College . Hard work, moral uprightness, and an emphasis on education remain part of Boston's culture. Until the 1760s, Boston was America's largest, wealthiest, and most influential city.
During the early 1770s, British attempts to exert control on the
thirteen colonies, primarily via taxation, prompted Bostonians to initiate the
American Revolution. The
Boston Massacre, the
Boston Tea Party, and several early battles occurred in or near the city, including the
Battle of Lexington and Concord,
Battle of Bunker Hill, and the
Siege of Boston. During this period,
Paul Revere made his famous midnight ride.
After the Revolution, Boston quickly became one of the world's wealthiest international trading ports due to its proximity as the closest American port to Europe — major exports included rum, fish, salt, and tobacco. During this era, descendants of old Boston families became regarded, in the American popular mind, as the nation's social and cultural elites; they were later dubbed the
Boston Brahmins. In 1822, Boston was chartered as a city. By the mid-1800s, the city's industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance. Until the early 1900s, Boston remained one of the nation's largest manufacturing centers, and was notable for its
garment production,
leather goods, and machinery industries. A vast network of small rivers bordering the city and running throughout the surrounding region made for easy shipment of goods and allowed for a proliferation of mills and factories. From the mid-to-late-nineteenth century, Boston flourished culturally — it became renowned for its rarefied literary culture and lavish artistic patronage. It also became a center of the
abolitionist movement.
In the 1820s, Boston's ethnic composition began to change dramatically with the first wave of European immigrants. Groups like the Irish and Italians moved into the city and brought with them
Roman Catholicism. Currently, Catholics make up Boston's largest religious community and since the early 20th century the Irish have played a major role in Boston politics — prominent figures include the
Kennedys,
Tip O'Neill and John F. Fitzgerald.
Between 1630 and 1890, the city tripled its physical size by
land reclamation, specifically by filling in marshes, mud flats, and gaps between wharves along the waterfront, a process Walter Muir Whitehill called "cutting down the hills to fill the coves." The largest reclamation efforts took place during the 1800s. Beginning in 1807, the crown of Beacon Hill was used to fill in a 50-acre mill pond that later became Haymarket Square . The present-day
State House sits atop this shortened Beacon Hill. Reclamation projects in the middle of the century created significant parts of the South End, West End, Financial District, and
Chinatown. After
The Great Boston Fire of 1872, workers used building rubble as landfill along the downtown waterfront. Boston's Back Bay land reclamation project proved dramatic. During the mid-to-late 19th century, workers filled almost 600 acres of brackish Charles River marshlands west of the Boston Common with soil brought by rail from the hills of Needham Heights. Boston also annexed the adjacent communities of
East Boston,
Dorchester,
South Boston, Brighton, Allston, Hyde Park,
Roxbury, West Roxbury,
Jamaica Plain and
Charlestown.
By the early and mid-20th century, the city was in decline as factories became old and obsolete, and businesses moved out of the region for cheaper labor elsewhere. Boston responded by initiating various
urban renewal projects, including the demolition of the old West End neighborhood and the construction of
Government Center. In the 1970s, Boston boomed after thirty years of economic downturn, becoming a leader in the
mutual fund industry. Boston already had a reputation for excellent healthcare services. 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. Universities such as Harvard,
MIT, and
Boston University attracted many students to the Boston area. Nevertheless, the city experienced conflict starting in 1974 over desegregation busing, which resulted in unrest and violence around public schools throughout the mid-1970s. The unrest served to highlight racial tensions in the city.
Over the past several years Boston has experienced a dramatic loss of regional institutions and traditions, which once gave it a very distinct social character. The city, like others, faces gentrification issues and exorbitant living costs. Since the 1950s, however, Boston has once again emerged as a major hub of intellectual, technological, and political ideas.
Geography and climate
Geography
According to the
United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 89.6 square miles — 48.4 square miles of it is land and 41.2 square miles of it is water. The total area is 46.0% water. With an elevation of 19
feet above sea level at
Logan International Airport, Boston is bordered by the cities of
Winthrop,
Revere,
Chelsea,
Everett,
Somerville,
Cambridge,
Watertown,
Newton,
Brookline,
Needham,
Dedham,
Canton,
Milton, and
Quincy—often known as, and considered a part of,
Greater Boston.
Much of the
Back Bay and South End are built on
reclaimed land—two and a half of Boston's three original hills were used as a source of material for landfill. Only
Beacon Hill, the smallest of the three original hills, remains partially intact. The downtown area and immediate surroundings consist mostly of low-rise brick or stone buildings, with many older buildings in the
Federal style. Several of these buildings mix in with modern high-rises, notably in the Financial District, Government Center, Back Bay, and the South Boston waterfront. To this day, the South End Historic District remains the nation's largest surviving contiguous Victorian-era neighborhood. Smaller commercial areas are interspersed amongst single-family homes and wooden/brick multifamily row houses.
