Modern Boston History Exam

I will post my history exam and it is due tomorrow. Everything you must do will be on the folder that I will upload. I need a plagirsm free paper and I need to get a 100 to pass this class.

History 385 – Exam 1 – !1

History 385
Modern Boston
Exam 1 – Week 2 


Due on Sunday January 7, 11:59 pm

Instructions:

• Write your exam as a Word document.
• Save your exam as YourFamilyName_Exam 1 Save it frequently as you write!!!
• Write your name at the top left of the page.
• Insert page number in the header on the top-right side.
• Submit your final document in , x, or format only by Sunday, January 7, 11:59

pm.
• You can use the material that we have used in class (slides, readings, etc) to write your exam.
• Identify each section of your exam 


The exam will be divided into two sections. 1) Identifications & 2) Essay

1. Identifications 

For this part of the exam, you must identify 1 term per block (25 points each), based on all
the information presented in lectures, reading, and multimedia material presented in class.
For each of the terms, write at least a full paragraph which will answer the following:

• Who?/What? Identify the person, the event, or concept.
• When? this person lived, event occurred, or concept emerged.
• Where? this person lived, event occurred, or concept emerged if relevant.
• Why? Explain the historical significance of this person, event, or concept.
• You must include the historical significance in the long term, emphasizing its importance. 


Block 1

Block 2

Brahmins City Upon a Hill

Transcendentalism Puritans

Abolitionism Nativism

Andover House Massachusetts Civil Service Act

City Beautiful Movement John Boyle O’Reilley

James Michael Curley New Woman

History 385 – Exam 1 – !2

2. Essay question

For this part of the exam, choose 1 of the following questions. (50 points) Your essay will
contain at least 3-4 paragraphs (with a small intro and conclusion). It will be a detailed answer to
the question, including concepts, events, and a logical argument. You should cover every point of
the question in your answer. Your introduction and conclusion should be a very small part of
your answer. They should simply tell the reader what your essay will cover. Use the material
seen in lecture or discussed in your weekly posts. Your essay will be graded on the links you
make between events, the logic of your argument, and the details of your answers (who, what,
when, etc).

1. Boston has been known as a radical city. This radicalism pushed the boundaries of
thought across the nation. Describe what you consider to be radical thought in Boston
from the founding of the colony to the Civil War. Explain how this thought was
revolutionary for the time and how it changed the nation. 


2. Nativism, a xenophobic attitude that protected the interests of native-born U.S. citizens
and established laws against the interests of immigrants, surfaced in the 1840s. Despite
waves of tolerance toward the immigrants, nativism persisted in Boston throughout the
1800s and well into the 1920s. However, the doctrine changed over time. Compare and
contrast the nativism of the 1840s (1 paragraph on the 1840s at the most) and the
Nativism seen at the end of the 19th century up to the 20th century. How do the policies
enacted against immigrants from the 1890s to the 1920s differ from those enacted in the
1840s, and why?

Week 1.1 History 385 – !1

Week 1.1 Boston by 1800
History 385

Julie de Chantal

History up to here
Today, I would like to give you an overview of the history of the city up to 1800. This material
will help you situate the history that we will be talking about during the class. It will be
important to understand it since it is the foundation on which we will build this class in the
upcoming weeks.

Pre-settlement
Boston is located on the Shawmut peninsula which was originally connected to the rest of the
state by a narrow isthmus, called the Boston neck. The original city was surrounded by Boston’s
Harbor, the Back Bay, and the estuary of the Charles River.
Archeologists have found prehistoric Native American sites which show that the
peninsula was inhabited for over 12,000 years. They made these discoveries during the
construction for the Big Dig in the 1980s and the 1990s, and gathered more than 1000 boxes of
evidence to be preserved. They were surprised to have found so much, since the city’s terrain had
been heavily modified in the past 400 years.

So who lived in Boston?
By the time of the first contact, the tribes established to the North and South of what is now
downtown Boston were the Mystic Tribe (also known as Pawtuckeog or Pawtucket) and the
Naponset Tribe. Both tribes had a complex political system based a matrilocal and matrilineal
organization (matrilocal = stay with the mother’s family, and matrilineal = bloodlines through the
mother’s family). The Mystic tribe had even chosen a woman as their leader. Because the
Natives who lived in the area did not maintain written records, we can only see her presence in
white records which called her “Squaw Sachem.” When she signed her name, she used a stylized
bow and arrow.

The principle settlement of the Mystic tribe was named Mishawum, and was located in
Charlestown near the current site of Bunker Hill Community College. The site contained several
traditional Native homes, one English style home, and a palisade to prevent invasions from the
outside, especially from the North. The tribe’s territory included the Charles and Mystic rivers,
the Rivers’ mouths, and some of the Islands in the Boston Harbor

When the first settlers arrived in America, nearly 90% of the Native population was decimated
due to their lack of immunity to diseases carried by the Europeans. (This is debated among
historians. There are other causes for the annihilation of Native Americans after contact).

Week 1.1 History 385 – !2

The Settlement
Who were the Europeans who settled in Boston? For the most part, the settlers who came to the
Massachusetts Bay Colony were from England. At the time, England was lagging behind other
countries in terms of colonization.
• Spain had already established itself in South America since 1492.
• Portugal claimed Brazil in 1500
• France had claimed what became New France in 1534

Some of the following issues might explain the lag in colonization. Since the reign of Henry VIII
(King from 1509-1547), England had been unstable both politically and religiously. Henry’s
disagreement with the Catholic church about the annulment of his marriage, led the King to
initiate the English Reformation, separating the Church of England from the Pope’s authority.
The reformation created tensions between Catholics and proponents of the reform which
intensified in the following years. During the reign of his daughter, Mary, Catholicism was
reestablished (her mother was Catherine of Aragon (Spain), as a result Mary was a staunch
Catholic) and Protestants were persecuted. When Mary died, her sister Elizabeth I took the
throne and reestablished Protestantism. Although she was tolerant of Catholics, she did not
tolerate Radical Puritans who were pushing for reform.

The Puritans
The Puritans, who had been in exile under Mary I, returned to England during Elizabeth’s reign.
They had attempted to purge the Church of England (Anglican Church) of its Catholic remnants.
This “purification” led to them calling themselves Puritans. Because they felt alienated from
their own government, a number of them decided to leave England, and to establish themselves
in the Netherlands and in North America. But they were not the only ones to come to the East
Coast of what is now considered the United States.

Difference between Puritans and Pilgrims?
Let’s pause a second here. The following is really important to understand. The Pilgrims (the
ones whom we associate with Thanksgiving) were not the same as the Puritans.
• The Pilgrims are separatists. They wanted to be on their own to practice their religion as they

saw fit, without any outside interference, and without having to interface with the rest of
society. Many other groups at the time had the same separatist goals -> Quakers, Amish,
Mennonites, Shakers, Moravian Brethren.

• The Puritans were NOT separatists. They are part of the Church of England as I mentioned
but did not want to separate from society. Instead, as we will see, they wanted to create a
model society for people to live in which would be “pure” according to their precepts.

With this in the background— the political instability in England, the English Reformation, and
the Puritans—let’s look at how this all comes together in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay
Colony.

Week 1.1 History 385 – !3

Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded in 1628 by the Massachusetts Bay Company. The
company had attempted to settle in North America a few times without success prior to the
founding of the colony. Before leaving England, the share holders of the company signed the
Cambridge Agreement which set the conditions under which the settlement would take place.
• Local control over the colony
• Self-governing colony who answered only to the English Crown (we know for that reason

that they still thought of themselves as English subjects)
• non-emigrating shareholders sold their shares of the company to those who emigrated.
• the colony and the company became one as they crossed the Atlantic.
• People who signed: Richard Saltonstall, Thomas Dudley, William Vassall, NIch. West, Isaac

Johnson, John Humphrey, Thomas Sharp, Increase Nowell, John Winthrop, William
Pynchon, Kellam Browne, William Colbron

Who immigrates?
Contrary to the settlements in the South, for example with Jamestown, the majority of the
population who came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony were families.
• The gender ratio, for that reason, was not as overly male as it was in the South.
• A large number of them were Puritans but not all.
• because the Puritans were a majority, their beliefs about gender roles, laws, and religious

holidays were transported with them during the settlement. (Since Christmas had pagan roots
for example, they did not celebrate Christmas)

One clarification here, we often talk about puritanism as a form of oppression. It is a bit
misguiding since the Puritans were not so repressive. Yes, they wanted to purify the church from
its Catholic elements, and yes, they believed in sex within marriage, but for the most part, they
did not restrict people from doing much. The Puritans were pragmatic (since they were
colonizing the continent, they encouraged reproduction) and applied laws that were standard in
England as well. They did not give women more or less rights than they had in England. They
gave and limited political rights in the same way that they were limited in Europe. To some
extent, they simply reproduced what they knew from before the settlement on the continent.

The first years of the settlement were difficult. The settlers lived in basic structures. As more
arrived, they found that the early towns did not have space for them, so they had to expand the
boundaries, confronting Native Americans who “happened to be in the way.” It is a life on the
frontier if you will during that time. Throughout the 1630s, nearly 20,000 people came to settle
in what is now New England.

Boston
Boston itself was founded in 1629. It was first called Trimountaine after the tree mountains that
surrounded the area but was renamed in September 1630 Boston after Boston in Lincolnshire,
England, where a number of the settlers came from. At the beginning, the settlement was limited

Week 1.1 History 385 – !4

to the peninsula, but extended as more settlers came to establish themselves in the colony. (see
map of Boston in 1630 on slide 2)

John Winthrop
He was born in 1587/88- died 1649.

[The / in the date for those years indicates that they were still using the old Julian Calendar
which did not take leap years into consideration. Britain and its colonies began to use the
Gregorian calendar in 1750 when Britain passed the Calendar Act of 1750. Countries of Western
Europe had begun to shift to the Gregorian in 1582. The Calendar Act also made January 1st, and
not March 25, the beginning of the civic year.]

John Winthrop was not involved in the creation of the Massachusetts Bay Company. He got
involved in 1629 when King Charles I, who was anti-Puritan, began to crackdown on non-
conformist religious thought. At the time, Winthrop signed the Cambridge Agreement and was
elected the governor of the colony and of the company.

Remember what I said about model city? Prior to landing in America, John Winthrop preached
the sermon called “A Model of Christian Charity” in which he argues that Boston will become an
an example of communal charity, of affection, and of unity to the world.

He said: “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are
upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so
cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word
through the world.”

In other words, if the experiment (building Boston as a pure city) failed, they would become an
example of what not to do across the world, and would most likely be facing the judgement of
God. His sermon, remembered as “the City Upon a Hill,” cast Boston as a city with a religious
mission.

This mission which will have two main repercussions. Bostonians will put an:
• emphasis on Education
• emphasis on both religious tolerance and intolerance

Education
Prior to the Reformation (the emergence of the Protestant faith in Europe), religion was almost
always experienced by folks through the intermediary of a priest. After the reformation, priest
remain in power but the relationship with God becomes a more personal affair. For that reason,
people need to read in order to be able to read the Bible. As a consequence, the colonists opened
the first public school in North America in 1635. Does anybody know which public school this
might be?

Week 1.1 History 385 – !5

Boston Latin School
Founded in Boston 1635, based on the models that the Puritans had seen in the Latin School
model which emphasized learning religion, Latin, classic literature. Since the tax system is in its
infancy in the colony, the school will be funded by private donations in kind (money or goods &
services) and in land. As time goes, the school became the preparatory school for Harvard
University which was founded in 1636 as Harvard College

Harvard College
The College was founded by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay
Colony (the Province legislature was called and is still called today the Great and General
Court). It was originally named The New College or the College at New Towne. It was renamed
Harvard College in 1639. The college was obviously a religious school and trained most of the
Puritan Ministers who had grown up in the colonies.

Harvard was the first press for the English North American market. The first bookshop opened in
Boston in 1647. By 1711, thirty stores served the needs of the 9,000 people who live in the city.
(Think about how many bookstores are in your city vis à vis the number of residents!). These
bookstores sold books, atlases, maps (Bostonians and their contemporaries are obsessed with
maps which is logical since it is a settlement colony), pamphlets, and religious materials.

Demographic picture
From this, you have to understand that those who immigrated at first, were people who came
from what we could consider to be either the upper-middle-class or the elite today. The idea that
one would pay for transportation to come to the colony, establish themselves, then have their
children learn Latin and be literate in an environment where your life is in danger on a daily
basis, reflects a level of personal achievement that is rarely seen in other colonies (the rich
planters for example in Jamestown). For that reason, there is pressure on most colonists to
conform to the majority’s beliefs and lifestyle. Those who diverged, were often shunned from the
community.

Intolerance
Although the constitution of the United States sets the country as religiously tolerant, the
colonists were not there yet. People who did not obey the spoken and unspoken rules of the
colony were pushed away from their community

Anne Hutchison
Mother of 15, wife of a successful merchant, was excommunicated in 1638.
When they arrived in the colony, the Hutchisons joined the Boston church. Not long after their
arrival, Anne began hosting religious meetings to women who wanted to discuss the sermons that
they had heard at the church. During the meetings, she offered her own views and interpretations
of the sermons and of religious matters. Because she was a woman, she was not supposed to do
so, hence triggered a controversy on the role of women in the church. The controversy grew with

Week 1.1 History 385 – !6

time and challenged the base principle of the church. She was tried at the civil level and was then
tried at the Church level and excommunicated. Hutchison and some of her supporters were
banished from the colony, and established their own settlement in Portsmouth which is now part
of Rhode Island.

Mary Dyer
Something similar happened to Mary Dyer, a Quaker, who was hanged in Boston in 1659. Like
Hutchison, she also organized Bible groups. While not banished like Hutchison, she moved to
Portsmouth, RI. In 1658, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law banning Quakers. Quakers
were to be arrested and imprisoned, then banished from the colony. If they were arrested again,
they could face death by hanging. That pretty much tells you what happened with Mary Dyer.
She came to Massachusetts to protest the law, was arrested, banished, returned to protest again,
was arrested, imprisoned, and after the third time, received a death sentence. She and two of her
friends were hanged in the Boston Common. In memory of this, October 27 is now International
Religious Freedom Day to recognize the importance of Freedom of religion.

Witchcraft
Some were also convicted of witchcraft throughout the 17th century. There are two main witch-
hunts in the colony during that period, one spans from 1648 to 1663 and the other is toward the
end of the century with what became known as the Salem witch trials.

Margaret Jones, a midwife, was one of the first victims of the first witch hunts. We don’t know
much about the accusations that she faced but know that she was convicted by the General Court.
The accusations that we know of were all linked in one way or another to her practice as a
midwife. She was the first person to be hanged after a witchcraft conviction in Boston in 1648.

By the 1700s: How does the Colony look like?

Demographic
The majority of the people who live in Boston are white English people. The first generation of
American born people are already adults at that point. Most were English, Scots-Irish, some
Huguenots (Protestants) from France, and some Germans. It is not until the 1840s that we will
see Catholics (for example Irish) coming to the city in large numbers.

By 1700, between 200 and 300 Jews, especially Sephardic Jews from Spanish and Portuguese
ancestry, had arrived in the United States. Solomon Franco was the first Jewish person to live in
Boston. He had first settled in New Amsterdam (New York City, settled by the Dutch) then
moved to Boston in 1649, however, he was not allowed to settle in the city. The General Court
voted to “allow the said Solomon Franco, Ye Jew, six shillings per week out of the treasury for
ten weeks for his subsistence til he could get his passage into Holland.” He left after the ten
weeks. The policies toward Jews softened overtime. Records show that in 1674 a Portuguese Jew
named Roland Gideon formed a business partnership with Boston merchant Daniel Barrow. In

Week 1.1 History 385 – !7

1716 Jewish merchant Isaac Lopez opened a Boston establishment; a few years later, two other
merchants followed in his footsteps.

Slavery
There is a really small number of slaves in Boston in the first years of the colony. African slavery
began around 1637 with the Pequot war. Because of the position of Boston as a port city, a
number of cargos passed by the colony to bring supplies—such as cotton, tobacco, and sugar—
and brought African slaves as well. Some Boston merchants became deeply involved in the slave
trade, with most of the trade being linked to the city in one way or another. By 1670, Boston
ships had pioneered the slave trade with Madagascar, and were selling to all colonies. The slave
trade enriched many families in the city allowing them to rise in the social hierarchy.

Until the 1660s, slavery is not a hereditary condition hence why such a trade is important. Slaves
usually regain their freedom after a number of years in the colony and have to be replaced by
new slaves. The fact that they become free after a number of years will influence the position of
African Americans in Boston.

Diseases
Most of the population is affected by diseases at one point or another. For example, between
1636 and 1698, the city deals with 6 smallpox epidemics. The same happened between
1721-1722. During that epidemics, 5889 people caught smallpox and 844 people died of the
disease, nearly 14% of the population. Another 15% left the city in panic, spreading the disease
to neighboring towns.

Following the epidemics, Zabdiel Boylston and Cotton Mather came up with the idea of
inoculating people against the disease. Boylston used the pus from an infected person’s boils, to
inoculate his two slaves and his 13 year old son. Almost at the same time, a slave taught Cotton
Mather (a minister) what they did in his home country to protect people against diseases.
Learning of what Boylston had done, Mather supported his efforts and helped him as much as he
could. But the idea of inoculating people against diseases was very controversial at the time, to
the point where Boylston was attacked physically. He and his family received threats. Most
doctors at the time felt that he was going against all principles of modern medicine. He was
forced to hide. He could only visit his patients in the middle of the night and disguised. So
Mather arranged for Boylston to travel to London to publish his results. Boylston became a
fellow of the Royal Society, and finally was able to return to Boston a few years later.

Economically
Economically speaking, by 1700 and despite all of the diseases which plagued the residents, the
city was the most important urban center in New England. Farming remained the largest
economic activity around the city. Fishing and commerce were central to the city’s survival.
Salem was still the largest port until the War of 1812, but Boston follows in second place.
Shipbuilding was a fast-growing industry at the time.

Week 1.1 History 385 – !8

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was the first colony to issue paper money in North America.
Boston soon became an important banking center for the nation. There was a shortage on coins,
gold, and silver, so the paper money gained in importance in the early 18th century.

