New England

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New England is a region of the United States located in the northeastern corner of the country. It consists of the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Current residents are called New Englanders. Its original residents and their descendants are called Yankees.

The region was inhabited by indigenous peoples when English Pilgrims, fleeing religious persecution in Europe, arrived nearly four hundred years ago, at the beginning of the 17th century. In the 18th century, New England was one of the first North American British colonies to demonstrate ambitions of independence from the British Crown, although it would later oppose the War of 1812 between the United States and Britain. In the 19th century, it played a prominent role in the movement to abolish slavery in the United States, became a source of some of the first examples of American literature and philosophy, the first region to organize free public education, and showed the first signs of the effects of the Industrial Revolution in North America.

A person from New England is referred to as a New Englander. Together, the Mid-Atlantic and New England regions are referred to as the Northeastern region of the United States. New England is also a part of the greater U.S.-Canada Atlantic Northeast region.

History

New England has long been inhabited by Algonquian-speaking native peoples, including the Abenaki, the Penobscot, the Wampanoag, and others. Before the arrival of Europeans in the region, the Western Abenakis mostly inhabited New Hampshire and Vermont, but also inhabited 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 Virginia Companies compete

On April 10, 1606, King James I of Britain chartered the two Virginia Companies, of London and Plymouth, respectively. These were proprietary ventures, privately-funded and intended to operate at a profit. The purpose of each was to claim land for England, trade, and make a profit. The two companies competed to the extent that their potential New World territory overlapped, and would be finalized based upon results.

The Virginia Company of London successfully established the Jamestown Settlement in May, 1607. That colony was tenuous at best until several strains of tobacco were as developed as a profitable export product about 5 years later by colonist John Rolfe.

Around the same time period, in 1607 the Popham Colony was planted by the Virginia Company of Plymouth. However, it was not initially successful, and was abandoned. The Virginia Company of Plymouth's charter included land extending as far as present-day northern Maine. Captain John Smith, exploring the shores of the region in 1614, named the region "New England" in his account of two voyages there, published as A Description of New England.

Plymouth Council for New England

The first coins struck in the Colonies were the silver New England coins.The name "New England" was officially sanctioned on November 3, 1620, 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. Shortly afterwards, in December 1620, a permanent settlement was established at present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts by the Pilgrims, English religious separatists arriving via Holland. The Massachusetts Bay Colony, which would come to dominate the area, was established at Boston in 1628. Banished from Massachusetts, Roger Williams led a group south, and founded Providence, Rhode Island in 1636. On March 3 of the same year, the Connecticut Colony was granted a charter, and established its own government. At this time, Vermont was yet unsettled, and the territories of New Hampshire and Maine were governed by Massachusetts.

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.

Dominion of New England

New England map of 1707

In 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. Two years later, the provinces of New York (New Amsterdam) and New Jersey, seized from the Dutch, were added. The union, imposed from the outside and contrary to the rooted democratic tradition of the region, was highly unpopular among the colonists.

After the Glorious Revolution in 1689, the charters of most of the colonies were significantly modified, 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 1776.

Region of the United States

Boston College: The Old World's enduring influence over New England is evident in the architectureThe colonies were now formally united as newly-formed states in a larger (but not yet federalist) union called the 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.

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 Massachusetts' 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 dialect reminiscent of southeastern England.

Geography and climate

A USGS map depicts a small piece of Maine's fjordlike coast.New England's geography is the result of retreating ice sheets that shaped the landscape thousands of years ago, leaving behind long rolling hills, mountains, and a jagged coastline. The seacoast of the region, extending from southwestern Connecticut to northeastern Maine, is dotted with lakes, hills, swamps, and sandy beaches, especially in Cape Cod. Farther from the coast are higher elevations, including mountain ranges and rocky hills, which extend through Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. These are a part of the Appalachian Mountains. Mount Washington, at 1,917 m (6,288 ft), in New Hampshire's White Mountains, is the highest peak in the northeast United States. It is also the site of the highest recorded wind speed on Earth. Vermont's Green Mountains, which become the Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts, are smaller than the White Mountains. Valleys in the region include the Connecticut River Valley and the Merrimack Valley.