The
Charles River separates Boston proper from Cambridge, Watertown, and the neighborhood of Charlestown. To the east lies
Boston Harbor and the
Boston Harbor Islands, many of which are part of the
Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area, operated by the
National Park Service. The Neponset River forms the boundary between Boston's southern neighborhoods and the cities of Quincy and Milton. The
Mystic River separates the neighborhoods of East Boston and Charlestown from Chelsea and Everett.
Climate
Boston experiences a continental climate that is very common in
New England. The weather in Boston, like much of New England, changes rapidly. It is not uncommon for the city to experience temperature swings of 54 Fahrenheit degrees or more over the course of a couple of days. Summers are typically warm and humid, while winters are cold, windy and snowy. It has been known to snow in October.
The earliest recorded 90 °F temperature in a year was in late March 1998, while February in Boston has seen 70 degrees only once in recorded history, on February 24, 1985. Spring in Boston can be hot, with temperatures in the 90s, though it is just as possible for a day in late May to remain in the 40s. The hottest month is July, with an average high of 82 °F and a low of 64 °F . The coldest month is January, with an average high of 36 °F and a low of 22 °F . Periods exceeding 90 °F in summer and below 10 °F in winter are not uncommon, but rarely prolonged. The record high temperature is 104 °F , recorded July 4, 1911. The record low temperature is -18 °F , recorded on February 9, 1934.
The city averages 42
in of rainfall a year. It also coincidentally averages 42 in of snowfall a year, although this increases dramatically as one goes inland away from the city. Massachusetts' geographic location's jutting out into the
North Atlantic also make the city very prone to
Nor'easter weather systems that can dump more than 20 in of snow on the region in one storm event.
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
|---|
Avg high °F
| 36
| 39
| 46
| 56
| 67
| 77
| 82
| 80
| 73
| 62
| 52
| 42
| 59
|
|---|
Avg low °F
| 22
| 24
| 31
| 41
| 50
| 59
| 65
| 64
| 57
| 46
| 38
| 28
| 44
|
|---|
Rainfall in inches
| 3.92
| 3.30
| 3.85
| 3.60
| 3.24
| 3.22
| 3.06
| 3.37
| 3.47
| 3.79
| 3.98
| 3.73
| 42.53
|
|---|
Demographics
Town and City of Boston
Population by year |
|---|
Census
year | Population | Rank |
|---|
|
1790 | 18,320 | 3 | 1800 | 24,937 | 4 | 1810 | 33,787 | 4 | 1820 | 43,298 | 4 | 1830 | 61,392 | 4 | 1840 | 93,383 | 5 | 1850 | 136,881 | 3 | 1860 | 177,840 | 5 | 1870 | 250,526 | 7 | 1880 | 362,839 | 5 | 1890 | 448,477 | 6 | 1900 | 560,892 | 5 | 1910 | 670,585 | 5 | 1920 | 748,060 | 7 | 1930 | 781,188 | 9 | 1940 | 770,816 | 9 | 1950 | 801,444 | 10 | 1960 | 697,197 | 13 | 1970 | 641,071 | 16 | 1980 | 562,994 | 20 | 1990 | 574,283 | 20 | 2000 | 589,141 | 20 |
As of the
census of 2000, there were 589,141 people, 239,528 households, and 115,212 families residing in the city. The
population density was 12,166 people per square mile . There were 251,935 housing units at an average density of 5,203 per square mile . According to the census, the racial makeup of the city was 54.47%
White, 25.33%
Black or
African American, 0.40% Native American, 7.52%
Asian American, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 7.83% from
other races, and 4.39% from two or more races. 14.44% of the population was
Hispanic or Latino of any race.
People of
Irish descent form the largest single ethnic group in the city, making up 15.8% of the population.
Italians also form a significant segment of the city's population, accounting for 8.3% of the population. People of
West Indian ancestry are another sizeable group ; about half of them are of
Haitian ancestry. Some neighborhoods, such as Dorchester, have received an influx of Vietnamese residents in the past few years.
There were 239,528 households out of which 22.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 27.4% were married couples living together, 16.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 51.9% were non-families. 37.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.31 and the average family size was 3.17.
In the city the population was spread out with 19.8% under the age of 18, 16.2% from 18 to 24, 35.8% from 25 to 44, 17.8% from 45 to 64, and 10.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females, there were 92.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.2 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $39,629, and the median income for a family was $44,151. Males had a median income of $37,435 versus $32,421 for females. The per capita income for the city was $23,353. 19.5% of the population and 15.3% of families are below the
poverty line. Out of the total population, 25.6% of those under the age of 18 and 18.2% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line.
Law and government
Boston has a strong mayor system in which the mayor is vested with extensive executive powers. The mayor is elected to a four-year term by
plurality voting. The city council is elected every two years. There are nine district seats, each elected by the residents of that district through plurality voting, and four at-large seats. Each voter casts up to four votes for at-large councilors, no more than one vote per candidate. The candidates with the four highest vote totals are elected. The president of the city council, currently Michael F. Flaherty, is elected by the councilors from within themselves. The school committee is appointed by the mayor, as are city department heads.