There was a large number of artisans in the city. We already talked about the printing industry
but as people came to the colonies, they brought their knowledge and training and established
themselves as silversmiths, blacksmiths, carpenters, glass makers, tailors, millers. As “medicine”
evolved, some took on the roles of doctors, dentists (who were also often times, ferriers or
silversmiths like Paul Revere), lawyers, etc. Most people had multiple jobs to make ends meet.

In the early first half of the 18th century (before 1750s) the Enlightenment challenged the ways
in which people lived in the colonies. People like Thomas Paine, John Locke, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, Condorcet, and Montesquieu (the philosophers who theorized the relationship
between citizen and government) were widely read in Massachusetts. Following the French and
Indian war (1754-1763), the relationship soured between England and the colonies.

March to the War
The relationship deteriorated when England imposed a large tax burden on the colonies. England
was deeply indebted over the war against France, and felt that the colonists should share the
burden. Up to that point, the Parliament taxed some goods which were sent to the colonies but
for the most part failed to collect them. In 1764, however, the British Parliament imposed a tax
on sugar, and this time set up a system to collect the money. The following year, it imposed the
Stamp Act which required the use of embossed paper for legal documents and other printed
matter. The paper needed to be produced in London and to carry the stamp in order to be
considered legal.

You can imagine how difficult this was for the printing industry which was really important in
Boston. In response, the colonists began to boycott products. The slogan of the campaigns
against the Stamp Act became “No taxation without representation.” The colonists considered the
taxes as a violation of their right as Englishmen not to be taxed without consent.

Women also participated in boycotts. They began to produce the homespun, fabric made in the
city. Women organized home-spinning parties and demonstrations. They signed petitions to force
the Parliament to repeal the taxes. The boycotts and demonstrations were often a place where
women could get involved in the political arena. You have to remember that they did not have
the right to vote at the time.

British merchants and manufacturers also pressured the Parliament to abolish the taxes. They
were often threatened by the colonies to boycott their products. The merchants did not want to
take the chance of their products not being bought after they had crossed the Atlantic. London
repealed the Act on March 18, 1766 but Parliament affirmed its power to legislate for the
colonies by passing the Declaratory Act.

Week 1.1 History 385 – !9

In 1767, the British Parliament passed the Towshend Acts which imposed taxes on a larger
number of goods, including paper, paint, glass, and other products that were imported into the
colonies. The colonists organized more boycotts and harassed customs personnel who had been
assigned to the colony to collect the taxes. England had doubled the number of Crown officials to
collect the taxes. Furthermore, it limited the autonomy of the colonies in the colonies governing
assemblies. Tension rose to an unprecedented level. In October 1768, in response to the colonists
protests, British troops arrived in Boston and occupied the city.

Following the Townshend Act, the Massachusetts assembly started a campaign by signing
petitions to the King, asking that he repeal the act. They also sent the Massachusetts Circular
Letter to other colonial assemblies to ask them to join the resistance movement. They called for
the boycott of merchants importing the taxed goods. The tensions between Bostonians and the
British Soldiers led to a severe clash in March 1770.

Boston Massacre
(image by Henry Pelham, published by Paul Revere)

On March 5, a British soldier stood on guard outside of the Custom house of King Street (now
State Street). A young wigmaker called out to a British officer, not far from him, who had not
paid his bill. The officer ignored him. A soldier argued with the wigmaker to tell him that he
should be more respectful to the officer. They exchanged insults. The soldier ended up striking
the wigmaker on the head with his musket. The confrontation attracted a large crowd. They
continued fighting. The crowd grew larger and more boisterous. The church bells rang, (usually
they only rang because of a fire), and brought more people to the street. More than 50 people
surrounded the soldiers at that point. Bostonians who had just arrived started throwing objects at
them, challenging them to fire their weapon. More soldiers came to the soldiers’ rescue.

They held off until someone hit one of the new soldiers, and made him drop his musket. He was
so angry that he gave the group the order to shoot in the crowd. Soldiers hit a total of 11 men. 3
died instantly (Samuel Gray, James Caldwell, and Crisps Attucks, a mixed race runaway slave).
Samuel Maverick died a few hours later, Patrick Carr died two weeks later. The soldiers were
eventually arrested and Bostonians demanded that the troops be withdrawn from the city.

The events increased the anti-British sentiment all over the colonies and lead to the development
of anti-British propaganda hence why we know the event as the Boston Massacre

The Tea Party
In 1773, the Parliament seemed to have forgotten what happened with the other laws before and
imposed the Tea Act. (You have to remember that Bostonians are really British in their habits and
drink a lot of tea) The resistance grew beyond the usual boycotts and protests. It was no longer a
question of taxes but about how Britain controlled the colonies, created monopolies, and lacked
respect for the colonists.

Week 1.1 History 385 – !10

In all the colonies, protesters managed to either have the tea consignees (special agents appointed
to receive and sell the tea) to resign their post or return the tea to England. However, the
Governor of Massachusetts was holding his ground. His family was involved in the trade, so
there was no budging on that side. When the Dartmouth, a tea ship, arrived in Boston Harbor,
Samuel Adams called for a meeting at Faneuil Hall. So many people came that the meeting had
to be moved to the Old South Meeting House.

The rule had been that the ships needed to be unloaded and the duties paid within 20 days of
arrival. Otherwise, custom officials could confiscate the cargo. The meeting assigned twenty-five
men to watch the ship, and prevent it from being unloaded. The governor refused to let the ship
leave the port without paying the duty. Two more ships arrived (A third wrecked on the Cape
before making it to the Harbor). After receiving a report that Governor Hutchinson had again
refused to let the ships leave, Adams announced that “This meeting can do nothing further to
save the country.”

A number of historians and contemporaries felt that his statement was the code word to trigger
the Tea Party. However, his statement was not printed until well after his death. The
interpretation possibly came from his great-grandson writing his biography. That being said,
about 15 minutes after his statement, people started leaving the meeting house. Adams tried to
make them stay because the meeting was not over. Some people got ready to take action, for
example by putting on Mohawk costumes and make up to conceal their identities. That night,
boarded the three ships and dumped all of the tea in the harbor.

Adams started publicizing the events and defended them. He argued that the Tea Party was not
the act of a lawless mob, but was instead a principled protest because it was the only remaining
option the people had to defend their rights.

Response
The British authorities had no choice but to close the Boston Harbor (until the colonists paid for
the destroyed tea) as a response to the Tea Party. They also put in place the Coercive Acts (also
called the Intolerable Acts) which were meant to punish the colonists for their defiance.
• They took away the Massachusetts Charter and brought it under control of the British

government. This limited the ability of the colony to self-govern since the governor had to
call all of the public meetings.

• The Administration of Justice Act allowed for the trials to be held in Great Britain instead of
in the colonies if the governor did not feel that the accused could get a fair trial. The
witnesses would be reimbursed but only after traveling at their own expense.

• Finally, the government imposed the Quartering Act which allowed British troops to be
housed in unoccupied buildings, at any point.

Tensions rose obviously between the British and Bostonians in the following years. As you might
already know, the country entered military combat in April 1775, when General Gage sent 700
men to seize munitions stored in Concord. Several riders, including Paul Revere, were

Week 1.1 History 385 – !11

dispatched to alert the countryside. When the British reached Lexington, the next morning, a
militia was waiting for them. They exchanged fire, 8 Minutemen were killed. The British
continued to Concord but once they arrived, the munitions were not there. The Battle of
Lexington and Concord triggered the Revolutionary War.

A number of people leave Boston during the Revolutionary War. Loyalists, in particular left the
area to go to other British colonies, mainly what is Canada today. A number of people left
because blockades prevented supplies from reaching the city. So, what is the legacy of the
Revolutionary War for Boston?

Legacy
Following the Revolutionary War, Massachusetts became a state. John Adams, who will become
the 2nd president, drafted the State Constitution which was ratified in 1780.

Slavery
In the early 1770s, slavery was still present in Massachusetts. Slaves had to abide by a number of
rules: they could not be in the streets after 9 pm (remember that streets are dark at the time due to
the lack of lighting), they could physically fight with white people, and could not intermarry. By
the 1770s, a number of Black people had sued their masters for their freedom.

With the new State Constitution, though, some Massachusetts residents felt that the principles of
liberty and slavery had become incompatible. Through its Constitution, the state abolished
slavery. However, it took several drafts to get to this point. The Massachusetts Legislature in
1777 had tabled a proposal for gradual emancipation. In 1778, a draft of the State Constitution
legally recognized slavery and banned free Blacks from voting. However, in 1783, the Quock
Walker case—in fact several cases lumped in together under Walker’s name— analyzed the
wording of the 1780 Constitution to see if slavery should remain. The Constitution contained the
following words: “all men are born free and equal, and have … the right of enjoying and
defending their lives and liberty.” Chief Justice William Cushing argued that the State
Constitution had, in fact, granted rights that were incompatible with slavery. So, in 1783, Black
men not only got the right to be called citizens, they also received all of the rights that white men
had. In this sense, Massachusetts becomes the first state to give universal voting rights to all
men.

Religion
Like its federal counterpart, Massachusetts Constitution dropped all religious tests for political
office. Despite its religious past and the presence of the Puritan heritage, Massachusetts adopted
freedom of religion as one of its tenets.

Week 1.1 History 385 – !12

Economic position
By the end of the War, Massachusetts entered an economic recession. However, it did not remain
in that position for long. At the turn of the century, which we will see next week, Massachusetts
became a leader in the first industrial revolution.

Boston’s position in terms of ship transport gave the city a clear advantage in the nation. Because
of the flow of money, a number of companies had their headquarters in Boston: The Boston
Manufacturing Company and the Boston Sugar Refinery are two examples of this trend.

Population
By 1800, 24,937 people lived in Boston, 23,763 were white, 1,174 were Black. A number of
Black people had escaped the South during the Revolution and chose Boston as their home.

Week1.3 History 385 – !1

Week 1.3 Radicalism in Boston
History 385

Julie de Chantal

The Desire to build a cohesive city
If we come back to the very beginning of the city in 1629, we have to remember that the first
residents of the city founded Boston with a religious mission in mind. Boston was the City Upon
a Hill, an example of what the city could be to the world. This religious mission to be better
often allowed Bostonians to be more radical than other colonists.

It is no surprise that Bostonians were at the origin of the Tea Party, that they wrote petitions to
the King to fight against the Crown’s encroachments of their rights as citizens. Boston is known
as Freedom’s birthplace from there on out. Widespread education was specially important to this
aspect of Bostonians’ political position in the country.

Education
As you might remember, the first public school Boston Latin School, opened in 1635. It
emphasized learning religion, Latin, classic literature. Since the tax system was in its infancy in
the colony, the school was funded by private donations in kind and in land. In 1636, the General
Court appropriated a sum of £400 pounds to establish a college similar to Cambridge University
in England. That college became Harvard College, then Harvard University. With the increase in
population, especially as the population spreads around Boston, other schools were built to meet
the demand.

In 1645, for example Reverent John Eliot created the Roxbury Latin School, which aimed to
educate young boys. The school was a private school and was not supported by public funds at
its origins.

Public vs free school
We often mention the Boston school system being the first Public school system in the United
States. I would like to add some nuance to this. In the minds of the colonists, there is a
distinction between public and free schools.
• Free school = free to all who paid their tuition and which was supported in part by

endowments and voluntary contributions.
• public schools = a school free of charge supported by city taxes.

But even Public schools charge something to their students: wood for the fire, portion of the
teacher’s board, books. In the subsequent years, expenses of the schools will be paid by the city
but books are still at the students expense. In 1885 the state legislature passes the Free Text book
law which funds all textbooks used in class. The fact that public schools did not charge tuition is
a first in the United States

Week 1.3 History 385 – !2

The first elementary school
The assumption was that primary education would be taught at home. Children were expected to
be able to read and write to some extent when they entered school around age 7. Since not all
colonist had the same level of education or access to the books necessary to teach their children,
the town of Dorchester opened the first elementary school in the colonies, the Mather School.

The school was named after Richard Mather, (He was father to Increase Mather and grandfather
to Cotton Mather). It was a one room school at first. The school teacher was to teach English,
Latin, and other tongues, as well as writing to the pupils. The creation of the school came with an
annual salary for the school teacher £20 per year and a budget for the maintenance of the
premises. Other school teachers at the same period were paid both in money and in kind (wheat,
peas, barley, etc). The school master was chosen by the freemen and the elders. These elders
were also asked to decide if girls should be allowed to be taught with the boys or not. As you can
imagine that question was tabled rather quickly and not considered for several decades after that.
Students who lived too far away to walk to school would either ride a horse or take a horse
drawn “bus,” called a kid-hack!

In 1641 the land was given to the town of Dorchester so that the city could use the land toward
free education. Not long after the creation of the school, the town of Dorchester levied a property
tax. The money was to be put in a public treasury and used for the school. It was the first
instance of public taxation used for public education. Furthermore, in 1645 the town reaffirmed
its commitment to public education by declaring that the schoolmaster “shall equally and
impartially receive, and instruct such as shall be sent and Committed to him for that end whither
their parents be poor or rich not refusing any who have Right and Interest in the School.”

If you think about it, it is quite a revolutionary concept to take the children out of the home at a
young age. Children were supposed to stay in the private sphere until they were of age enough to
be able to learn a trade and to apprentice under someone else. Their mother was supposed to give
them a rudimentary education (reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic) before they could make
their way into the world. So what was the motivation for Bostonians to send their children to
school? The answer is simple. In 1642, the colony created a law which recognized the public
school system, and at the same time, forced people to educate their children. In 1647, the state
established a law which contained the substance of the American common school and industrial
education:

• Education is seen as being not only for the good of the person but also for the good of the
Commonwealth

• If parents did not educate their children -> Seen as negligence or barbarism
• So the state decides to force parents and masters to educate their children or hire someone if

they cannot do so under penalty of £20 pounds per child.
• Children had to read English at the very least.
• Selectmen (city officials) were in charge of the education system and of the assessment of the

performance of the children, in school or not.

Week 1.3 History 385 – !3

• the state forced families to teach religion to their children at least once a week. The children’s
knowledge could be tested by any selectmen through a trial.

• The state argued that people should have a knowledge of the scripture and that only Satan
would keep men from the scriptures

• The state finds that it is the responsibility of parents and masters to give their children the
training necessary for a profession

• the state legislates that for every 100 families, 1 grammar school should be set up so that the
children could access further learning (university perhaps)

• if a town neglects to build a new school as its population increases, the state could fine the
town £5 per year until they constructed the school is completed.

Gender Discrimination?
If you notice, the law does not discriminate under the basis of gender. So young girls are under
the same obligation to receive an education as their male counterparts. However, until 1784,
young girls were only allowed in common schools, not grammar school. After 1784, girls could
attend grammar school from June to October. This was usually the time when young men were in
the fields, helping their families.

The reason why women were not allowed to continue further was because of biases of the time.
People assumed that, since women stayed in the private sphere, they rarely met people who lived
outside of their town. As a result, they did not need to learn to write since they would not send
letters to their out-of-town friends. Instead, they only needed a basic education which allowed
them to count eggs, stitches when knitting, or run the household. At the same time thought, they
were still required to read the Catechism and Testament.

If we jump to the post Revolutionary period… In 1790 the state legislature passed a law which
required that young pupils be taught in other schools before being admitted to the grammar
school. Until 1818, there is no public school in Boston to prepare children for grammar school.
Parents had to send their children to private school first, then to grammar school. This created a
discrepancy between people educated in Boston and those educated elsewhere in the state. In
1817, there were 164 private schools, 135 of them were taught by women. Of the 4132 children
enrolled in schools -> 1914 were boys and 2218 were girls.

In 1818, despite the opposition of the selectmen, people voted almost unanimously to provide
free instruction for children age 4 to 7. When the state passed the law, it also required that
women provided this instruction to little children. This was a revolutionary demand.

Remember that women are supposed to be in the private sphere. However, here, they saw a
school for 4 to 7 year-old children as an extension of the home, hence still part of the domestic
sphere. Furthermore, if women taught these children, they did not need a lot of education. They
only needed to be able to show the rudiments of spelling to young children. Why waste the skills
of a man over this? (In addition, women could be paid less than men for the same job, hence the
bargain for the state).

Week 1.3 History 385 – !4

In 1836, Massachusetts was the first state to compel children to stay in school beyond basic
literacy. The law was not necessarily a concern for the children’s education but a reaction to the
rise of the industry and the hiring of children as workers. The 1836 law, required that children
under the age of 15 remain in school for at least 3 months a year.

Black Bostonians
Free Black Bostonians had access to education in the city. However, they felt that their children
were discriminated against in the public school at the time. The city had no school specifically
for Black children so some Black parents petitioned the state legislature to complain that their
taxes were used to fund white schools but not Black schools. Some Black children attended
white schools.

In 1798, 60 Black parents founded the African School. They attempted to get the support of the
city to make their school a public school (i.e. one where they would not have to pay for tuition).
In 1812, the city began to contribute to the school. The school building was not in good
condition and was not able to do any maintenance. Some Black parents of the upper class
(remember that the Black elite emerge at this point) felt that their children did not receive the
best education possible at the school.

In 1815, Abiel Smith, who was a philanthropist, died and left $4,000 to be used to build a school
for Black children. In 1835, they used part of the money to construct the Abiel Smith School.
While the school was meant to give Black children the best education that they could, some
parents became fearful of the system. The school intended to give Black children a tailored
education including topics that were not discussed in white schools (Black history for example).
However, this led to the Boston public school system becoming segregated. Soon, the Abiel
Smith School was used against the Black community (for segregation instead of for better
education).

A few years later, some parents organized to fight against this double system. (We will talk about
this a bit later in this lecture)

Literacy rates
Because of all of these laws, and the access to education, people who grew up in Boston were by
far among the most literate in the United States at the time (98% of Bostonians being literate
around 1860, only Connecticut had a higher rate with 98.9%). Bostonians were also some of the
most literate people in the world at the time. As you can imagine with these numbers, literacy
was common among all classes. Some professions, for example weavers, shoe-makers, or hat
makers even included reading as part of their job description. Bostonians loved to read, became
collectors of all things intellectual, and begin to promote erudition as a way to distinguish
themselves from other colonists. They opened the first public library somewhere between 1711
and 1725. They also open a private library in 1807, the Boston Athenæum, where the Brahmins
could pay a membership fee to use the services of the institution. The Athenæum served as a
publishing arm for the elite with the publication of the Monthly Anthology, Or Magazine of

Week 1.3 History 385 – !5

Polite Literature. With these literacy rates and the exchange of information, the city was bound
to see the emergence of some radical thought not seen elsewhere.