The region has many rivers and streams. The longest is the Connecticut River, which flows from northeastern New Hampshire for 655 km (407 mi) until it empties into the Long Island Sound. Lake Champlain, between Vermont and New York, is the largest lake in the region, followed by Moosehead Lake (Maine), Lake Winnipesaukee (New Hampshire), Quabbin Reservoir (Massachusetts), and Candlewood Lake (Connecticut).

The climate in New England is known for its unpredictability, and it varies throughout the region. Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, in the north of the region, have a humid continental short summer climate, with cooler summers and long, cold winters. Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, in the south, have a humid continental long summer climate, with hot summers and cold winters. Fall in New England is known for its bright and colorful foliage which comes earlier than in other states, and is an important tourist season. Springs are generally wet and cloudy. The average rainfall for most of the region is 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 of Vermont and New Hampshire are popular destinations in the winter, with numerous commercial ski resorts.

Population

Boston is considered to be the cultural and historical capital of New England.As of 2000, the total population of New England was 13,922,517. In 1910, just 6,552,681 people lived in New England. If New England were one state, its population would rank 5th in the nation, behind Florida. The total area, at 70,054.3756 sq mi (181,440 sq km), would rank 20th, behind North Dakota.

Southern New England

Three quarters of New England's population and most of its major cities are concentrated in its three southernmost states, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Their combined population density is over 600/sq mi. The most populous state is Massachusetts, and the most populous city is Massachusetts' political and cultural capital, Boston. Western Massachusetts and Northwestern Connecticut are less densely populated than the rest of Southern New England.

Worcester, Massachusetts, is the third-largest city in New England.

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-populated. 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, Newport, Providence, New Haven, Bridgeport, and Stamford as well as smaller cities, like Newburyport, Gloucester, Biddeford, Bath, Rockland, and New London. The smaller fishing towns, like Gloucester, are popular tourist attractions, as they tend to retain their historical character, and often have colorful pasts.

Cape Cod, the signature hook-shaped peninsula of Massachusetts, also a popular tourist attraction, is lined with sandy beaches and dotted with bed and breakfast tourist lodgings. The picturesque and rugged coast of Maine is best known for its beauty and for lobster. New Hampshire, which has the shortest coastline of any coastal state, is home to Hampton Beach, also frequented by visitors to the region.

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.

Providence is the second-largest city in New England and claims the largest contiguous area of National Historic Society-designated buildings in the U.S.The Boston metropolitan area, which includes parts of southern New Hampshire, has a total population of approximately 5.8 million. The largest cities by population in New England (2000 data) are:

  1. Boston, Massachusetts: 596,638
  2. Providence, Rhode Island: 173,618
  3. Worcester, Massachusetts: 172,648
  4. Springfield, Massachusetts: 152,082
  5. Bridgeport, Connecticut: 139,529
  6. Hartford, Connecticut: 124,558
  7. New Haven, Connecticut: 123,626
  8. Stamford, Connecticut: 117,083
  9. Waterbury, Connecticut: 107,271
  10. Manchester, New Hampshire: 107,006
  11. Lowell, Massachusetts: 105,167

During the 20th century, urban expansion has made the New York metropolitan area an important economic influence on southwestern Connecticut, due to its ready access to Manhattan by both commuter railroad and highway commuters.

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 earliest textile industry developed at sources of water power such as in Lowell and Lawrence, Massachusetts, Manchester, New Hampshire, and Woonsocket, Rhode Island but have long since departed due to high operating costs there. 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, guns made at Springfield, Massachusetts, 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.

As of May 2006, the unemployment rate in New England was 4.5%, below the national average. Vermont, with the lowest of the six states, had a rate of 3%. The highest was Rhode Island, with 5.5%. The metropolitan statistical area (MSA) with the lowest rate, 2.5%, was Burlington-South Burlington, in Vermont; the MSA with the highest rate, 7.9%, was Lawrence-Methuen-Salem, in Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire.

New England is home to 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. These cities, and others in the region, because of their age have struggled with the transition from compact, pre-1950 settlement and industrial patterns to the contemporary, more suburban and spread-out patterns of residential and industrial living and decline of American industry.

