MASSACHUSETTS

constituent state of the United States of America. It was one of the original 13 states and is one of the six New England states lying in the northeastern corner of the nation. Massachusetts is bounded on the north by Vermont and New Hampshire, on the east and southeast by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Rhode Island and Connecticut, and on the west by New York. It covers 8,284 square miles (21,456 square kilometres) and ranks 45th among the states in area. The capital is Boston. The residents represent an amalgamation of the prototypical Yankee spirit of an earlier America and the energies of the later immigrants who flocked to its cities in the 19th century. Like others of the British colonies along America's Atlantic seaboard in the 17th and 18th centuries, Massachusetts was founded by people seeking in a wilderness for a new way of life involving such then-untried notions as freedom of religion and self-government. These and other ideals were severely tested during more than 150 years of colonial life, but they came to provide much of the ideological underpinning of the American Revolution, from which Massachusetts emerged as one of the founding and leading members of the new United States. Massachusetts has been, nearly from its founding, a leading force in American education. During the 19th century Boston became synonymous with the highest attainments in America's cultural and artistic life, and the state as a whole provided industrial and financial leadership for the nation. Though these latter positions have long since been yielded to larger and faster-growing states and regions, the history and people of Massachusetts have left an indelible mark on the development of the American consciousness. officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, constituent state of the United States of America, located in New England, in the northeastern part of the country. Massachusetts is bounded to the north by Vermont and New Hampshire; to the east by the Atlantic Ocean; to the south by the Atlantic Ocean, Rhode Island, and Connecticut; and to the west by New York. The state capital is Boston. The original Native American inhabitants of Massachusetts coexisted with the first permanent European settlement from 1620, when the Mayflower left its intrepid band of Pilgrims at Plymouth. Ten years later, the first wave of English Puritans arrived at the newly founded town of Boston. Their establishment of a Puritan commonwealth had far-reaching effects on the development of American religious, political, and social institutions. Massachusetts was a hotbed of revolutionary activity in the years preceding the American Revolution, and the Revolution's first skirmish was fought on the green at Lexington (April 1775). Massachusetts led the struggle for the abolition of slavery in the 19th century and in the second half of the 19th century became the first truly industrialized state in the Union. The indented, rocky coasts of Massachusetts were formed by glaciers that disappeared some 11,000 years ago. A hard land surface stretches inland, becoming stony upland near the central part of the state, a region characterized by its many streams. Farther west lie the fertile Connecticut River valley, the picturesque Berkshire Hills, and the Taconic and Hoosac ranges. The climate is basically temperate but is colder and drier in the west. The warm waters of the Gulf Stream influence temperatures in the eastern part of the state, particularly at Cape Cod, which juts 65 miles (105 km) into the ocean. July is the hottest month, averaging about 71 F (22 C), in contrast to the 26 F (-3 C) average for January. During its first two centuries of European settlement, Massachusetts was solidly English and Protestant (the Congregational Church was not disestablished there until 1833); but in the 19th century immigration and industrialization greatly altered the ethnic composition. Today the state's population is largely Roman Catholic, a legacy of the great numbers of Irish and Italian immigrants who came there throughout the 19th century. Boston, like most large northern cities, lost population to its suburbs in the latter part of the 20th century. The state population as a whole has one of the lowest growth rates of all the 50 states. Agriculture has never been central to the economy of Massachusetts. The generally rocky soils support only market gardening, although southeastern Massachusetts is one of the world's major producers of cranberries. Fishing in the surrounding Atlantic waters has always been a primary component of the economy, but the once-prosperous whaling industry declined at the beginning of the 20th century. Massachusetts has developed industrially since the first saltworks and ironworks were set up there in the 1640s. The once-flourishing textile industry was greatly diminished by the relocation of mills to southern states, and the regional economy shifted toward service-oriented activities in the late 20th century. Nevertheless, Massachusetts is known for its production of electronic equipment, medical supplies, computer components, and printed matter. The presence of such major educational institutions as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Boston University stimulated the growth of high-technology facilities from the 1980s, thus revitalizing the state's declining industrial base. Tourism also features prominently in the state's economy. Massachusetts was responsible for the famous clipper ships of the 1850s and also had the nation's first railroad. Brockton had the first electric street railway, and Boston the first passenger subway. Today the state is served by a network of major highways and railroads. Boston is a centre for sea and air transport. Boston has long been a cultural centre, not only of Massachusetts but of the nation. Both Boston and Massachusetts have nourished a lively literary tradition, from Jonathan Edwards to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Emily Dickinson. Area 8,262 square miles (21,399 square km). Pop. (1990) 6,016,425; (1996 est.) 6,092,352. Additional reading Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration of Massachusetts, Massachusetts: A Guide to Its Places and People (1937, reprinted as The WPA Guide to Massachusetts, 1983), details many aspects of the state; an updated version was also published as Massachusetts: A Guide to the Pilgrim State, 2nd ed., rev. and enlarged (1971). Georgia Orcutt, Massachusetts: Portrait of the Land and Its People, 2 vol. (1988), is a historical geography. Additional geographic information may be found in Richard W. Wilkie and Jack Tager (eds.), Historical Atlas of Masschusetts (1991); and DeLorme Mapping Company, Massachusetts Atlas & Gazetteer (1998).Historical works include Richard D. Brown, Massachusetts: A Bicentennial History (1978); Benjamin W. Labaree, Colonial Massachusetts (1979); Albert Bushnell Hart (ed.), Commonwealth History of Massachusetts: Colony, Province, and State, 5 vol. (192730, reissued 1966), on the years 16051930; Jack Tager and John W. Ifkovic (eds.), Massachusetts in the Gilded Age: Selected Essays (1985); and Martin Kaufman, John W. Ifkovic, and Joseph Carvalho III (eds.), A Guide to the History of Massachusetts (1988), a collection of nine historiographic essays, six of them on specific time periods. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society (annual) is a useful periodical. John D. Haskell, Jr. (ed.), Massachusetts: A Bibliography of Its History (1976, reprinted 1983), is an extensive work. Martha L. Clark