Radical Thought comes with education
For example, between 1820 and 1830, Transcendentalism became really popular in the city. If
you remember, in our first lecture, I mentioned briefly the role of the philosophers in the
Revolutionary Era. The philosophers advocated for the use of reason and skepticism to question
their world.

Transcendentalism rejects reason and skepticism, and advocates against intellectualism and
spirituality. The movement was greatly influenced by English and German romanticism and by
Eastern religions (for example Buddhism or Hinduism). A number of Bostonians began to
translate ancient Buddhist and Hindu texts from their original language to English.
Transcendentalism, however, only began to develop after Harvard became a Unitarianism
stronghold.

So what is Transcendentalism?
It is a movement which believes/promotes in the following:
• the inherent goodness of people and nature.
• society and its institutions have corrupted the purity of the individual
• they have faith that people are at their best when truly “self-reliant” and independent.
• The movement also emphasizes subjective intuition instead of objective empiricism.

Transcendentalism became a coherent movement with the founding of the Transcendental Club
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on September 8, 1836. Its founders George Putnam, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, George Ripley, and Frederic Henry Hedge met to discuss the formation of the club and
held their first meeting at Ripley’s house in Boston. The movement itself was a movement of
young people, men and women, who had grown up in the city and had been educated in the
Boston schools.

Watch The Bloodless Revolution http://silk.library.umass.edu/login?url=http://fod.infobase.com/
PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=102927&xtid=43062&loid=99596 (4:31 minutes, you will need your
NetID to access this video. If the video does not start, click on the title the Bloodless Revolution
on the right hand side menu).

Declaration of intellectual independence
The most important aspect of the Transcendentalism is that it is a declaration of intellectual
independence from Europe. At the time, Transcendentalists felt that American intellectuals were
far too reliant on English literature and culture. Similar to the ways in which the Declaration of
Independence declares the separation of the United States from Britain, the movement promotes
an intellectual separation from England. This is particularly true in The American Scholar by
Ralph Waldo Emerson.

http://silk.library.umass.edu/login?url=http://fod.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=102927&xtid=43062&loid=99596

http://silk.library.umass.edu/login?url=http://fod.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=102927&xtid=43062&loid=99596

Week 1.3 History 385 – !6

Transcendentalists opposed following tradition just because it is tradition. They will set the
ground for other movements such as the abolitionists.

Rebellion with conservative roots
In the text The Genesis of Boston, the author argues that “Historically, Boston proved itself to be
revolutionary, though in a curiously conservative way.” This will be a theme to remember in the
upcoming weeks. For example, we have seen that

• Bostonians favor education of women but oppose women’s rights at the same time.
• They want to reform religion, but do so within the confine of religion itself
• They reproduce what they love from England but with an American twist
• They give a spin to school while keeping the structures that they had seen before
• However this allows their movements to be more powerful and legitimate to some extent.

They are pushing boundaries, while justifying them by their continuity with the past.

Abolitionism
One of the movements that come out of the radicalism in Boston is abolitionism.

Before we start though, I would like to make some distinctions in vocabulary. Do you know what
the difference is between slavery and indentured servitude?
• Slavery is based on race, it is an hereditary condition since the 1660s through the mother’s

line. If your mother is a slave, you are a slave, no matter who your father is.
• Indentured servants could be of any race. They are bound by a limited-term contract, and

once the contract is over or once the person paid back their transportation and living
expenses in full, they regain their freedom

• I would like to caution you about the myth of Irish slavery. There is a long held myth
that the Irish came as slaves to the United States. Although the Irish suffered greatly
through their migration to the United States, they were indentured servants, and not
slaves. In this sense, one cannot compare the lot of the Irish who were indentured
servants to the fate of Africans who were enslaved.

I would also like to make a distinction between abolitionist and antislavery. The two philosophies
appear at the same time and coexisted in the minds of some people.
• Anti-slavery is the opposition to the expansion of slavery and its influence over the

government and civil life. Someone like Abraham Lincoln for example was anti-slavery but
not abolitionist. He wanted to stop the expansion of slavery but was perfectly fine with it
existing in the South of the United States.

• Abolitionism, however, promotes the complete abolition of slavery as a system and the
immediate emancipation of all slaves. That means that once the abolition is done, slaves
become free people and acquire rights that their white peers have.

Week 1.3 History 385 – !7

Abolitionism around the world
Abolitionism was not created in the United States. Already in the Middle Ages, King Louis X of
France had published a decree which proclaimed that France signified Freedom. In the decree,
the king stated that anyone who set foot in France was to be freed, notwithstanding their origin or
condition. Despite the decree in the metropole, France’s colonies, especially in the Caribbean and
Louisiana, after the colonization were slave colonies.

England had a similar policy. In 1569, a court case involved a person who had brought a slave
from Russia. The court ruled that since slavery had never been established officially in England,
the court could not recognize slavery. In the same way, Lord Chief Justice John Holt ruled that a
slave became free if they set foot in England, like in France.

In Massachusetts, slaves sued their masters for their freedom early on. However, the idea of a
cohesive abolition movement only appeared during the Enlightenment (1715-1789). This period
coincided with the creation of the United States as a nation.

Abolitionism in the United States
The first group to oppose Slavery in the United States were the Mennonites of Germantown
Pennsylvania. The Mennonites are a ethno-religious group who were of German and Dutch
descent. A number of them came to America to avoid persecution in Europe, and established
themselves in Pennsylvania.

The Mennonites opposed slavery from a religious stand point. They used the Bible’s Golden
Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” in order to justify their opposition
to slavery.

The Quakers who also came to Pennsylvania, shared similar beliefs. A number of them petitioned
the Dublin Quaker Meeting in 1688, stating the Golden Rule as a way to justify their position.
The petition is very unconventional and avoids most of the standard expected pieces in a Quaker
document of the time (no reference to Jesus or God, no salutation to fellow Quakers, etc).

The document argues that every human, regardless of belief, color, or ethnicity, has rights that
should not be violated. It is the first time in US history that a group proposes the idea that
universal rights should be applied to all humans, not only to those whom they consider civilized.

Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage
In 1775, the Quakers founded the first abolition society in Philadelphia. After 1785, Benjamin
Franklin was elected president of the organization. The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes
Unlawfully Held in Bondage was an integrated organization which included both Black and
white members.

Week 1.3 History 385 – !8

After the Revolution, more people feel that slavery is incompatible with the ideas put forth
during the conflict (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness). Vermont abolished slavery in
1777. Pennsylvania in 1780. Massachusetts followed in 1783 after the case of Quock Walker.

The Revolution triggered a debate around the legality of slavery nationwide. As a result, the
Founding Fathers agreed to permit the trade for 20 years at the minimum. All states had to pass
laws that abolished or limited international slave trade. Northwest Ordinance of 1787 prohibited
slavery in the territories northwest of the Ohio river. New York State abolished slavery
progressively starting in 1799.

Jefferson, who was a slave holder, denounced slavery during his presidency. The slave trade was
officially banned in 1808 but nothing was done to ban local or interstate slave trade. From that
point on, the Mason Dixon line served as a division in the nation, but the debate was far from
settled. It became even more heated as the country expanded West.

Compromise of 1820
Since most people who explored the West do so in a horizontal fashion (for example, someone
from North Carolina might explore toward Tennessee or Arkansas and someone from
Massachusetts toward Michigan or Ohio), states which were created in the Northwest (Ohio
1803, Indiana 1816, and Illinois 1818) are created prohibiting slavery. The states created in the
Southwest (Kentucky 1792, Mississippi, 1817, Alabama 1819) allowed slavery. Since the federal
government sought to keep a balance between slave and non-slave states, the administrations in
place admitted states in pairs (1 slave, 1 non-slave).

The number of states had remained fairly equal, where one state was admitted as a slave state,
one was admitted as a free state. Remember that the U.S. Constitution had two provisions to
balance the amount of power that the slave and free states held in the government. Every state
had/has two senators. If states are admitted as pairs, the balance of power is respected. The
second provision, the ⅗ clause corrected the number of representatives per state and the amount
of taxes to be levied, by counting slaves as ⅗ of a person.

At the time of Missouri’s admission as a slave state, debates were raging in Congress. The House
was mainly anti-slavery. The senate was blocking a restricted-slavery statehood. However, they
found a quick solution to their problem. At the time, the district of Maine petitioned for
statehood. Until then, Maine had been part of Massachusetts. Congress thought that admitting
Maine as a state would kill 2 birds with one stone. 1) Maine would see its petition fulfilled and
become a state. 2) Admitting Maine as a free state could be the condition to the admission of
Missouri as a slave state.

Senator Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois, however, added a clause as a compromise. The Compromise
would guarantee that slavery would be permitted south of the 36° 30’ parallel, and would be
illegal north of the parallel. Although they felt that the compromise would calm the passions, it
instead inflamed them.

Week 1.3 History 385 – !9

With the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Witney, slavery increased. However, since the trade is
prohibited after 1808 and that slavery is now an hereditary condition, slave holders used
reproduction to increase the number of slaves that they held.

With the decline in conditions, a number of slaves fled to the North to protect themselves and
their families. Once established in Northern cities, they influenced white liberals, mostly of the
middle class, who were sympathetic to the plight of the slaves.

David Walker was one of them
He was born a free person in the Cape Fear area of North Carolina. His mother was free, but his
father had been enslaved. Despite the fact that he was free, he was aware of slavery around him.
As a young adult he moved to South Carolina, where a large number of free Blacks had
established themselves. He moved to Philadelphia then to Boston in 1825. He became a used
clothing store owner in the City Market. He then owned a clothing store on Brattle Street near
the wharfs.

Walker became quickly involved with the Black Brahmins. He was involved with the Prince Hall
Freemasonry which formed 1780 to fight against discrimination against Blacks. He was one of
the founders of the Massachusetts General Colored Association who was opposed to the
colonization efforts in Africa (I will develop this in a few minutes). At the time when Walker
moved to Boston, Black Bostonians had become more and more radicalized about slavery and
more active in their community. Between 1827 and 1829, David Walker became the subscription
agent and a writer for the first Black newspaper in the US, the New York City Freedom’s
Journal. By the end of 1828, he was speaking publicly against slavery.

In September 1829, he published his appeal entitled Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles; Together
with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to
Those of the United States of America, Written in Boston, State of Massachusetts, September 28,
1829. (Yes, that is the whole title of his Appeal!)

Appeal
The purpose of Walker’s Appeal is to engage Black readers into fighting their oppression,
regardless of the risk to themselves or to their families. In addition, the appeal speaks to white
readers in hope that they will realize that slavery is a moral and religious failure.

The appeal addresses 3 core issues.
• It addresses racism. Specifically, it targets groups like the Americanization Society which

hoped to deport all African Americans to Liberia. The Society founded in 1816 in order to
support the migration of free Black Americans to colony of Liberia (1821-1822). The idea
was that Free Blacks were “causing issues” in the United States (as we know, this stemmed
from prejudice against African Americans). People at the time saw Free folks as morally lax 

-> one of the way to protect the institution of slavery was to dehumanize African American
and make them appear as savages who needed the white planters to become more civilized.

Week 1.3 History 385 – !10

They also depicted them as having a tendency toward criminality, as being mentally inferior,
incapable of citizenship and of real improvement, and as being a threat to working-class jobs.
For that reason, sending them elsewhere would solve the issue. They also felt that the
location was logical since all African Americans ultimately came from Africa hence they saw
them as “going back home.” In his appeal Walker challenges these assumptions and the
racism that was the basis of it.

• Second, Walker fights for equal rights. This is fairly self-explanatory. Walker wants Black
people to have the same rights as white people. Don’t forget that naturalization is still only
possible for white people at the time. Black men can only vote in a limited capacity if they
can vote at all. (They can vote in Massachusetts if they fulfill the requirements set forth by
the state, i.e. property, poll tax, residence, etc).

• Walker finally is one of the first people who talked about the detrimental effect of slavery on
Black people. He challenged the idea that Black people are morally deficient and unable to
resist their savage urges by blaming slavery as the root of Black people’s behaviors. He
argues, that the unequal treatment, let alone physical violence, led to the behavior which
ultimately led to the prejudice.

Call to action
Overall the Appeal is a call to action. It was a call to resistance against slavery, a call to uplift the
race, to show that free Blacks are moral, religious individuals who, if educated, will do great
things. In this sense, the appeal also pushes for the education and the practice of religion in Black
community.

Walker distributed his pamphlet through Black community networks along the Atlantic coast,
which included free and enslaved Black Civil Rights activists, laborers, Black church and
revivalist networks, contacts with free black benevolent societies, and “maroon communities”.

The response to the pamphlet was, as you can imagine, vitriolic. Southerners attempted to
prevent the pamphlet from reaching their homes. They tempered with the mail. They prevented
Black sailors from disembarking in ports (in Savannah for example). They labeled it as seditious
and fined people who distributed it. They took out contracts for his capture, offering $10,000 for
him alive, $1,000 for him dead. His message was considered to be too radical, even among
abolitionists

However, it had a great influence on Boston’s Abolitionists and the pamphlet radicalized a
number of them. The Boston Evening Trasncript reported that the pamphlet was really well
received in the Boston Black community. After reading the pamphlet, William Lloyd Garrison
became even more active as an abolitionist.

William Lloyd Garrison
He was born in Newburyport Massachusetts and was the son of immigrants who had come from
New Brunswick (Canada). His father had become destitute during the Embargo of 1807 and left
the family in 1808. His mother raised him but died in 1823 in Springfield, MA. At age 13,

Week 1.3 History 385 – !11

Garrison started working as an apprentice compositor for the Newburyport Herald. He started
writing his own articles soon after he became an apprentice. In 1826, he bought his own
newspaper with friend Isaac Knapp. In 1828, he was appointed editor of the National
Philanthropist in Boston, which was a temperance journal. At age 25, he joined the anti-slavery
movement. He had read the book called Letters on Slavery by Reverend John Rankin which
attracted him to the cause. He became associated with the American Colonization Society but left
quickly once he realized what the mission of the organization truly was.

Garrison began writing in the Genius of Universal Emancipation which was a Quaker newspaper
published in Baltimore. In the Genius, he introduced the “Black list” where he reported what he
considered to be the “barbarities of slavery — kidnappings, whippings, murders.” He was sued,
found guilty of libel, and fined several times. Since he refused to pay the fines, he was sent to jail
for 6 months, but was released after 7 weeks, when a philanthropist who supported the anti-
slavery cause paid the fine for him. In 1831, he returned to Boston to found The Liberator.

The Liberator
In the first issue he wrote:

“I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for
severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I
do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose
house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the
hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into
which it has fallen;—but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am
in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—
and I will be heard. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from
its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.”

By 1832, he founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society. In 1833, he was instrumental in
founding the American Anti-Slavery Society. His presence, however, was challenging to many
pro-slavery people. He received threats against his organization, mobs tried to break the
meetings, they assaulted lecturers, broke into their offices to ransack them, and even burned
postal bags which contained their pamphlets. They also put a contract on his head. In 1835, a
mob of thousands of people gathered around his office in Boston. He had agreed to meet with the
Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society at the time. When the mayor tried to help him escape
(through a back window), the mob caught him, tied him around the waist, and brought him to the
Common. They called for tar and feathers. The mayor arrested him to put him in protective
custody for his own protection.

Women and the abolitionist movement
One of the important aspects of Garrison’s activism is that he gave a space to women to speak
against slavery. As I mentioned a few times already, women were not supposed to take an active
role in the political life. But Garrison saw something that most did not want to see. Since women

Week 1.3 History 385 – !12

were supposed to be the custodians of morality, why would they not speak up on a question of
morality such as slavery? This participation, ultimately gave women a platform from which to
speak about rights (their rights and the rights of others). It also gave them a political voice
despite their lack of political rights.

Wendell Phillips
Following Garrison’s lead, some Bostonians became even more radical than Garrison was.
Wendell Phillips, for example, was one of them. He was born in Boston to a Brahmin family. His
father, John Phillips was a wealthy lawyer, and the first mayor of Boston. In 1822, the city
revised the city charter and changed from the board of selectmen to a mayoral system. Wendell
had attended Boston Latin School, then Harvard (graduated in 1831), and then Harvard Law
School (1833). He was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1834 and opened his own law
practice in the city. Phillips had seen the events which almost led to the lynching of Garrison. He
was converted to abolitionism in 1836. He decided to stop practicing law, instead dedicating
himself to the movement.

He joined the American Anti-Slavery Society, and spoke at the different meetings. He adopted a
life-style compatible with his beliefs. He did not eat anything that had cane sugar in it, did not
wear cotton, and participated in the Free produce Movement. The Free Produce Movement
boycotted the use of goods produced by slave labor (cotton, sugar, etc).

Wendell also argued for secession. He felt that if slavery was not going to be abolished, the
North should secede from the United States, in order to protect its own morality. He said:

“The experience of the fifty years … shows us the slaves trebling in numbers –
slaveholders monopolizing the offices and dictating the policy of the Government –
prostituting the strength and influence of the Nation to the support of slavery here and
elsewhere – trampling on the rights of the free States, and making the courts of the
country their tools. To continue this disastrous alliance longer is madness. The trial of
fifty years only proves that it is impossible for free and slave States to unite on any
terms, without all becoming partners in the guilt and responsible for the sin of slavery.
Why prolong the experiment? Let every honest man join in the outcry of the American
Anti-Slavery Society.”