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, Vermont fifteenth for dairy products, and Connecticut and Massachusetts seventh and eleventh for tobacco, respectively. Cranberries are grown in the Cape Cod - Plymouth area, and blueberries in Maine. As of 2005, the inflation-adjusted combined GSPs of the six states of New England was $623.1 billion, with Massachusetts contributing the most, and Vermont the least.

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 most 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. 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.

Town meetings

A derivative of meetings held by church elders, town meetings were and are an integral part of governance of the New England town. 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." 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.

New England and political thought

Samuel Adams, a brewer and patriot during the revolutionary periodDuring 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. 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 seperatist 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.

Contemporary politics

Elections of 2006

The dominant party in New England is the Democratic Party. In the U.S. general elections of 2006, which determined the composition of the 110th Congress, Democrats made a number of gains in the region. The U.S. Senators from New England is comprised of six elected Democrats, two elected independents that caucus with the Democrats, and four Republicans. Of the twenty-two congressmen elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, there is only one Republican, Christopher Shays of Connecticut. In all of the New England states, both legislative houses have a majority of Democratic representatives. Democrats hold half of New England's governor's postions, those of Maine, New Hampshire, and as of 2007, Massachusetts. While the governors of Connecticut and Rhode Island remain Republicans, the legislatures have veto-overriding Democratic super-majorities in both states (as well as Massachusetts). The Republican state parties in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts are weak.

In 2006, Massachusetts elected Deval Patrick; the first Democratic governor elected in the state since Michael Dukakis's 1986 election to a third term. Patrick is the second black elected governor in the United States. Democrats took over the New Hampshire General Court and Executive Council for the first time since the 1875. New Hampshire, prior to the 2006 election, was the only Republican-controlled legislature in New England. In Rhode Island, the Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee was narrowly defeated. Four Republican members of the House of Representatives in New England were defeated; Charlie Bass and Jeb Bradley in New Hampshire and Nancy Johnson and Rob Simmons in Connecticut. Simmons lost his seat to Democrat Joe Courtney by 91 votes, the closest House race in the country.

Presidential elections, 2000, 2004

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. 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.

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, although New Hampshire currently has no death row inmates and 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.

Vermont was the first state to allow civil unions between same sex couples, and Massachusetts was the first state to allow same-sex marriage. In 2005, Connecticut also began to allow civil unions.

As of 2006, Massachusetts adopted a plan to provide nearly universal health care for its citizens.

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, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, where population density is low.

Connecticut is a cultural paradox, compared to the other states in the region. The southwestern part of the state is largely suburban dotted with larger cities Bridgeport, New Haven, Stamford, and Danbury, and as part of the New York metropolitan area, is culturally tied more with New York City than the rest of the New England region. The remainder of the state, however, is culturally similar to neighboring Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Residents of this area are often referred to as "Swamp Yankees." An example of Connecticuts's cultural dichotomy can be found in residents' allegiance to sports teams. Western Connecticut residents tend to support New York teams, unlike the rest of the state who tend to be loyal to Boston teams. Television broadcasts in Hartford and New Haven typically give equal coverage to sports teams from both Boston and New York.

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, such as New Haven's famous white clam pizza.

Accents

The often-parodied Boston accent is native to the region. Many of its most stereotypical features (such as r-dropping and the so-called broad A) are the result of influence of high-prestige English accents on Boston's upper class. 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.

Also found in New England is the distinctively conservative dialect of Rhode Island. The accent family of western New England (most of Connecticut, western Massachusetts, and Vermont) differs sharply from the Boston accent to its east and the New York accent to its southwest, but is thought to be closely related to the so-called Inland North accent of the Great Lakes region due west of it, to which western New England contributed many early settlers.

Social activities and music

Bars and pubs, especially those with Irish themes, are popular social venues. Closer to Boston, musicians from Ireland often tour pubs, playing traditional Irish folk music, usually with a singer, a fiddler, and a guitarist. This area also has thriving hardcore, punk, and indie rock music scenes. Surf rock was pioneered by Dick Dale of Quincy, Massachusetts, and the Pixies, of Boston, influenced the grunge movement of the 1990s. Dropkick Murphys, from South Boston, mix hardcore and punk music with Irish music in a style known as Celtic Punk. Also, both Boston and New Haven have had a big influence on ska musicians from the Northeast.