In addition to city government, numerous state authorities and commissions play a role in the life of Bostonians, including the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Massachusetts Port Authority . As the capital of Massachusetts, Boston plays a major role in
state politics. Boston is also the
United States federal government center for New England. Properties include the John F. Kennedy Federal Office Building and the Thomas P. O'Neill Federal Building. The city also serves as the home of the
United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, as well as the headquarters of the
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston . The city is in the
Eighth and
Ninth Congressional districts.
Boston's low crime rate in the last years of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st has been credited to its
police department's collaboration with neighborhood groups and church parishes to prevent youths from joining gangs, as well as involvement from the US Attorney and District Attorney's office. This helped lead in part to what has been touted as the "Boston Miracle." Murders in the city dropped from 152 in 1990 to just 31—not one of them a juvenile—in 1999 . The police department's figures are made available online and can be searched by neighborhood.
In more recent years, however, the annual murder count has fluctuated by as much as 50% compared to the year before, with 60 murders in 2002, followed by just 39 in 2003, 64 in 2004, and 75 in 2005. Though the figures are nowhere near the high-water mark set in 1990, the aberrations in the murder rate have been unsettling for many Bostonians and have prompted discussion over whether the Boston Police Department should reevaluate its approach to fighting crime.
Economy
Boston's colleges and universities have a major impact on the city and region's economy. Not only are they major employers, but they also attract high-tech industries to the city and surrounding region, including computer hardware and software companies as well as
biotechnology companies like Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Millipore, and
Biogen Idec. Boston receives the highest amount of annual funding from the
National Institutes of Health of all cities in the United States.
Other important industries include financial services, especially
mutual funds and insurance. Boston-based Fidelity Investments helped popularize the mutual fund in the 1980s, and has made Boston one of the top financial cities in the United States. The city is also the regional headquarters of major banks such as
Bank of America and Sovereign Bank, and a center for venture capital. Boston is also a printing and publishing center. Textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin is headquartered within the city. The city is home to four major
convention centers: the Hynes Convention Center in the Back Bay, the Bayside Expo Center in Dorchester, and the World Trade Center Boston and
Boston Convention and Exhibition Center on the South Boston waterfront. Because of its status as a state capital and the regional home of federal agencies, law and government is another major component of the city's economy.
Major companies headquartered within the city include
Gillette, owned by
Procter & Gamble, and Teradyne, one of the world's leading manufacturers of semiconductor and other electronic test equipment.
New Balance has its headquarters in the city. Other major companies are located outside the city, especially along
Route 128. The
Port of Boston is a major seaport along the United States' east coast, and is also one of the oldest continuously-operated industrial and
fishing ports in the
Western Hemisphere.
- See also: Major companies in Greater Boston
Education
Colleges and universities
Boston's reputation as the
Athens of America derives in large part from the teaching and research activities of more than 100 colleges and universities located in its metropolitan area. These include some of the most famous universities in the world.
Boston College was the first
institution of higher education established in the city .
Boston University, now the city's second largest employer, was originally established in Vermont before moving to
Brookline, and then to its present campus near
Kenmore Square in the 1950s.
Northeastern University, a large private university, maintains a campus in the Fenway district.
Harvard University, the nation's oldest institution of higher learning, is located across the Charles River in
Cambridge. The
business and
medical schools are in Boston, and there are plans for major expansion into Boston's Allston neighborhood. This will put a majority of the students, faculty and physical plant in Boston. The
Massachusetts Institute of Technology , which originated in Boston and was long known as Boston Tech, moved across the river to Cambridge in 1917.
Tufts University administers its medical and dental school adjacent to the Tufts-New England Medical Center , a 451-bed academic medical institution that is home to both a full-service hospital for adults and the Floating Hospital for Children. Its undergraduate campus is in Medford, adjacent to
Cambridge. Northeastern University maintains a campus in the Fenway section of Boston. Additionally,
Wentworth Institute of Technology, a founding member of the Colleges of the Fenway, is located in the Fenway area.
Suffolk University, a small private university known for its law school, maintains a campus on Beacon Hill.
Emerson College located by Boston Common is a small private college with a strong reputation in the fields of performing arts, writing, and film.
Babson College in the suburb of Wellesley is a private college with a strong focus on entrepreneurship. The city is also home to a number of
conservatories and art schools, including the
Massachusetts College of Art,
New England Conservatory of Music ,
Boston Conservatory, and
Berklee College of Music. Roxbury Community College and Bunker Hill Community College are the city's two community colleges. Boston has one major public university, the
University of Massachusetts Boston, located on Columbia Point in
Dorchester.
Primary and secondary schools
Boston Public Schools, the oldest public school system in the U.S., enrolls 58,600 students from
kindergarten to grade 12. The system operates 145 schools, which includes
Boston Latin School ,
English High , and Mather . The city also has private, parochial, and
charter sc 