Underground Railroad
One of the major achievements of the abolitionist movement is of course the Underground
Railroad. The Underground Railroad was a network of safe houses by which slaves could escape
to go to Canada which was a British colony (hence did not have slavery at the time). Under the
Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, slave holders were guaranteed a right to recover an escaped slave.
The federal act forced officials to assist slaveholders or their agents in recapturing slaves
notwithstanding if slavery was legal or not in their state. Some states ignored the law but
depending on who controlled the judicial system, they could be required to help. The
Underground Railroad went against that idea by creating a series of mechanisms to help runaway

Week 1.3 History 385 – !13

slaves. Because of its port, Boston was one of the points on the railroad. People came by ship
from ports in Virginia, then went from Boston to Fitchburg MA, then through New Hampshire,
Vermont, all the way to Canada. A number also sailed from Boston to the Maritimes (New
Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and PEI). The Underground railroad proved to become even more
important after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
Passed by United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850
between Southern slave-holding interests and Northern Free-Soilers. Abolitionists nicknamed it
the “Bloodhound Law” for the dogs that were used to track down runaway slaves. As with the
previous act, law enforcement and others in non-slave states had the obligation to support the
slave owner efforts in capturing runaway slaves. Under the law, officials who did not arrest an
alleged runaway slave, could be fined $1000 (about $29,000 in present-day value). Law-
enforcement officials had to arrest people suspected of being a runaway slave on as little as an
owner’s sworn testimony of ownership. The suspected slave could not ask for a jury trial or
testify on his or her own behalf. In addition, people aiding and abetting a runaway slave by
providing food or shelter were subject to six months’ imprisonment and a $1,000 fine. Officers
who captured a fugitive slave were entitled to a bonus or promotion for their work.

Women’s Rights
To finish, I would like to come back to the question of women’s rights. The abolitionist
movement had one advantage for women. It had given them a platform to demand their rights
and privileges. After the Anti-Slavery conference in London, women, who had been refused the
right to speak in public, were galvanized and ready to ask for their own rights. You probably
have already heard of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Susan B. Anthony. They are
associated with the suffrage movement and the Senecal Falls Convention.

Lucretia Mott
Mott in particular had a Massachusetts start. She was born in Nantucket, MA to a Brahmin
family (Coffin). At age 13 she was sent to the Nine Partners School which was run by the
Quakers. She joined the different abolitionist societies and women’s rights movement and
attended the conference in London. She met William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips there.
When she returned to the United States from London, she went on a speaking tour which
included lectures in Boston. She became a member of the New England Non-Resistance Society,
a peace convention that William Lloyd Garrison formed in September 1838. Another important
figure of both the abolitionist movement in Boston is Lucy Stone.

Lucy Stone
Stone was born in 1818 (she is of a younger generation than Mott). At age 16 she began to teach
like many women did and realized that she was paid less than her male counterparts. Lower pay
for women was one of the arguments cited by those promoting the hiring of women as teachers:
“To make education universal, it must be at moderate expense, and women can afford to teach

Week 1.3 History 385 – !14

for one-half, or even less, the salary which men would ask.” She became an abolitionist after
reading materials from William Lloyd Garrison in the antislavery papers. In 1847, she became
the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She enrolled at Mount Holyoke at
age 21 (1839) but was disappointed in Mary Lyons’ stance on Slavey and women’s rights. She
left, enrolled at Wesleyan Academy (now called Wilbraham & Monson Academy). She was
almost thrown out of the academy for her anti-slavery views. She left in 1841 and enrolled at
Oberlin College.

After college, she became a lecturing agent hired by different organization. She was in particular
hired by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery society in June 1848. From that point on, she became
more involved in the Women’s movement and the anti-slavery/abolitionist movement. What is
most interesting about her is that she was a total radical. For example, she was the first woman to
keep her own name instead of taking her husband’s name as was the custom. She also attempted
to reform the dress of the time (she wore bloomers instead of a dress for its comfort).

The Reform Movement
Abolitionism and the women’s movement created the foundations for what would become the
reform movement that we will see in the upcoming weeks.

Discussion Questions
For this week, I would like you to think about the how these questions played in Boston’s
intellectual life. I give you a choice to read either Boston, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, or On the
Duty of Civil Disobedience, by Henry David Thoreau. I want you to think about how those texts
come out of the radical tradition that we see emerging in Boston at the time. You will see the
questions that I propose in the discussion forum.

Week 2.2 !1

Week 2.2 The Gilded Age
History 385

Julie de Chantal

Context of the Gilded Age in the US
The Gilded Age is a period spanning from the 1870s to the 1890s. It is situated between the end
of the Civil War and the Progressive Era, which I will discuss in lecture 3.2.

The term Gilded Age came from a novel written by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
titled The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. The novel written in 1873 was a satire of the corruption
and greed which emerged in the post-Civil War era.

The title was a reference to Shakespeare’s poem King John, which discusses the excesses of
human beings by saying:

“To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw a perfume on the violet, to smooth the
ice, or add another hue unto the rainbow, or with taper-light to seek the beauteous eye of
heaven to garnish, is wasteful and ridiculous excess.”

In this sense, when Twain and Warner talk about a Gilded Age, they talk about an era of excesses
and wastefulness. These excesses are specifically those of the industrialization and the rise of the
industrialists. It is an age of exploitation of the workers, of lack of safety on the job, and of
poverty. During this period we also see a resurgence of nativism but with a glimpse of hope as
people begin to assimilate in Boston.

Industrialization
During the Gilded Age, there was a large push for industrialization. The technological advances
of the antebellum and Civil War era continued, and led the country into the second Industrial
revolution.

If you remember, Bostonians led the first industrial revolution in the 1820s-1830s with the
development of the textile mill. The first industrial revolution was mainly based on the steam
engine and its application to the industry. The revolution led to the development of a working-
class, which did not really exist until then (people were primarily artisans who owned the means
of production). During the revolution, the fact that the industrialists own the means of production
led to the development of the proletariat.
The second industrial revolution was based on the steel industry and the development of
petroleum. Unlike cities like Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Detroit, Boston did not focus solely on
steel in the second half of the nineteenth century. Instead, the city has a booming fishing and
naval industry (naval yard in Charlestown). The port ranked 2nd in the nation in volume, after
NYC. The port was at the center of a large nationwide shipping industry and a relatively large
manufacturing industry.

Week 2.2 !2

Massachusetts ranked 3rd behind New York State and Pennsylvania in terms of overall industrial
productivity. It was the 1st in terms of its industrialization per capita. The transportation system
that developed in the state (trains in particular), allowed manufactures around Boston to ship
their products almost everywhere in the nation. By the end of the 1800s, every Massachusetts
town of more than 5,000 people had a railroad connection. In 1867, the state saw the creation of
the consolidated Boston-Albany Railroad, which, with the completion of the Hoosac Tunnel
route in the Berkshires in the 1870s, connected both state capitals. The railroad hired a growing
foreign and native-born workforce.

After the Civil War, the invention of the sewing machine revolutionized the clothing industry and
the division of labor. People could work from home instead of having to work in a factory
setting. With the need for ready made clothing that emerged during the Civil War, by 1870,
Boston became the center for the manufactures of low cost garments. Women especially could
take in piece work, and work from home at their own pace.

Various industries flowered in the city: piano factories, ironworks, shipyards, and distilleries for
example make up the new economy. James Michael Curley, the future mayor of Boston (we will
talk about him in length in later weeks), said of his time in the industry:

“We slaved away in overalls and undershirts in the blistering temperatures required in those days
in the manufacture of pianos. During the nine months I worked there, my weight dropped from
134 pounds to 80. I was paid $7.50 a week until put on piecework, and when my pay increased to
as much as $16 a week the boss put me back on the former schedule.” He complained and was
fired from his job.

Urbanization
Overall, the abundance of jobs in the state and in the city attracted a large number of workers,
making Massachusetts the most densely populated state of the 19th century. It especially
attracted farmers from the surrounding areas who left their family farm for better opportunities.

Historian Stephen Ternstrom studied the fluidity of the migration to and from Boston in the
1870s and 1880s. He estimated that due to the movement out of the city, the net-in migration was
12 times higher than expected (the population of the city increases by 20 to 25% for each decade
in the last half of the century). Immigrants also arrived in the city in larger numbers. The
proportion of foreign-born increased from 1% in 1830 to 25% in 1870 not taking into
consideration the number of children of foreign-born people born in the city (first generation
Irish for example). In the years following the Civil War, the bulk of immigrants arriving in
Boston still came from the “old immigration countries”: Canada, England, Ireland, France, and
Germany. This changed in the late 1880s, when a larger number of Jews from Russia and Eastern
Europe, Italians, Portuguese, and Greeks began to arrive in the city. As you can imagine, this
new immigration led to a rise in nativism targeting new comers.

Week 2.2 !3

With the arrival of a larger number of immigrants and migrants, the city launched urbanization
projects. As I mentioned last week, since the 1850s, the city had filled the Back Bay. (You can
see the difference in the map between 1852 and 1880). The city still needed more territory for the
construction of appropriate housing.

Prosperity?
Prosperity was difficult to achieve for many Bostonians. If 40 to 50% of all Boston families were
considered to be middle-class families, ⅓ of the population was poor. Poor Bostonians faced job
shortages due to seasonal layoffs, economic depressions, and intense job competition.
Immigrants lived in congested neighborhoods rife with diseases and plagued by substandard
living conditions. It usually took between 2 and 3 generations (50 to 75 years, if one counts 25
years per generation) for working-class families to become middle-class families.

Furthermore, ethnic groups coalesced into what historians described “clannish” enclaves. Due to
segregation, Irish lived in Irish neighborhoods, Italians lived in Italian neighborhoods, Chinese
immigrants lived in Chinatown, Jews lived in Jewish neighborhoods, African Americans lived in
Black neighborhoods, etc. This situation situation bred nativism, resentment, and intergroup
hostility as people were seen as being unable to assimilate.

Middle class reformers were in part responsible for this rise in nativism. They particularly feared
that migrants and immigrants would depress the wage standard of native born workers and that
their alien lifestyle would degrade family life. They saw Jews and Chinese for example, clinging
to their traditions, eating traditional foods, and speaking foreign languages. They saw them living
in poverty, taking on any job at very low wages. It is important to understand their attitude. They
did not understand the concept of privilege like we do today. They could not understand that
immigrants faced systemic discrimination and economic difficulties. They simply thought that
these people did not make enough “effort” to become “civilized.” As a response to this perceived
problem, they solicited the help of the government in regulating the city.

Intervention of the government
Both city and state governments attempted to improve the lives of Bostonians during the Gilded
Age. In the case of Boston and Massachusetts, the push for reform began well before other
states. Elsewhere, reform movements began during the Progressive era (1890-1920).

Early on, Massachusetts regulated what it considered to be “public good.” For example,
• in 1869 the state established a railroad commission to mediate between railroad and

public interests.
• It created the Board of Gas and Electric Light Commissioner in 1885, and added

additional regulatory power to the Board in 1887, 1893, and 1894. The Board
Commissioner allowed rate fixing, control of competition, and governed stock sales
of utilities companies.

Week 2.2 !4

• In the same years, the state created commissions on hospitals and asylums, a
commission on libraries, another one on charities, a regulatory office for penal
institutions, and the Bureau of Labor statistics.

Seeing that industrialists took advantage of workers in the state, the legislature also began to
regulate labor

• In 1866, it created the Factory Inspection act, which allowed the state to inspect
factories to ensure safety and enforcement of laws.

• It reduced the workday of women and children to 10 hour in 1874 (the usual
workday could go up to 16 hours at the time). This is a first in terms of regulating
women’s and children’s hours. (They reduced the work hours of women to create a
“family friendly” environment where women could go back to take care of their
children “not too late” in the day).

• In 1886, the state passed bills which included a weekly payments measure (pay
check every week), an employers’ liability act, and a law outlawing contract labor.

• In 1887, it passed an act making Labor Day a holiday.

To expand access to the vote, the state abolished poll taxes in 1891, and passed the Corrupt
Practices Act in 1892, which intended to reduce the influence of industrialists and money in
politics.

Irish Boston
By the 1870s, a large number of Irishmen had been living in the city for long enough to have
acquired their citizenship. You have to remember that citizenship required a person to have been
in the Untied States for 5 years. By the Gilded Age, a large number were active in politics
(voting, participating in rallies, even running for office). As you remember up to the Civil War,
Republicans controlled politics at the city and state level. After the war, the number of Irish
became such that the vote shifted toward the Democratic party.

Instead of seeing the shift as a question of representation (more people voting to have their
interests represented by the party that best represented them), Yankee Republicans believed that
the Irish did not have a true political affiliation to the Democrats. Instead, they felt that the Irish
only voted to gain something (i.e. jobs). Republicans thought that, if the state removed the spoils
(the jobs), the Irish would no longer vote for the Democrats, hence maintaining the Republican
hegemony in Boston. They could not have been more wrong. In 1884, Boston elected its first
Irish mayor, Hugh O’Brien.

Hugh O’Brien
Hugh O’Brien was born on July 13, 1827, in Ireland. He came to the United States in 1830s with
his parents. He was the editor of the Shipping and Commercial List and served as an alderman
from 1875 to 1883 (city councilman). In 1884, he was elected as mayor of the city.

Week 2.2 !5

It is important to understand that there was an Irish intelligentsia in Boston before O’Brien
became mayor. One of the community leaders, John Boyle O’Reilly, was especially important in
that sense.

John Boyle O’Reilly
John Boyle O’Reilly born in Dowth Castle, in Ireland in 1844. In his home country, he received a
good education for the time, dropping out at age 13, when he apprenticed at a local newspaper. In
1861, he joined the army in Ireland and received military training. In 1865, he joined the Irish
Republican Brotherhood, also called the Fenians, which was a secret society of rebels dedicated
to an armed uprising against British rule. He was arrested in 1865 during a raid on the Fenians,
was sentenced to death, then saw his sentence commuted to 20 years penal servitude. He served
2 years in English prisons before being shipped to Western Australia, where Britain sent a
number of prisoners.

On the ship, they started the publication of the Wild Goose, a handwritten newspaper. The title of
the newspaper referred to the “Wild Geese,” the Irish soldiers who had left to serve in continental
European armies since the 16th century. He published 7 issues of the newspaper, each issue was
made in 1 copy. Then the issue was read aloud to the convicts. The Wild Goose included songs,
stories, articles, advice, poems, and even comedy.

Upon arrival in Australia, he was booked at the Fremantle Prison but after a month transferred to
Bunbury Prison, where he was assigned to a party of convicts taken with building the Bunbury-
Vasse road. At the prison, he developed good relationship with the warden who made him a
probationary convict constable. In this position, he kept records and accounts, ordered
merchandise from local stores, and held administrative duties. He was a messenger which
allowed him to travel between the work camp and the district convict prison. In 1868, he formed
a strong friendship with a local Catholic priest. The priest offered to arrange for his escape of the
colony.

On February 18, 1869, he ran away from his work assignment, and met up with a helper in a
local town. They rode to the Collie River where a rowboat was waiting for them. They rowed out
of the islet into the Indian ocean, for about 12 miles up the coast. He hid in the dunes, waiting for
an American ship to depart. The ship departed the next day, but the captain turned on his
promise, leaving them stranded in their rowboat. He managed to make arrangements with
another ship and finally escaped two week laster, on March 2nd, 1869. He transferred ships
many times; once in Saint Helena, once in Liverpool, and landed in Philadelphia on November
23, 1869. From there, he settled in Charlestown (Boston). Soon he started working for the Pilot,
the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston. He worked as a writer, then became the editor, and
finally part owner of the paper. His writings and his influence on Irish Bostonian were really
important in the political development of the community

Week 2.2 !6

Control of other aspects of the politics (O’Reilly)
A majority of his writing meant to instill a collective sense of self-confidence in his constituents
(the Irish). He felt that Boston was to become a fully Catholic city and that, according to him,
the day was not so distant that the “last descendant of the Puritans would be exhibited in a glass
case as a national curiosity.” He even said that he would not be surprised to see Plymouth Rock
used as a cornerstone for a Catholic church. He was a witty writer who knew how to push the
Yankees’ buttons!

He especially used his writing as a way to denounce injustice. For example, he wanted the Irish
to gain political representation in the city. When he spoke of political representation, he did not
only speak of political power. He spoke about representation on all levels

For example, ½ of the population of Boston was Catholic at the time, yet, only two inspectors
and four sergeants were Irish Catholic. Out of the 70 officers employed by the city, only one was
of Irish birth, and he held the lowest rank in the force.

Representation in schools was also disproportionately Yankee. Despite the fact that ½ of the
children were Catholic, only 8 of the 24 school committeeman and 200 of the 1,341 teachers
were Catholic. Not a single Catholic headmaster was of Irish Catholic origins. O’Reilly was
particularly interested in education because he understood that education shaped children and the
public’s view of the Irish community. For example in a geography lesson, in one of the schools,
O’Reilly reported that children were taught that Great Britain was “noted for its love of law and
order, and fair dealings, whereas Ireland was famous for its peats, potatoes, poverty, and political
disturbances. “ (You can see the difference between the two images here).

In order to change the image of the Irish in the city, O’Reilly publish lists of Irish
accomplishments (for example list of people whose property exceeded $15,000). He also wrote
puff pieces to talk about great Irishmen living in Boston. He even argued once that the Irish were
the ones who rowed Columbus to the continent, linking the Irish to the discovery of the
continent, making them somewhat more important than the Puritans in the founding of the
Americas.

O’Reilly’s relationship with Yankees
Contrary to what we can imagine, O’Reilly was part of the intelligentsia of the city and had
relatively good relationships with the Brahmins (which would have been unimaginable 20 years
before). He wrote a lot of poetry for all sorts of commemorations (Crispus Attucks monument for
example or the memorial to Wendell Phillips). He was basically seen as an horary Brahmin, if
you will, because of the power that he yielded in the city.

The Massachusetts Civil Service Reform
Yet, despite all of this, the Yankees’ view of the Irish community did not change much, and the
state pursued other ways to suppress the vote of Irish.

Week 2.2 !7

In 1881, President Garfield was assassinated by a disgruntled office-seeker, Charles J. Guiteau.
To make a long story short, Guiteau felt that because he had worked for Garfield’s electoral
campaign (not really true, he wrote one speech that he read himself in front of a small audience),
he was owed a position in government (ambassador to Paris, for example, which was an
important position). When he did not get the position that he felt he was owed, he lost it, and
assassinated Garfield.

In response to the assassination, Senator George H. Pendleton of Ohio sponsored the Pendleton
Civil Service Reform Act which was signed into law in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur. The
Act required that all civil service jobs be opened to all qualified citizens and be awarded based
on merit after the completion of competitive exams. The federal act, however, only applied to a
limited number of civil service jobs at the federal level. Quickly state legislatures followed the
federal initiative. New York Assemblyman Teddy Roosevelt acted first to protect the state against
the encroachment of power by the Tammany Hall (a Democratic political machine controlling
New York City). Massachusetts was the second state to pass a civil service law in 1884 (the year
that Hugh O’Brien was elected).