In much of rural New England, particularly Maine, Acadian and Quebecois culture are included in local 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.

Media

New England has several regional broadcasting companies, including New England Cable News (NECN) and the New England Sports Network (NESN) as well as the national cable sports broadcaster ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut. The former 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.

The New England Sports Network covers New England sports teams throughout the region, save for Fairfield County, Connecticut.

While most New England cities have daily newspapers, the Boston Globe and New York Times are distributed widely throughout the region.

Education

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, Harvard, was founded at Cambridge, Massachusetts, to train preachers, in 1636. Yale University was founded in New Haven, Connecticut in 1701 and awarded the first Ph.D. degree in the United States in 1861, and was the first to formally integrate sciences into its curriculum. It is therefore sometimes considered the first true American university. According to US News and World Report, 8 of the nation's top 50 universities and 13 of its top 50 liberal arts colleges are located in New England. These include four out of the eight universities in the Ivy League (Brown University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University and Yale University), Amherst College, Bates College, Boston College, Bowdoin College, Colby College, the College of the Holy Cross, Connecticut College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Middlebury College, Rhode Island School of Design, Trinity College, Tufts University, Wellesley College, Wesleyan University, Williams College and many others.

In addition, New England is home to fourteen ABA accredited law schools, including Boston University School of Law, Franklin Pierce Law Center, Harvard Law School, Roger Williams University School of Law, Vermont Law School, Yale Law School and others.

At the pre-college level, New England is home to a majority of the most prominent American independent schools (also known as private schools), such as Buckingham Browne & Nichols, Deerfield Academy, Phillips Academy, Noble and Greenough School, Milton Academy, and Groton Academy in Massachusetts, St. Paul's School and Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, Choate Rosemary Hall, Hotchkiss School, Cheshire Academy, Hopkins Grammar School, Avon Old Farms, Brunswick School, Greenwich Academy, Miss Porter's, Ethel Walker School, Westminster School and Loomis Chaffee in Connecticut, and the schools of the Independent School League. The concept of the elite "New England prep school" and the "preppy" lifestyle is an iconic part of the region's image.

New England states also fund their public schools well, with high spending rates per student and teacher salaries higher than elsewhere. 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. Every state but New Hampshire is in the top ten for educational spending per student.[41] Boston Latin School is the oldest public high school in America. Several signers of the Declaration of Independence attended Boston Latin.

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.

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 near 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. Henry W. Longfellow was from Portland, Maine. Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston. Robert Lowell, Confessionalist poet and teacher of Sylvia Plath, was also a New England native. Plath hailed from Boston. Anne Sexton, also taught by Lowell, was born and died in Massachusetts. Current 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.

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.

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 insured that he would be associated with the region.

More recently, Stephen King of Main, 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, 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.

Boston has laways beena major center for publishing; it was upstaged by New York in the miod 19th 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.

Sports

The region's colleges developed a rich athletic program in the 19th century, creating a model for the nation in intercollegiate athletics. Two popular American sports were invented in New England. Basketball was invented by James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891. Volleyball was invented by William G. Morgan in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1895. The earliest known written reference to the sport of baseball is a 1791 Pittsfield, Massachusetts by-law banning the playing of the game within 80 yards of the town's new meeting house.


High school football rivalries date back to the 19th century, and the Harvard-Yale rivalry is the oldest in college football. The Boston Marathon, run on Patriot's Day every year, is a New England cultural institution.

New England major league sports fans divide between Boston and New York City loyalties.

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.

Acadia National Park, off the coast of Maine, preserves most of Mount Desert Island and includes mountains, an ocean shoreline, woodlands, and lakes.

The coastal New England states are home to many oceanfront beaches, with the Cape Cod region of Massachusetts an upscale summer resort area.

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 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.

See also

Bibliography

Travel guides

  • Dwight, Timothy. Travels Through New England and New York (circa 1800) 4 vol. (1969) Online at: vol 1; vol 2; vol 3; vol 4
  • Frommer's New England (2006),
  • Lonely Planet New England (2005)
  • WPA Federal Writers' Project. Here's New England!: A Guide to Vacationland 1939 online edition

External links

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