The Massachusetts law was stronger than its federal counterpart. Whereas the federal act only
applied to 10% of all federal positions, the Massachusetts Civil Service reform extended to all
state and municipal jobs, which counted approximately 4,600 positions. If the Yankees though
that the restriction of positions would effect the Irish vote, it did not. From that point on, Irish
voters began to elect more and more politicians to represent their interests in the city.

Development of Boston
During the Gilded Age, Boston’s landscape is heavily transformed not only because of the push
for urbanization but because of the catastrophic Great Fire of 1872.

Great Fire of 1872
Fires were common in large cities. During the Gilded Age, the rapid and poor construction of
buildings, the overcrowding, and the dirt and rubbish in the streets increased the risk of fire.
Since people used horses, hay and manure on the street also increased the risk. As you may
remember, the city had taken measures to reduce the number of fires. For example the city fire
code regulated the size of the walls, and the type of materials used in the construction.
Regulations, however, were rarely enforced, since the city did not have a commission
specifically dedicated to enforcement.

For the most part, buildings had been built before the code was put in place, and were not subject
to the regulation unless the owners had plans to renovate. At the time, wooden roofs, especially
mansard roofs, were common, and allowed fire to jump from one building to another. Merchants
kept large inventories in their attics since they were not taxed for what was in the attic. For that
reason, attics were cesspools of flammable goods like fabrics, paper, wool, etc. Buildings were
also often overinsured which meant that if it burnt completely, their owners would get more

Week 2.2 !8

money than if they attempted to save the structure. In that sense, there were few if any incentives
to construct fire-safe buildings. (Arson was also a common way to get money if you went broke
or bankrupt!).

Context
The Great Fire started at 7:20 pm on November 9th, 1872, in a basement of a commercial
warehouse at 83-87 Summer Street. It was contained 12 hours later after it had burnt some 65
acres of the city. A total of 776 buildings, and a large portion of the financial district were burnt,
causing some $73.5 million of dollars in damage. Contrary to most fires though, only 13 people
perished. (The fire in Chicago in 1871 for example had killed 300 people, made 100,000 people
homeless, and burnt 34 blocks of residential and commercial streets). Let’s look at what made
the fire so difficult to tame.

Firefighters
Today, we take the firefighter system for granted. In 1872 Boston, however, things were
different. The city only hired a small firefighter force. They used horses to pull the carriages
containing the pumps. Using animals meant that they can also get sick. At the time of the fire,
most of the Boston firefighter horses were stricken by an epizootic flu. This turn of events forced
the fire department to organize teams of men to pull each piece of equipment to the fire. This
added delays in getting enough equipment to the scene of the fire after it began

Difficulties with the water supply
Boston’s fire chief John Damrell had warned city officials that the water supply in the
commercial district was outdated and inadequate. At the time, the city water supply came from
Lake Cochituate, which filled the Brookline Reservoir. It had a capacity of 10 million gallons per
day (mgd). The new water system which served Charlestown, Arlington, and Medford had a
capacity of 30 mgd. Today’s network’s capacity oscillates around 208 mgd. With 10 mgd,
Bostonians had enough water pressure at home, but it was not enough to fight a fire. In some
areas firefighters stood helpless as blocks of buildings burned. They were unable to find a
hydrant with adequate water pressure to pump from. Furthermore, the fire hydrants had no
standardized couplings across the city. Some of the firefighters could not attach their hoses to the
hydrants to quell the flames.

Width of the streets
The narrowness of the streets was an impediment to the work of the firefighters. The buildings
were often too tall for the firefighters to reach the upper floors with the fire ladders and hoses,
and the top floor of each building was often of wooden roof packed to the rafters with dry
materials.

Week 2.2 !9

A little helping hand
During the fire, a group of concerned citizens gathered in city hall to lobby the mayor. They
wanted a permit to use gunpowder to demolish buildings in the path of the fire. Their idea was
that they could break the path of the fire to stop it from spreading further. They were awarded the
permit but failed. Several improvised teams of people, with no training nor prior experience with
explosives, packed buildings with gunpowder kegs and lit the fuse. Soon the explosions caused
injury and flaming debris lit adjacent buildings. Chief Damrell had to force them to stop them
from using this strategy.

Alarms
To top this off, some alarms in the city were not functioning well, and others were locked as to
prevent false alarms. Prior to the widespread us of the telegraph, cities used bells to alert
residents of a fire. This system was not really useful given that no one really knew where the fire
was. In 1852, Boston installed the first telegraph alarm of which some are still active today. If
you walk through the old neighborhoods of Boston today, you can see those light poles on the
street.

Additional issues
Looters and bystanders interfered with the work of the firefighters, and the gas lines used to light
both streets and buildings could not be shut off properly. Gas lines exploded and fed the flames
even more.

Overall situaiton
The glow in the sky over the fire could be seen from the coast of Maine where ship captains
noted the glow in their logs for the day. Fire departments from every states in New England,
except Vermont (they were too far), arrived on trains with pumpers to help the firefighters.
Firefighters brought the Amoskeag Steamers from Manchester, New Hampshire. The Amoskeag
was the first steam locomotive in the United States to pull a fire engine. Those were usually for
railroad use, not for civilian or street use.

Aftermath
After the fire, the financial district was almost completely destroyed. A large number of
businesses were destroyed, and insurance companies went bankrupt. Thousands, especially
workers in the financial industry, were jobless and homeless.

Fire leads to a questions about the redevelopment of the city
Within two years, the burnt district was rebuilt mostly through the investment of private capital
from Boston commercial property owners. Most of the rubble was dumped in the Harbor to fill
in what would become Atlantic Avenue. City planning officials attempted to resolved the issues
that the firefighters had faced (water pressure, street width, access to standard fire hydrants,
alarms, etc). The rebuilding led the city into the City Beautiful Movement, which emerged at the
time. (We will get back to the movement in a minute).

Week 2.2 !10

Panic of 1873
The fires in Chicago and in Boston, with the destruction of the cities’ commercial and financial
districts, added to the difficulties on the European financial markets, triggered the Panic of 1873.
The Panic of 1873 triggered a long-lasting economic recession (1873-1879). This economic
depression was known as the “Great Depression” until the depression of the 1930s.

In Boston, the housing market crumbled. Banks repossessed houses as families lost their sources
of revenue. Townhouses and brownstones which had been built in the South End for single
families were repossessed, and transformed from their single family purpose into boarding
houses, apartment, or single rooms by their owners. In order to profit from their investment,
these owners offered cheaper rent to families who could finally afford to live in the once-coveted
neighborhood. It especially attracted immigrants and African Americans who could finally afford
to live in the area.

Moral issues
Yet what was seen as a deterioration of those neighborhoods alarmed reform minded white
middle-class Yankees who were concerned with public health. The townhouses had originally
been conceived with a single family unit in mind. The division of the premises into boarding
houses or smaller apartments led to public health concerns as four to eight families shared the
space previously occupied by a single family. Fifteen to thirty people often used the deficient
hygiene facilities. Remember that indoor plumbing was not so common at the time. Observers
complained about the poor bathing, laundry, and health habits of the tenants.

Reformers quickly argued that the overcrowding was one of the sources of the “lower moral
standards” among the working-class population of the city. They claimed that it was difficult, if
not impossible, to maintain modesty while sharing living quarters with boarders and children of
all ages. (Remember that women needed to be modest, no matter what the circumstances!). The
close proximity also made it difficult for children to fall asleep at what the white middle-class
considered to be a decent hour, leading them to consider the conditions in the poor
neighborhoods to be a cause of faulty childrearing. For that reason, those early reformers
launched urban redevelopment projects which aimed to rebuild the city’s moral standards. This
push for reform coincided with the City Beautiful Movement.

City Beautiful Movement
The City Beautiful movement flourish between 1880 and the 1890s. It was a reaction to the
decrepitude of the city. As you can imagine, the quality of the air was bad in every city in the
United States. Streets were dirty and poorly maintained. This was especially true in poor
neighborhoods where the city did not pick up trash or clean the streets.

The idea behind the movement was to embellish the city and to somewhat obfuscate problems of
poverty. It aimed to make the city into the image of the white elite who led the reform

Week 2.2 !11

movement. The movement drew on the contemporary Beaux-Arts and neoclassical architecture
in order to make the city beautiful.

Aspects important to the architects
Architects especially emphasized the following elements:

• Construction of sky scrapers
• systematic arrangement of the streets
• Efficiency of transportation
• Systematic development of green spaces
• technology to make the city livable and usable at night, yet pretty
• city harmonious where whole buildings become pieces of art

Buildings
To the architects of the time, the greatness of the city was seen through the construction of sky
scrapers. These man-made structures called upon the genius of man and his mastery of physics.
The advent of steel through the second industrial revolution allowed for the creation of taller and
taller buildings. Yet, this proved to be a complex venture, especially in Boston, where most of the
territory of the city had been filled with all types of materials through the years. As you can
imagine, engineers and architects had to develop systems to stabilize the buildings in order to
allow for vertical construction.

In 1880, the city authorized the construction of the Boston Public Library in Copley Square. The
building is seen as an example of the City Beautiful movement. Throughout the years, the library
had “lived” in several buildings. From 1858 to 1895, it was located on Boylston street. (This
building was ultimately demolished in 1899). In 1880, city officials chose the newly filled Back
Bay, and Copley Square as the new location for the institution. In 1888, Charles Follen McKim
proposed the design based on the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. The French institution had
been designed with a Renaissance style. The city approved the design and the construction
began.

A side note, in 1870, the city opened the East Boston Branch of the Boston Public Library. With
the branch, Boston became the host of the first branch library in America. The city expanded the
reach of the library to other neighborhood, and between 1872 and 1900, opened 21 new
branches.

Streets
During the fire, city officials realized that most streets in Boston were too narrow to allow for the
transportation of the pumps. During the City Beautiful Movement, the city expanded the streets
to improve the flow of transportation. This expansion allowed for the passage of longer and
wider vehicles. The expansion of the streets also allowed for a better control of the water and
sewer system in the city, especially in the rare neighborhoods where the street arrangement is in
a grid pattern.

Week 2.2 !12

The images of Harrison Avenue in Chinatown show you how the expansion was done. The city
indeed demolished buildings bordering the old street dimensions to expand the streets.

Transportation
In the early 19th century, city officials began to develop public transportation. In the 1820s, they
put in place the omnibus, which was a longer version of the horse carriage that people could take
on a number of routes. With the advent of the steel after the Civil War, city officials had the idea
of put those carriages on track (grooved tracks flush to the ground). This allowed for a more
efficient control of the routes. In 1887, with the electricity, the city got rid of the horses and used
the new technology to move trolleys around the city.

Neither the expansion of the streets nor the trolleys resolved the issues of congestion in the city.
(As you can see, traffic was already a problem in Boston in the 1870s!!!). For that reason, city
architects developed the idea of the elevated railroad in 1879, and put it in practice in the
following decades. (The first line was put in place in 1901).

In 1897, Boston became the first city to have an underground railroad system in America. (The
London Underground was the first subway system in the world, becoming operational in 1863).
The system benefited the residents since it could continue to function in spite of the weather, and
was allowed to run faster than over ground transportation. The only trouble was that the
engineers needed to make sure that the buildings under which the construction was done were
strong enough to support themselves when the trained passed (vibration).

Green spaces
During the City Beautiful Movement, city architects planned green spaces for Boston residents to
“resource themselves.” Remember that the city is seen as a dirty place. Residents became
nostalgic of the country, of green empty spaces. As a result, the city constructed huge parks to
fulfill this need.

Boston Common
The Boston Common was the first public park in the United States, upon its construction in
1634. Remember that the park was at the center of the the political life of the town at first.
During the City Beautiful movement, city officials planned to enlarge the park beyond the
Charles River. However, to do so, they needed to fill some 62,000 cubic yards (47,000 cubic
meters) and bring some 93,000 tons of soil to the location which prevented the work being done.
The construction of the Tremont Street Subway resolved this issue. Land dug from the subway
construction was used to fill the area.

Week 2.2 !13

Technology
Throughout the early 19th century, Boston used gas to light the city streets. Electricity quickly
replaced gas but did not help as much as we think. At the time, electric bulbs were not extremely
powerful. It was still dangerous to walk in the streets. However, the advent of electricity changed
the way in which people interacted with the city. In homes, incandescent bulbs changed the pace
of life. (Think about the expense needed to provide light at night when you use oil or candles).

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in Boston. The telephone was more
efficient than the telegraph in terms of private communication. (the telegraph required a trained
operator to communicate between people.)

The American Exhibition of the Products, Arts, and Manufactures of Foreign
Nations
In 1883, Boston held a small international exhibition to show the best of the city. The exhibition
aimed to showcase the industrial power of the city as well as learn from others. The flyers,
described the exhibition as follows:

the smallest of our international expositions, and yet with the largest number of foreign
participants, though, apart from the Chinese and Japanese sections, the exhibits
contained little of special interest. It was purely a local enterprise, conducted by some of
the leading citizens of Boston, but with government sanction, an act of congress
permitting the introduction of exhibits free of duty, while by the secretary of state letters
were addressed to all diplomatic representatives, requesting them to bring the matter
before the notice of foreign governments. The building, erected at the expense of the
Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics’ association, was afterward used for its own
periodical exhibitions. Though not a money-making venture, it led to an increased
demand for certain varieties of products, and created a demand for others.

Where does that lead us?
Despite the work that reformers do at the time, the ills of industrialization and urbanization still
show. Bostonians became increasingly worried as time passed. In the 1890s, Progressive
reformers launched more reform efforts, hoping to rehabilitate the city.

Exam
The exam is also available to you. You can download the instructions at any point during the
week. The exam is not timed and you are allowed to use the materials from the class to answer
the questions. You will write your exam in a Word document and submit it in the Assignment
Section of Blackboard. The exam is due on Sunday at 11:59 pm.

Week 1.2 History 385 – !1

Week 1.2 The Early 19th Century
History 385

Julie de Chantal

In this lecture, we will look into how Boston evolved in the early 1800s. We will first look at
how the First Industrial Revolution transformed the city. After recovering from the War for
Independence, Boston spent the first half of the nineteenth century reviving its commercial
economy. The First Industrial revolution pushes Boston toward its position as a large
industrialized urban center.

First Industrial Revolution
The First Industrial Revolution was widespread. It took place in Europe, the United States,
Canada, and even Japan. This revolution stemmed from the invention of Scottish inventor James
Watt’s steam engine in 1781. With Watt’s engine, people could operate any type of machinery,
be it trains, textile mills, or even boats.

In that sense, the steam engine allowed for the mechanization of many tasks that had previously
been done by humans or animals. Instead of having an animal pull a wagon, you have a
locomotive doing so. Instead of a human moving the different parts of a loom, you have a
machine doing so. Multiple industries developed because of the steam engine: Textile, iron,
chemical industry (cement, gas lighting, glass making, paper). Even agriculture and mining were
transformed by the invention of the steam engine. New modes of transportation were invented or
developed on a larger scale (canals, trains).

Let’s come back to the textile industry which is one of the major forces behind the
industrialization of New England and has Boston at the center of it.

Textile Industry
In order to trigger the Industrial revolution in the city, Bostonians needed several factors
connecting at the same time.
• they needed the capital necessary to invest in the latest technologies. (As you can remember

printing, artisan work, and slavery all helped Bostonians make a fortune)
• they needed the advances in technology.

The textile industry followed a precise model prior to the 1800s.
• Cotton was grown in the South of the United States. It was then shipped directly to England

to be processed in mills in Birmingham and other cities.
• Then the fabric was shipped back to centers like Boston, New York, or to the South where

tailors purchased it to make clothes.
• Finished garments were also sent directly to the consumers in the United States.

Week 1.2 History 385 – !2

Cotton was one of the main exports out of England in the 18th and early 19th centuries with a
share of 80% of all exportations. However, to be usable, the fibers had to be removed from the
seeds, which was hard and labor intensive. The small pieces could cut and one could bleed on the
cotton. It required a lot of attention and a crew dedicated only to that task. Ultimately, the
process limited the quantity that a planter could grow during the season.

Until the 1790s, cotton from the United States is really difficult to process. For that reason,
textile makers were buying increasingly from India and Egypt where growers were already able
to grow long staples (slide 8, picture on the right). That cotton was easier to process and
considered of better quality. The United States growers almost only grew the short staples (slide
8, picture on the left) which was less soft and seen as of less quality. It was obviously good
enough to make common fabrics, which were used on a daily basis, but not for fancy garments.
With the limitation on production, American growers were at a disadvantage in the global
economy.

Eli Whitney, who was born in Westborough, Massachusetts, invented the cotton gin in 1793,
which mechanized the process. He had visited Georgia and saw the difficulties in processing
cotton. He came up with the invention to help the growers make more money.

The machine consisted of a wooden drum with hooks, which pulled the cotton through a mesh.
The mesh was small enough so that the seeds would not be able to pass through, hence would be
removed. A single machine was able to process nearly 55 pounds of cotton a day.

The cotton gin had three effects:
• it allowed cotton growers to produce long fiber cotton which they could not before due to the

manual processing
• they could extend the production since they were not slowed down by processing
• the growing the production ultimately led to the expansion of slavery.

This in and of itself was not enough however to trigger the emergence of the textile industry in
the United States.

Lack of relationship with England
As I mentioned earlier, throughout the 18th century, cotton produced in the South was shipped to
England for processing. English manufacturers sent back fabric which was then used by
American tailors to make clothing. With the taxes that England imposed on the colonies prior to
the Revolutionary war, Americans started to boycott imports of English goods (for example tea
or sugar).

They also boycotted English fabrics. Colonists, especially women, began to produce homespun
fabrics. They used the act of spinning as a political demonstration. Once the Revolution is over
though, they return to buying from English merchants. Things, however, got a bit complicated.

Week 1.2 History 385 – !3

Following the Revolutionary war, Americans positioned the country as a neutral nation. They did
not want to get involved in international affairs since they wanted to focus on build the nation
first. Furthermore, most of the other nations were Empires (remember that the United States is
the first Republic, and that Western European countries are monarchies at the time). To American
politicians, it seemed a little hypocritical if not contradictory, as a former colony, to get involved
in imperialist pursuits or in the affairs of other nations.

Soon after the Revolution, though, Europe begins yet another war. When Napoleon becomes the
First Consul of France in 1799, he sees himself as an emperor who should reign over Europe.
Between 1803 and 1815, he enters a war with several countries in Europe due to their alliances
with France’s enemies. Great Britain finance some of the war until Napoleon decides to attack
the British Navy.

As a result, between 1803 and 1815, both Great Britain and France began to seize cargo from US
ships as contraband and even forced United States shipmen to join their navy. Remember that the
United States had positioned themselves as a neutral nation who wanted to be able to have
commercial relationships with any nation.

As a response, the United States enacted provisions to force Great Britain to respect US
neutrality and sovereignty, and to stop forcing US sailors into the Royal Navy.

The Non-Importation Act of 1806
Prevents merchants from importing certain goods from England:
• All articles of which leather, silk, hemp, flax, tin (except in sheets), or brass was the material

of chief value
• All woolen clothes whose invoice prices shall exceed 5/- sterling per square yard, Woolen

hosiery of all kinds, Window, glass and glassware, Silver and plated goods, Paper, Nails,
Spikes,Hats, Ready-made clothing, Playing cards, Beer, ale and porter, Pictures and prints

It was an attempt to make money talk instead of intervening militarily, which would not be to the
advantage of the United States. The fines for importation were of three times the value of the
cargo imported.

It exempted some cheap articles which were the most important ones for both the merchants and
the buyers. -> for example cast iron, cheap woolen articles, steel, iron, etc. Some of them could
not be made in the country at the time.

Overall, US politicians hoped that the bill would change the ways in which Britain was acting
with the least amount of annoyance to the American people. The enforcement was delayed from
April to November 1806 when commerce would be lower due to winter and would bother the
least amount people. It was overall a weak threat, and was seen as such.

Week 1.2 History 385 – !4

When they began enforcing the act, in mid-1807, the politicians realized that the bill was badly
worded and did not address common situations. They repealed the act and replaced it with the
Embargo Act of 1807.

The Embargo Act of 1807
It only took 4 days to rush it through Congress. Introduced on December 18, passed the Senate
on the 18th (Friday), Passed the House of Representatives on December 21 (Monday), and
signed on December 22, 1807

The embargo was against both France and Great Britain:
• placed an embargo on all ships and vessels under U.S. jurisdiction
• prevented all ships and vessels from obtaining clearance to undertake in voyages to foreign

ports or places,
• allowed the President of the United States to make exceptions for vessels under his

immediate direction

Unfortunately, the embargo had very little impact on Great Britain’s commerce. British
merchants re-appropriated the routes that the US merchants had previously had. The act also led
to an increase in smuggling by merchants who saw the embargo as a violation of their rights.
Merchants, especially in ports of importance like Boston became extremely creative in going
around the law to fulfill their “customers’ needs.” For example, they shared ship ownership so
that the ships were not British anymore but came from “somewhere else.” They could also stop
in neutral ports to say that they did not stop in a British port for example. Once they had the
goods, it was also a game of cat and mouse to be able to sell them in the city without detection.
They could also pay custom officials for them to turn a blind eye on their merchandise or ships.

Overall, the embargo failed to accomplish its mission. It was unpopular, and did not do much to
stop Britain from acting the way that it did. However, it had another unintended consequence.

Merchants who could no longer continue their business relationships with British merchants due
to the Embargo and the War of 1812, turned to the emerging industrial power of the nation to
make the goods that they needed at home.

Boston’s Textile Industry
In 1814, the Boston Manufacturing Company combined the cash flow that it had, the hydraulic
power of the Charles River, and the need for homemade fabric, to build a fully integrated mill on
the Charles River in Waltham. Francis Cabot Lowell (for whom the city of Lowell will be
named) had traveled to England prior to the Embargo and had visited some of the textile mills in
Manchester, England. He used the details that he remembered to build the company. With the
help of his three brothers-in-law, he received backing from other investors and decided on
Waltham as the location. The mill was the first integrated mill in the United States.

Week 1.2 History 385 – !5

Vertical Integration
Lowell used a vertical integration model in the mill. It is a model which was fairly common in
the later part of the 19th century. It addressed all of the operations from treating the raw cotton,
to spinning, then weaving, up to the finish cloth that was shipped to retailers. The mill also had
the first power loom ever used in the United States. The company changed the ways in which
work was done in the United States.

Prior to the industrialization, workers either worked in the fields (remember that the nation is still
mostly agricultural) or from small shops either attached to or within their homes. Artisans trained
apprentices who eventually opened their own shops or took over their master’s business. Large
scale industries were relatively rare.

The mill brought a new style of work: It helped create the American working-class.

The mill hired women and children to do the work due to their size. (you have to remember that,
according to the precepts of the time, women are not supposed to be working outside the house.)
Since the American revolution, Americans reinforced the idea of separate gender roles which put
men in the public sphere (which includes work and the political arena) and women in the private
sphere (home, church, family). This is especially true in New England where people had money
and could afford to have their wife stay at home. These gender roles were seen as the standard of
true femininity by people of all classes.

In this case, the model deviates from the standard but will find ways to ensure that women’s
virtue is protected through different systems. For example, the mill girls lived in boarding houses
provided by the company, so in a controlled environment where they were supervised by older
women. They were subject to strict codes of conduct. They had to be in by a certain time of day,
they had to wear certain clothing, they also could not get visitors from the opposite sex.

These workers worked approximately eighty hours per week. The workers would wake to the
factory bell at 4:40 in the morning, would report to work at 5:00 and have a half-hour breakfast
break at 7:00 a.m. They would then work until the half-hour- to forty-five-minute lunch break at
noon. At 7:00 p.m. the factory would shut down and the workers would return to their company
houses. This routine was followed six days a week.

This system became known as the Waltham System.
Although the hours are long, they were not uncommon. People did not feel particularly exploited
by their employers.

Due to the availability of jobs, people even left the city to go live in the areas surrounding
industries like the Boston Manufacturing Company. Some left farming jobs to join this march
toward progress.

Week 1.2 History 385 – !6

During that period, the population of Boston continued to grow quite rapidly. Both natural
reproduction and immigration were at play here.

Due to the booming industry, the population grew quite quickly in the city
• 1800 -> 24,937
• 1810 -> 33,787
• 1820 -> 43,298
• 1830 -> 61,392
• 1840 -> 93,383

With the development of its industry, Boston became a highly stratified city and the social
classes became much more rigid. People could not easily climb the ladder and there was a lot of
discrimination in the city.

Let’s look at the different groups that live in the city
• Yankee (White, Anglo Saxon, Protestants)

• English
• Scotch-Irish
• German (really small number who did not speak German as a first language

anymore)

Within the Yankees, the upper class is called the Boston Brahmins. The name came from the
highest ranking caste in India. The Brahmins are the social and cultural elite of Boston. They are
also part of the East Coast “establishment” if you will. They have connections with New York
and Philadelphia elites. What characteristics do they have in common ?
• They have the Boston Brahmin Accent – > posh accent, drop the Rs, the As and Os are long,

more British accent if you will. Think John F. Kennedy in terms of his accent
• They are trained in preparatory schools and men go to Harvard.
• They have traditional Anglo-American traditions, customs, and clothing.
• A large number of descendants of the Mayflower and the Arbella, the ship which took John

Winthrop and the Pilgrims to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
• As close as gentry as one can get in the United States. Remember that colonists did not

reproduced the social structure seen in England
• Long standing families in Boston: Adams, Appleton, Cabot, Coffin, Cushing, Dudley, Eliot,

Emerson, Endicott, Forbes, Holmes, Lawrence, Lodge, Lowell, Otis, Peabody, Quincy,
Thayer, Tudor, Warren, Winthrop. A number of original Brahmin families (Ervings,
Winslows, Clarks, Lloyds) were loyalists during the American Revolution. Because of their
allegiance, they were banished from the state. Some went to Canada while others had their
sentence commuted and were allowed to stay in Boston. Those were sentenced to house
arrest.

• The Brahmins practice endogamy. They marry within their own circles, and seldom will
marry from families who are either not established in the city or outside of their elite status.
For example John Adams married his third cousin Abigail Adams, Henry Cabot Lodge whom

Week 1.2 History 385 – !7

we will see later is the issue of the union of two families, through the marriage of John
Ellerton Lodge & Anna Cabot, Ralph Waldo Emerson married Lydia Jackson, member of
another Brahmin Family

• Through their connections and their own personal achievement, the Brahmins are the ones
who rule the city, the State, and even the federal government. They occupy prestigious
positions (lawyers, judges, etc) and their prestige is transmitted to their children. The children
are groomed to occupy similar positions in the social structure. Their class status is
reproduced that way.

Gender Roles in the Brahmins
As I mentioned in the 1.0 lecture, the Puritans had reproduced the gender roles that they had
envisioned as being best for the new colony. Men were in charge of public and religious affairs.
Women were in charge of the private sphere. As I mentioned earlier, the new industry challenges
the strict separation of spheres. At the time, however, only those of the upper classes were able to
afford having their wives at home.

In the early 19th century, the separate spheres idea is embodied in the ideology of the Republican
Mother. The idea is extremely important in the Brahmin circles as it is part of the Nation building
project. What is the Republican mother? The republican mother upholds morality in the family.
She is the custodian of civic virtue and ensures that her children and husband are following the
right path. Because mothers have to train their children in being the citizens of tomorrow,
Brahmin mothers will be more educated than rural and working-class women.

Working Class
With the industrialization also comes the development of a working-class, proletariat if you will,
from a Marxist perspective. The working-class, in this case, does not own any means of
production. They depend on the industry to earn wages. The Boston working-class at this point is
still mainly Anglo Saxon protestant. For the most part, the early Boston working-class is
relatively literate.

These workers often came to the city through indentured servitude, a system in which an
employer payed for the trip to the colony. The indentured servant committed to 5 to 7 years of
work to repay the employer. Near slavery but not quite. If the person comes upon a large sum of
money, they can buy their way out of their contract. Most of the indentured servants who came to
the colony had a clause in their contract forcing them to adopt the religious practices of their
employers. These policies, the rise of income in Europe, and the decrease in ship fare to the
Americas reduced the need for such contracts and made long term commitments less appealing.
After the American Revolution, the number of indentured servants diminishes. The end of
imprisonment for those who owed debts limited the ways in which the employers could enforce
the contracts.

In Massachusetts, the rise of the working class in the very early 19th century (1800) depended on
immigration and on the sons and daughters of farmers leaving the family farm to work in the

Week 1.2 History 385 – !8

city. That being said, the working-class is not bound to the industry only. A number of people are
hired as domestic servants and house personnel for Boston’s wealthy families.

Limited Political Rights
Political rights (especially the vote), in the early 19th century, were linked to one’s ownership of
property. Most members of the working-class did not own property hence political rights remain
in the hands of the elite and the middle-class.

In 1782, the State of Massachusetts levied a poll tax on voters to reduce the number of voters.
(there is a fear that the political system could be taken hostage by the masses). In 1790, the state
imposed a residence requirement. Voters needed to have lived in the town in which they wanted
to vote for at least three years. In the early 1800s, the requirements stopped being enforced to
some extent. The property requirement, set at 60 pounds was instead calculated to be fulfilled if
someone earned more than 3 pounds a year (most people could earn that). In 1820, the State
amended its constitution again to reflect its concerns about the working class. The state
introduced taxpayer suffrage: you could only vote if you paid tax to the city -> if you were a
home owner. It disqualified working class folks who rented an apartment or a home. Some
apprentices and farm laborers were able to vote if they had the right connections

With these restrictions, the % of male voters in the state of Massachusetts went from to
• 23% in 1780 with 16,235 voters for a population of 70,000
• to 11% in 1786 with 8,231 voters for a population of 76,240
• to 32% in 1800 with 31,001 voters for a population of 94,790
• and up to 42% in 1820 with 53,297 for a population of 124,671

The ballot is still was voiced ballot, not a secret ballot which is seen as cowardly. There was still
a fear of the industrials taking over the political system. Josiah Quincy III (mayor from 1823 to
1828) argued that the qualification was NOT intended to protect the rich against the poor but the
poor against the pauper. He had foreseen the rise of a larger working-class who would be more
and more impoverished as time passed and wanted to protect everyone against them. He feared
that the employers would send their employees to the polls, that the employees would vote the
way that their employers would tell them to vote and that they would favor the industry.

From this point on, tensions rose from a political stand point between the Brahmins and the
working-class. However, this it is not yet a division based on ethnicity like we’ll see later in the
century. It is not Yankee vs Irish. It is Yankee vs Yankee for the most part.

Irish
Irish Protestants (The Scots-Irish or the Ulster Irish) came to the United States in the early 18th
century, so early 1700s. The first Irish Protestants who came were indentured servant. They
needed to leave Ireland due to a combination of high rents, bad weather, crop failure, and animal
diseases. At the same time some Irish Catholics migrated to the United States, but had to hide

Week 1.2 History 385 – !9

their religion since Catholicism was banned in the Colony. Because of the social structures in
Boston and of the known prejudice of the Yankee, most of the Irish Catholics who move to the
United States avoid Boston like the plague.

During the Revolution, the fact that the United States were allied with France changed the
attitude of some Bostonians toward Catholics. Yet, a number of Harvard trained historians still
argued that prior to 1830, there are no Irish Catholics in the city at all. The first Catholic parish
was established in the West End in 1788. It was a mainly French parish. In 1790, the first
Catholic priest arrived in Boston

John Thayer was a Bostonian who had been born to staunch Congregational Brahmin parents. He
attended Yale, then traveled to France and to Italy. He converted to Catholicism while in Europe.
In 1787, he was ordained priest, and returned to America. With the arrival of Thayer, the Irish
Catholics who had been discrete about their faith, brought their children to be baptized and their
Protestant marriages to be solemnized at the church.

Between 1789 and 1796, names like Callahan, Cavanagh, Doherty, Doyle, Driscoll, Duggan,
Fitzpatrick, Kenny, Lynch, Mahoney, McCarthy, O’Brien, O’Donnell,Ryan, Sullivan, and Walsh
are in the city directory. The first Irish Catholics recognized as such are blacksmiths, sea
captains, coopers, chimney sweeps, rental property owner, merchants, book sellers, school
teachers, lemon dealers, tea sellers, liquor dealers. As you can see, most were well established,
literate, and held respectable middle class jobs. They were living almost incognito among their
fellow Englishmen, and followed local customs.

They passed as Irish Protestants for the most part. They attended the Anglican Church since it
resembled the Catholic Church the most (the Anglican church was created because of Henry
VIII’s disagreement with the pope about divorce, not about doctrine). In 1790, 500 people are
recognized as Irish Catholics in the city register. In 1803, the Irish had raised enough money to
build their own church, The Church of the Holy Cross on Franklin Street in the heart of Boston.
We can see a sign that the Irish Catholic population grew rapidly when Pope Pius forms the
Catholic diocese of Boston on April 8, 1808.

A Diocese is a Catholic administrative unit which is under the supervision of a bishop. Within a
diocese, you have parishes which are usually either small towns, or neighborhoods supervised by
a priest. In this sense, the Catholic Diocese of Boston now covered all of New England, which
was under the Diocese of Baltimore before. (Maryland was founded as a Catholic colony) As
soon as the diocese is founded, Catholics will start publishing The Pilot in 1829, which became
the source of news for Boston’s Irish Catholics intelligentia.

Politically speaking
Politically speaking, the rank and file Irish Catholics quickly aligned with Thomas Jefferson’s
party, the Republican-Democrats. There are a few reasons for this:

Week 1.2 History 385 – !10

• Jefferson’s party opposed Great Britain with the Embargo, and other policies
• It separated the Church and the State giving Catholics more freedom
• they opposed the Federalists who reminded the Irish of the gentry at home.

Some of the Catholic inteligencia, as well as Father Matignon (the first French priest), and
Bishop Cheverus, supported the federalist party because the Republican Party reminded them of
the Republican push in Europe. It is particularly surprising considering that the Federalists made
it more difficult for immigrants to become citizens and to vote.

So, there is no real political cohesion on the basis of national origins yet. That being said, we will
have to wait until 1840-1845 to see the majority of Irish Catholics arriving following the potato
famine.

Small but strong Black population in the city
During the same period, another small but important community grew in Boston -> the Black
community. It is an extremely important community, as we will see in the upcoming weeks due
to the position that they occupied in the fight for the freedom struggle in the antebellum period
(before the Civil War), after the Civil War, and throughout the first part of the 20th century.

As we will see in the upcoming lectures, Black Bostonians played an important role in the
abolition movement so for that reason, I will only brush on their history in this lecture.

Historians have found records of freed Black people already living in Boston in 1643. For the
most part, these slaves had been brought from Africa or the Caribbean during the Pequot war of
1637. By the Revolution, most had been freed by their owners. Some had been freed following
the expiration of their contracts, which resembled those of indentured servants. They had to work
for 5 to 7 years and then could receive their freedom.

Until the 1660s, slavery was not a hereditary condition and their children were seen as free
people, despite the status of their parents. After the 1660s, this changes and slavery is considered
to be hereditary through the mother’s line.

Boston’s freed people sometimes became slave owners themselves. By the time of the
Revolution, historians have records that show that Boston slaves had already used the court
system to sue their masters for their freedom. They had used the court system, often representing
themselves, which shows a certain level of understanding of their rights and of the legal system
in the United States.

At the time of the Revolution, Massachusetts is in a difficult position in terms of its relationship
to slavery. On one hand, some Boston merchants made a lot of money out of the trade (remember
that the trade was abolished in 1808 only). On the other, slavery was incompatible with the
principles of the Revolution. Black men, for example, could only enlist as soldiers in the
Continental Army if they were free. To Massachusetts officers, enlisting slaves was seen as a

Week 1.2 History 385 – !11

dishonor to the colony. After all, Massachusetts was freedom’s cradle or freedom’s birthplace,
right?

At the turn of the century nineteenth century, the Black community lives in the North End which
was nicknamed New Guinea. Around 1820, members of the Black community moved slowly to
the West End, on the other side of Beacon Hill where the Brahmins lived. The reason why they
lived on the hill is simple and pragmatic, they were at arms length of their employers. Most
worked as domestic servants, butlers, or manual laborers and were employed by the wealthy
families. Living on the hill was convenient because they could pass by the market or fetch
anything that the family needed on the way home or to work if they were not live-in servants.
Other members of the community worked at the docks and lived in the West End also because it
was close to their work.

At no point in Boston’s history is there a law that discriminates against Black Bostonians in
terms of housing or work. However, racism makes it such that the discrimination is there no
matter what. White owners do not want to rent to Black renters. They tolerate their presence in
terms of services -> for example as their domestics, but not as equals for the most part. Black
residents lived in segregated homes, worked in jobs reserved for Black people, and had very few
opportunities to climb the socioeconomic ladder.

Between 1800 and 1830, however, Boston saw the emergence of a small Black elite. On a side
note, when we consider the Black elite anywhere in the United States, we have to remember that
the parameters that we use to describe the white elite cannot be used to describe the black elite.
Let’s take a second to think this through. How do we describe the white elite? Money, an
advanced degree, profession, power in the city, they have connections. African Americans were
prevented from accessing certain professions, they could not always access education due to
segregation, they had very little representation if any until the 1980s in Boston, and they could
not live wherever they want. In some cases, being literate can propel someone at the top of their
community. It is important to think about those aspects when we consider who is part of the elite
and who is not

So, from 1800 to 1830, we see the emergence of a small Black elite. These people had access to
a certain level of education, navigated white political circles, and built themselves a reputation as
representatives of their community. They share the values, customs, and habits of the Yankees.
They attend church with them, dress in a similar way, eat the same foods (this will become even
more of a marker of status in the later part of the century). Because they are so few until the Civil
War (there are less than 2000 African Americans in Boston), they have virtually no political
representation, even if they have the vote. They did not have enough people in a ward to vote-in
their own representatives. Most of the time, white politicians represented them. For the most
part, they allied themselves with the Yankee to gain any kind of political power in the city.

Week 1.2 History 385 – !12

Boom in building and construction
After the Revolution, the State needed a new state house. The Old State House that had been
built in 1713 housed the Merchant’s Exchange on the first floor, and warehouses in the basement.
The second floor was reserved for the chambers of the Courts of Suffolk and the Massachusetts
Supreme Judicial Court. It was rebuilt in 1748 after a fire destroyed most of it in 1747. The Old
State House became the seat of the state government between 1776 and 1798. It then becomes
City Hall between 1830 and 1841.

The Boston of Charles Bulfinch
When time came to build the State House, Charles Bulfinch was asked to draw the plans. Charles
Bulfinch was born in Boston, educated at Boston Latin then Harvard (Brahmin). He had traveled
to Europe between 1785 and 1787. At the time, he studied the architecture of classical buildings
in Italy and neoclassical buildings in the UK. During his trip in Europe, he was mentored by
Thomas Jefferson who was posted in Europe as a diplomat.

When he came back to America, Bullfinch served from 1791 to 1795 on Boston’s board of
selectmen. (the board of 9 selectmen was elected at large for a period of 1 year each term) He
resigned in 1795 due to the number of contracts that he had to handle but comes back in 1799.
From 1799 to 1817, he was the chairman of Boston’s board of selectmen continuously.
Simultaneously, he served as a paid Police Superintendent, and worked at improving the city’s
streets, drains, and lighting. Under his direction, both the infrastructure and civic center of
Boston were transformed. He was influenced by the European classical style and used it a lot. He
was also obsessed with tunnels and attached them to almost all of the buildings that he created.

His first construction in was the Hollis Street Church in 1788. He also built the Old State House
in Hartford Connecticut. He then constructed the Massachusetts State House in 1798. The
building’s dome, finished in 1802 leaked. Paul Revere resolved the issue by rolling copper sheets
over top of it. It not only fixed the leaks, but created the landmark image of the building. To
prevent corrosion, the dome was painted grey at first, then later was painted light yellow. The
gold color that we know today came from the gold leaves put on it for the first time in 1874. The
Senators, State Representatives, and Governor still conduct the daily business of the
Commonwealth under that dome. A gilded wooden pinecone adorns the top of the dome to
represent the states logging industry in the 18th century. In subsequent years, he redesigned the
Boston Common, Faneuil Hall, and later Boylston Market. He experienced some financial
difficulties throughout his life and was imprisoned for debt in the very prison that he had
designed in 1803. Later in his life, he became the Commissioner of Public Building in
Washington, and was the architect who ultimately completed the construction of the Capitol, 36
years after the beginning of the construction.

The construction of the state house created a need for local residences. The Mount Vernon
Proprietors, a real estate development syndicate operating in Boston, began the construction of a
fashionable residential district around Beacon Hill. (Bullfinch was a partner in the company).
They purchased land from John Singleton Copley, a painter, who lived in England at the time.

Week 1.2 History 385 – !13

The developers literally reduced the size of hill, on which the city beacon was located, to
construct residences for wealthy businessmen and retired sea captains. During the leveling, the
hill was reduced from 138 feet to 80 feet. The state house sits on top of the reduced hill. This
period is the era of the planned community.

Railroad
The reduction of the hill and the construction of the State House required development of new
construction technologies. In 1795, the construction crews built a wooden railway with horse
drawn carts on Beacon Hill to bring the soil away from the hill. In 1799, the Mount Vernon
developers used a similar strategy. Silas Whitney built a gravity railroad to move the excavated
materials down the hill to fill the marsh area, which created the Back Bay.

Similar railways will be constructed through the years. The Granite Railway for example was
built to bring granite from Quincy to a dock on the Naponset River in Milton. From there, boats
carried the stone to Charlestown to construct the Bunker Hill Monument. The Granite Railway is
considered the first commercial railroad in the United States.

Growth of the city
As you can see in the maps on Slides 54 and 55, during this period, Bostonians fill in the
different parts of land around the Shawmut peninsula. As the city’s population expands, so does
the city itself. However, as you can imagine, the growth of the city brought new issues that city
officials needed to address.

Development of the city infrastructure and city code
Frequent fires destroyed part of the city at different points in history. There were 15 of them
between 1702 and 1794. Those fires usually destroyed more than 100 buildings at a time.
They were also part of the reason as to why Bulfinch could leave such a mark on the city. He had
to replace a number of constructions that had been destroyed. In response to these fires, the
General Court (the House and Senate of the State) required by law in 1803 that all buildings in
Boston exceeding 10 feet in height be built of stone or brick and be covered with slate, tile, and
other non combustible materials. As the city grew, city leaders also develop the infrastructure
necessary to serve the population.

Sewers
Boston had been using sewers since before 1700. At the time though, the system was used for
water only (flooded cellars, yards, and streets). In 1833, sanitary waste was finally allowed into
the system. However, the system was not really efficient. In 1834 the city encouraged Bostonians
to use rainwater to assist in the flushing of sanitary waste (urine and feces). That did not help and
health issues surfaced. The city faced epidemics of typhoid, dysentery, and cholera. This
continued throughout the 19th century up to 1875 when the Boston main drainage system was
constructed.

Week 1.2 History 385 – !14

Water
Boston’s early settlers relied on cisterns, wells, and a spring on Boston Common for their water.
However, as the city grew, this supply was inadequate and the quality often poor. The first
attempt to provide an alternative came from private suppliers who, in 1796, began delivering
water from Jamaica Pond through a system of wooden pipes. But as the City grew in size as well
as in population, City planners began to look towards the western part of the state for a more
abundant water supply. In 1848, the city obtained the first municipal water supply from Long
Pond (Now called Lake Cochituate), 19 miles west of Boston

Conclusions
The first 25 years of the 19th century mark the entry of Boston into the Modern times. City
officials understand their role in terms of development of infrastructure, residential buildings,
and services. Although there are tensions, the homogenous nature of the city reduces these
tensions to individual ones. However, we can see the emergence of groups who will ultimately
change the face of the city.

Week 1.4 History 385 – !1

Week 1.4 Irish Immigration and the Anti-Catholic Tensions
History 385

Julie de Chantal

So far we have seen that Boston changed dramatically in the first years of the 19th century.
Charles Bullfinch and other developers filled in the coves around the Shawmut Peninsula to
increase the size of the city. They also developed communities, for example on Beacon Hill. We
have also explored how City Officials addressed questions of infrastructure, enacted regulations
to protect Bostonians (against fires for example), and laws to foster development both on a
personal and city level (education).
The industrial development led to the creation of the working class. The city became
increasingly stratified, especially in terms of class divisions, as it diversified. We have finally
seen how the population of Boston becomes more radical while still maintaining a certain
conservative side.

Today, we will look into Boston best and worst time.
• We will first look at the economic context of the city, in particular the Panic of 1837.
• We will look at the Irish experience in the migration, and then how they settle in the

city,
• We will look into the push for urbanization.
• This will ultimately lead us to the march toward the Civil War and its impact on

Boston.

Panic of 1837
The Panic of 1837 is a period of deep economic recession which followed a period of economic
growth (between mid-1834 and mid-1836). During this phase of economic growth, inflation was
rampant in the United States. The price of the land, cotton and slaves all rose at the same time. A
lot of the American financial system was tied to England and Europe. In the mid-1830s, English
merchants still purchased a lot of cotton coming out of the United States and invested large sums
of money in the American industry. They especially invested in the construction of transportation
systems (canals, railroads), financed the expansion toward the West, and invested in the
development of the American infrastructure.

At some point in 1836, the Bank of England realized that the monetary reserves of the country
had dropped substantially over the years (possibly due to the fact that England had to import a lot
of its food due to poor harvests). In response, the Bank of England raised interest rates from 3%
to 5%. Because of the ways in which the markets were linked together, Banks in the United
States were forced to do the same and to raise their interest rates. When the financial centers in
New York and in Boston raised their interest rates and cut down on lending, they triggered the
economic crisis. As a result, the demand for cotton plummeted by 25% in one month (February
to March 1837). Since cotton was a source of revenue for the country, the effects were felt right

Week 1.4 History 385 – !2

away. (Cotton revenues had served to finance a large portion of the infrastructure and to
stabilized the US dollar.)

Banking system in the US
You have to remember that the banks in the United States were not centralized at the time. There
was no Federal Reserve nor protection against bank failure. (Both of these will be invented
during the Great Depression of the 1930s). There were also no trade barriers between countries.
Congress attempted to restructure the banking system at the times but failed to do so. President
Andrew Jackson, for example, vetoed the bill to recharter the Second Bank of the United States,
which was a federally authorized national bank. The bank handled all fiscal transactions for the
U.S. Government, and was accountable to Congress and the U.S. Treasury. The second attempt
to regulate the system, through the Specie Circular of 1836, mandated that all western land
purchased from the government be bought only with gold and silver coins. (To curb speculation
on the land). The effect of these two policies was to transfer money in gold and silver away from
the nation’s main commercial centers on the East Coast (Boston, New York, and Philadelphia).
With lower monetary reserves in their vaults, major banks and financial institutions on the East
Coast had to scale back their loans, which was a major cause of the panic in the financial
markets.

Effect on Boston
As we discussed last week, Boston was a major banking center in the United States. A large
portion of the middle-class jobs in Boston depended on a healthy financial market. Following the
panic of 1837, ⅓ of the workers were unemployed with these numbers increasing until the winter
of 1842-1843 (at the height of the Irish migration).

Political Power
The antebellum era (pre-Civil War era) is often considered to be the golden age of American
Participatory democracy. Limitations on white man’s suffrage (suffrage = vote) gradually
disappeared. The payment of poll taxes was replaced by property tests (property ownership).
Massachusetts still had the $1.50 poll tax, but it was minimal and virtually guaranteed suffrage to
any white man. During the antebellum period, more people participated in political activity
(voting, attending political rallies, discussing politics) than at any other time in history (even
today).

Yet Boston’s white elite sought ways to control the democratic system and to eliminate a large
proportion of potential voters. For example, polls closed at sunset which made it impossible for
Boston workers who lived in Cambridge to make it home and vote before the polls closed. Only
those who could leave work early or during the day (i.e. people who controlled their own
schedule or could afford to take time off) could vote. Registration laws and residency
requirements affected the number of people who voted. Property tax qualifications made it such
that a portion of men over the age of 21 could not vote since they did not own a home.

Week 1.4 History 385 – !3

Voter registration dropped from 21% of all men over 21 in 1845 to 19% in 1855. Avoiding taxes
or service in the militia obligations were major incentives not to register to vote. Apathy and
cynicism also played into some folks decision not to register since they clearly understood that
they had no say in city or state politics which was still controlled by the elite.

Parties
At the end of the 1830s, two major parties emerge: the Democrats and the Whigs. Outside of
Boston, politics was usually controlled by the newly rich, the non-traditional elite, mostly
composed of self-made men. In Boston, however, the Brahmins and their Irish counterparts
(there were a few prominent Irish Catholic men in Boston at the time) still controlled the political
system. Both Whigs and Democrats were divided over the question of tariffs but not in terms of
ideology about democracy.

Whig Party (1833-1854)
Leaders: Henry Clay (based in Kentucky) and Daniel Webster (based in Boston).
The Party’s founders chose the “Whig” name to echo the American Whigs of the 18th century
who fought for independence. The Party was originally formed in opposition to the policies of
President Andrew Jackson (in office 1829–37) and his Democratic Party. Whig leaders saw him
as a dangerous man on horseback, a reactionary to modernity. In particular, the Whigs supported
the supremacy of the US Congress over the Presidency. They were proponents of Jefferson’s
tradition of compromise, checks and balances, and territorial expansion. They favored national
unity, support the creation of a federal transportation network, and the investment in domestic
manufacturing. They were in favor of a program of modernization, federally controlled banking,
and policies of economic protectionism to stimulate manufacturing.

• Economic protectionism: they want to put in tariffs (taxes on importation or
exportation which restrict free trade) in place to protect business interests.

They promoted an education reform to put in place a system of universal public education. As
you can imagine, the party’s platform appealed to entrepreneurs, large planters, reformers, and
the emerging urban middle class, but had little appeal to farmers or unskilled workers. Many
active reformers supported the party because its leaders voiced an opposition to Jackson’s Indian
Removal Act which led to the removal, relocation, and death of thousands of Native Americans.
The Party was especially popular in Boston.

Democratic Party
Emerged in 1830 from former factions of the Democratic-Republican Party founded by Thomas
Jefferson and James Madison. In the 1830s, it was the party of Andrew Jackson who was a war
hero from Tennessee. The Democrats shared Jefferson’s commitment to the concept of agrarian
society (yeoman farmer, or people who owned their land and lived from their agricultural
production). They feared the concentration of economic and political power. They believed that
government intervention in the economy only benefited special-interest groups and created
corporate monopolies that favored the rich. They were proponents of small government. They

Week 1.4 History 385 – !4

did not impose tariffs, instead, they favored laissez-faire, which in turn favored cotton planters in
the South. They sought to restore the independence of the individual—the artisan and the
ordinary farmer—by ending federal support of banks and corporations and restricting the use of
paper currency, which they distrusted. They opposed education reform since they felt that public
schools undermined parental responsibility. They also felt that public schools would undermine
freedom of religion by replacing church schools. They promoted an aggressive policy toward
Native Americans (Indian Removal Act). As you can imagine, they were extremely unpopular in
New England. Most of their supporters lived in the South or on the frontier.

Boston’s political system
Prior to 1822, the town was run by a Board of Aldermen, whose members were elected for 1-
year terms. In 1822, the city was incorporated, and the new charter made it such that a mayor led
the city council. The citizens of Boston voted to change the official name from the “Town of
Boston” to the “City of Boston” on March 4, 1822.

The city government, however, is still rudimentary. The whole city budget is of approximately
$249,000 (1822 dollar value, approximately $4.5 million today). Most of social services
(welfare, hospitals, etc) were provided by charities and other private organizations. The Public
School system cost approximately $45,000 per year, covering 29 elementary schools, and the
3,827 students enrolled. There was no organized fire department. Residents of Boston took care
of the engines, received a small compensation, and were exempt from militia duty. There was an
organized police force of constables, but there was not enough officers to police the city
appropriately. The frustration at the city for not enforcing laws and not answering the qualms of
the Bostonians often led to rioting. In the 1830s, Boston probably won the title of “mob town,
with its 147 riots in 1835 alone. Between 1830 and 1860, historians estimate that approximately
1000 people died in rioting in Boston.

Arrival of immigrants
The arrival of immigrants challenged the already fragile equilibrium in the city. A large number
of immigrants arrived in the city between 1830 and 1860. Most of them were French Canadians,
French, Polish, Italians, Germans, Lebanese, and Irish. A large number of those immigrants used
Boston as a port of entry to move to another location. For example, French Canadians settled in
Lowell, Holyoke, Springfield, etc. Polish immigrants came to the Pioneer Valley. The Irish
remained in Boston for the most part. In order to understand what happened and why they stayed
in Boston, we have to examine the circumstances of their arrival.

Background of Ireland’s difficulties with Great Britain
The potato blight, a fungus-like infection, attacked the crops in Ireland during the 1840s. Facing
starvation, a number of people left Ireland to come to America. Although the effect of the potato
blight is undeniable, the reality is a bit more complicated than that.

Since the Act of Union in January 1801, Ireland had been part of the United Kingdom. The
executive power was in the Hands of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Chief Secretary for

Week 1.4 History 385 – !5

Ireland who was appointed by the British Government. Irish voters sent 105 representatives to
the House of Commons and the Irish representative peers elected 28 of their own to the House of
Lords (senate if you will). By the end of the 1830s, the power was concentrated in the hands of
the landowner elite.

Although Ireland had representatives, the British government still wondered how to govern the
country properly. UK Prime Minister at the time, Benjamin Disraeli, pointed to 3 major issues in
governing Ireland:

• Absentee landlords (aristocracy was not on site)
• starving population
• alien Church (remember that the Church of England is led by the king or Queen of

England while the Catholic church is led by the pope)

Restrictions imposed on the population
In addition, the cotter system impoverishes the population. In this system, peasants rented a
home (simple habitation) and 1 ½ acres of land to grow potatoes, oats, flax, etc. The land was
held on a year-to-year basis and the rent was often paid in labor. The rented land was often of
poor quality, and could not be used for other purposes. Yet, there was a lot of competition for the
land. A very small minority of the peasants were prosperous enough to retain a small amount of
money after rent and other expenses were subtracted from their pay. In the early 19th century,
their situation worsened as the population continued to increase. The Corn Laws, which
restricted the importation of grains (any grain which needed grinding) by imposing tariffs on the
imports, increased the price of food for the populace, but enriched the landowners.

If we return to the potato famine… by the time that the blight attacked the crops, the peasants’
diet relies heavily on potato and some milk. The Irish peasants were already in a precarious
position, and had very little recourse to improve their situation. Rent increased and became so
high that many were evicted from the land. The government attempted to pass a Tenant-Right bill
to protect the tenants, or to use the strategy put in place in Belgium to block exportation of food
but to open their ports to importation. Nothing helped the peasants.

The only solution left to the Irish peasants was to leave the island. Between 1841 and 1851, the
population in Ireland drops by 1.5 million people. The normal growth rate should have been over
9 million during the same period of time. Statisticians estimate that approximately 21,770 people
died of starvation, 400,720 died of disease. Contemporary historians believe that these numbers
underestimate the overall death toll.

Experience in the Migration
Irish migrants chose Boston as their final destination because of the support that they had
received from the Irish community already established in the city. Bishop Fitzpatrick for
example, had called upon the community to share their “last loaf of bread” with those
unfortunate souls whose “wild shrieks of famine and despair” could be heard across the Atlantic.

Week 1.4 History 385 – !6

Members of the community sent gifts to Ireland, estimated at $150,000, before the famine was
over. Even protestants in the city contributed to the relief efforts.

In 1847, a group of Boston merchants succeed in getting Congress to let them use the Jamestown
(a sloop of war) which was in Charlestown to transport provisions to Ireland. The ship was
commanded by Captain Robert Bennet Forbes, a Brahmin, and a voluntary crew enlisted. On
Saint-Patrick’s Day, the Boston Laborers’ Aid Society (all-Irish charity) came to the vessel to
help load the ship, free of charge. On board, they had 800 tons of grains, meal, potatoes, other
foodstuffs, and clothing. They left on March 27 and arrived 15 days later in Cork Harbor. Upon
the arrival of the ship, the local population cheered and a band played Yankee Doodle.

While Bostonians expected the arrival of Irish people due to the famine, they did not expect the
number of people who would come to the city. In 1847 alone, 37,000 migrants arrived. Usually,
the city absorbed between 4 and 5 thousand immigrants a year, not more that that. From that
point on, the city was nicknamed the Dublin of America

Getting to Massachusetts
Migrants sailed from different ports in Ireland or in England depending on where they could get
a cheap ticket. Some sailed on the British Cunard Line ships, a line for which passages were
subsidized by the British Government. The trip could take anywhere between 2 weeks and 40
days depending on the speed of the ship and of the weather on the Atlantic Ocean. To give you
an idea, the RMS Titanic, which unsuccessfully crossed the Atlantic in 1912, was supposed to
take 7 days to get from England to New York City. It was the largest and fastest ship of its time.

A large number of passengers were sick during their journey. People were checked before
boarding so that they could be accepted for immigration in the USA (i.e. not visibly sick). If they
went through New York City, they stopped in Ellis Island. If they were sick once they arrived in
Boston, they could be sent to Rainsford Island which served as a quarantine Hospital between
1737 and 1925.

After 1840, emigration from Ireland became a massive, relentless, and efficiently managed
national enterprise. By 1890, 40% of Irish-born people lived abroad. By the 21st century, an
estimated 80 million people worldwide claimed some Irish descent. This number includes more
than 36 million Americans who claim Irish as their primary ethnicity.

Rise of Nativism in the city
With the migration, we can see a rise of an anti-immigrant feeling (nativism) in the United
States. Boston is no exception. Nativism came from the unleashed urban growth in combination
with the arrival of the immigrants. Between 1830 and 1860, the four largest cities on the East
Coast—NYC, Philly, Baltimore, and Boston—saw their population increase by 25 to 38%.
Newly established immigrants were pushed toward cheap housing, which ultimately segregated
the poor in specific neighborhoods.

Week 1.4 History 385 – !7

Cities faced a number of problems due to this pattern:
• Development of slums: immigrants moved in with friends and relatives through

migratory chains. Families send a few male relatives first, then followed. They often
lived in small quarters, sharing rooms with other people to offset the cost of rents.

• Poor sanitation: think about how the sewer system in the city was insufficient in
1833. If you increase population drastically, you can see an increase sewer issues.
There was also no running water in most homes.

• Inadequate police and fire control: fires were still really common in the city. Petty
crime often went unpunished.

• Gang and Ethnic warfare: Think Gangs of New York. Different gangs developed in
the different neighborhoods and often confronted each other in turf wars.

• Drunkenness and Prostitution: Due to the ratio of men to women migrating to the
city, prostitution remained a problem in the city. Alcohol was also part of British and
Irish culture (it still is. If you go to England, everyone stops by the pub after work.
They even close streets down to allow for more pub patrons to drink their beers
quietly). In the United States, alcohol became a question of morality. The temperance
movement pressured governments to outlaw the consumption, production, and
distribution of alcohol.

• Extreme Poverty: As you remember, the Irish left their country impoverished and
often in fairly bad shape physically. They were ready to take any job once they
arrived in the country and were willing to work for low wages. Their desperation led
unscrupulous employers to exploit them.

Let’s return to idea of nativism
Overall, the reaction against the Irish was extremely violent. The idea of nativism is a really
important concept throughout the 19th century. The term nativism is a relatively new term used
to explain an old reality. It is difficult to define. The term was coined in 1840s as way to define
the reaction of Americans to foreigners. The term was coined by the critics of nativists and not
by the people who were nativists themselves. Those who were nativists called themselves
Americanists.

What are the components of nativism?
Nativism is based on a nationalism where its proponents believe that an influence originating
abroad threatens the way of life of those living in America. For example, they saw Catholicism
as a threat to American liberty. They also saw the arrival of pauper labor as a threat to American
workers. An historian described the feeling as an “intense opposition to an internal minority on
the ground of its foreign (i.e. Un-American) connections.” Nativists denounced the loyalty of
some foreign or allegedly foreign group to an outside power. Seeing or suspecting a failure of
assimilation, they feared disloyalty. Groups targeted by nativists changed in matters of weeks or
months, depending on what was considered un-American at the time. Nativism ebbed and flowed
depending on the perceived level of threat from the outside.

Week 1.4 History 385 – !8

Nativism in Boston
The anti-Catholic sentiment was present in the colony since the settlement. Colonials passed
laws against Catholicism, Quakerism, and any other denomination that they felt were not in
accordance with the Puritan ideals. A few years after the Revolution, the Founding Fathers
passed the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. The act increased the time to citizenship to 14 years.
It was a way to protect the American way of life since the Founding Fathers feared the arrival of
foreign radicals to the country. Between 1840 and 1850, the influx of Irish Catholic had to be
absorbed in the labor force. This challenged the relative stability that existed in the city. But they
were not the only ones to arrive at the time.

A Chinese Community in Boston
Starting in 1845, historians have evidence that Chinese immigrants were already established in
the city. It was a small number at first but the community was growing. Most Chinese immigrant
at the time settled on the West Coast, especially in the mining areas of Northern California. On
one hand, because of their appearance and their traditional dress, these immigrants were
obviously the target of nativist passions. However, on the other, some people were fairly happy
to see them established in the city. For example, white merchants who had been part of the tea
trade for decades were pleased to form new business alliances through Chinese merchants newly
established in the city.

Captain Robert Bennett Forbes, whom I mentioned earlier as the captain who brought provisions
to Ireland during the famine, had even brought a small steamer, the Spark, to China in 1849 to
help with the trade. Forbes did a lot of dealings with Chinese merchants at the time. He was
especially well known for his high quality tea leaves but also for his opium trade.

The same happened with Thomas Handasyd Perkins. A Brahmin, he had made a lot of money as
a slave trader, a peddler of furs, and finally a smuggler of Turkish opium to China. China
attempted to enact a ban on opium several times during the period. Perkins saw the threat with
optimism. It would frighten away the competition. With his fortune, he supported the Boston
Athenæum and the New England Institute for the Blind.

At the time, the Boston elite also loved what they considered “exotic.” In the 1840s, elites
everywhere in the world used elements of the Chinese and Indian culture to decorate their
homes.

Let’s get back to the difficulties of the Chinese community. The arrival of many immigrants
pushed the city to fill the South Cove. The area was first settled by Yankees, but, as the railways
developed, most of them left. The value of the properties dropped, allowing immigrants,
especially Irish, Jews, and Chinese Bostonians to live there. As you can imagine, the area was
not the best. They dealt with absentee landlords and poverty. Immigrants usually preserved their
culture, which led the Yankees to believe that they could not assimilate properly. Because of this
fear, nativism increased with the contact.

Week 1.4 History 385 – !9

Know Nothing Party
The Native American Party, also known as the Know Nothing Movement, was founded in 1844
and dissolved in 1860. It came out of a number of secret nativist societies, which spread across
the North. The party emerged as a response to the influx of immigrants and to the Revolutions of
1848 which took place across Europe. The Know Nothing promised to purify American politics
by limiting the influence of Irish Catholics and of other immigrants. The party was empowered
by the fear that immigrants would overwhelm the American way of life. The party was
overwhelmingly popular in Boston, Salem, and other New England cities.

In the election of 1854, the faction carried Massachusetts. It was the party’s largest victory. As a
result, the movement solidified into a true political party. The faction’s priorities fit really well
with Bostonian’s concerns for morality. They promise:

• to crack down on crime
• to close saloons, especially on Sundays,
• and to appoint only native-born Americans to office.

But what allows such a bigoted party to rise? We talked about the Compromise of 1820 with the
inclusion of Missouri and Maine as states. As you remember the debate about slavery was far
from over even with the compromise in place. In 1854, the issues resurfaced. Since the 1840s,
the appeal for the land in the West became more intense due to the arrival of a flock of
immigrants. The need for infrastructure to get to and in the West became more pressing. There
was a lot of discussion around the construction of a transcontinental railroad. Several proposals
were discussed but ultimately failed because of the competition between Southern and Northern
investors.

Stephen Douglass of Illinois attempted to draft a compromise similar to the Compromise of
Missouri in order to settle the matter. The bill was supposed to repeal the Missouri Compromise
and divide the territory into two entities Kansas and Nebraska. His proposal though challenged
the ways in which the compromise had regulated slavery. Instead of stating that slavery was
allowed South or North of a parallel, the bill called for popular sovereignty where the decision
about slavery was to be made by the settlers instead of outsiders. The bill ultimately passed and
led to a number of violent political confrontations known as the Bleeding Kansas where pro- and
anti-slavery proponents entered confrontations. People like Charles Sumner opposed the bill.

Charles Sumner
He was born in Boston in 1811. He was the son of a liberal Harvard educated lawyer and an
abolitionist who had promoted integrated schools. His father had also opposed anti-
miscegenation laws which prevented people from different racial origins to marry (i.e. he
accepted people marrying whom they wanted notwithstanding their race).

As a young man, Charles Sumner went to Boston Latin School. He grew up with people like
Wendell Phillips. He then went to Harvard and to Harvard Law School. He was admitted to the
Bar in 1834. He travels to Europe and returns to Boston in 1840. He was a pacifist: he opposed

Week 1.4 History 385 – !10

the Mexican American War and made appeals for freedom and peace. He was also one of the
lawyers to represent Black parents in the Roberts v. Boston case which challenged the legality of
segregation in the city. He was named senator by the Free Soilers (those who opposed slavery in
the case of Kansas Nebraska debate) and elected by one vote majority in 1851.

His election changed Massachusetts politics since his abolitionist stance contrasted with that of
Daniel Webster who had supported the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act. As a
senator, Sumner became prominent in his attacks against the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. In
1856, during the Bleeding Kansas Crisis, he criticized several aspects of the situation. His
positions were always against what he considered to be “slave power” or the political arm of
slavery.

The fact that liberal people like Sumner lived in Boston is one of the reason why the Know
Nothing party won in 1854.

The Know Nothing party won in a landslide in Massachusetts for the following reasons:
• the new party was populistic (it appeals to the “common man”)
• it was highly democratic
• it was hostile to wealth, the elites, and their expertise.
• it was suspicious of outsiders, especially Catholics
• and it denounced what it perceived as the unfair competition between Yankee and

newly arrived Catholics

At the time, the Whigs were still popular among the elite of Boston while the Know Nothing
were popular among the Yankee working-class.

Yet the Know Nothing are more progressive to some extent.
• They supported the expansion of the rights of women.
• They increased the rights of married women (give them more property rights and

more rights in divorce courts).
• They opposed slavery.
• They favored the regulation of the industry.
• They also proposed measures to improve the status of the working class such as

regulation of railroads, insurance companies, public utilities.
• They voted for the Textbook Act which provided textbooks free of charge to students

in the public school system.
• They raised appropriations for public libraries and for the school for the blind.

They also had a reform agenda: (think of radical with conservative roots).
• They founded a reform school for juvenile delinquents.
• They blocked the import of “subversive” books and documents coming out of

Europe.
• They instituted penalties for speakeasies, gambling houses, and bordellos.

Week 1.4 History 385 – !11

• They even passed a prohibition law that allowed for 6 months in jail for someone
who sold one glass of beer, though juries refused to convict people for that reason.

What is most important about the Know Nothing though is that the Party’s number one priority
was to attack the civil rights of the Irish Catholic immigrants.

• They removed the rights of state courts to process citizenship applications (making
citizenship much more complicated to get).

• They required that all public schools do a compulsory reading of the Protestant Bible
(they wanted to convert Catholic children to Protestant denominations.

• They disbanded Irish regiments and militias.
• They removed Irish workers from state jobs to put Protestants in their place.
• They also wanted to pass a constitutional amendment in the state that would require

that people had lived in Massachusetts for at least 21 years before they could get the
right to vote and hold office, and asked Congress to raise the time to citizenship from
5 to 21 years.

Last, they formed an investigating committee to prove that there was widespread sexual
immorality in Catholic convents. Later, the press had the time of their life when they realized
that one of the top people on the investigating committee was using state funds to pay for
prostitutes.

Overall their reform agenda cost a lot to the city and to the state. Because of the new taxes
needed to support their agenda, the Know Nothing were not reelected. However, the ways in
which the state sanctioned the discrimination against the Irish led to the rise of violence of
private citizens against the Irish community. There was a rise in vandalism against Catholic
private property. The Irish are described in “exotic terms,” for example as the “bedouin Arabs
from the Wharves.” They were also described as thieves and criminals.

As the debate on slavery increased, the Irish became divided on the topic. As we saw, most
abolitionists were from Brahmin families. In this sense, the Irish were not inclined to support the
cause. In addition, they believed that the emancipated slaves would flock to the city and would
challenge the precarious position that they have in the city.

Overall, the Irish saw the posturing of the abolitionists as being against the U.S Government.
This fear was for cause, William Lloyd Garrison had described the Constitution of the United
States as “a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.” Since the Irish felt the need to
assimilate, the last thing that they wanted to do was to oppose the government

By the end of the 1850s, the country was marching toward the war. The election of 1860
triggered the armed conflict. The election represents how fractured the nation truly was at the
time.

Week 1.4 History 385 – !12

There were four contestants for the war.
• The Newly formed Republican had Abraham Lincoln as his candidate (he won

39.8% of the vote)
• Stephen Douglass represented the Northern Democrats, won 29.5% of the vote
• John C. Breckinridge was the Southern Democrat candidate with 18.1%
• John Bell with the Constitutional Union won 12.6%

In Massachusetts
• 106,533 votes to Lincoln
• 34,370 Douglass
• Bell 22,232 votes
• No vote, obviously for John Breckenridge.

John Andrew
The same year, John Andrew became the Governor of Massachusetts. He was born in what is
now Windham, Maine. He grew up in Maine but was exposed to the thought of William Lloyd
Garrison. He moved to Boston in 1837 to study law under Henry Fuller. He was admitted to the
Bar in 1840. That year, he joined the Whig party. In 1854, he opposed the Kansas Nebraska Act,
was an advocate against the Fugitive Slave Act. In 1857, he was elected as a representative. He
took on more responsibilities and became the voice of abolitionism when Charles Sumner was
injured. He took office in January 1861, only a few days before the war.

A month later, Democrat Joseph Wightman won Boston Mayoral race. The city enters an
economic recession as an after shock of Lincoln’s election

Week 2.3 !1

Week 2.3 The Progressive Era
History 385

Julie de Chantal

Return on the Gilded Age
As we saw in the last module, the Gilded Age was an era of excesses, industrialization, and
urbanization. It was an era where white middle-class reformers saw the exploitation of workers
and of city dwellers, and began to push for reform across the board. As we discussed, the
Massachusetts legislature and Boston city officials were ahead of the curve. The progressive
nature of the state made it such that both governments pushed for reform in the industry (for
example with the labor laws), in electoral politics (with the abolition of the poll tax), and at the
city level (with the city beautiful movement). During the Progressive Era, other reformers, such
as Theodore Roosevelt, Jane Addams, and later Woodrow Wilson, pushed for reform in their city,
state, and at the federal level.

Context of the Progressive Era
So what exactly was the Progressive Era? The Progressive Era was a period starting around 1890
and ending with the end of the First World War and the negotiation of the peace treaties around
1920. It was a period where reformers pushed back against the ills and the excesses of the Gilded
Age (industrialization, urbanization, immigration). These reformers want to better their cities,
state, and the country to fit their ideals.

Reformers were for the most part WASPs (white Anglo-Saxon, Protestant). They were from the
middle-class and the elite. They were especially educated. A large portion of these reformers
were nativists and racists. (The Progressive Era is considered the nadir of race relations in the
United States). Because the Progressive Era was the nadir of race relations, progressive reform
transcended the boundaries of race. Middle-class and elite African Americans develop what
historians described as the “politics of respectability.” The politics of respectability meant that if
the Black middle-class encouraged working-class African Americans to behave like the white
middle-class, they could possibly gain respect, which in turn, could eventually curb white
discrimination against Black communities. The politics of respectability was particularly used in
Boston as the Black Brahmins became more and more vocal on the national scene.

During the Progressive Era, Women, who were expected to stay in the private sphere, played an
important role in the reform movements, especially in terms of the settlement house movement,
suffrage, temperance, and the Women’s movement.

Role of women in the reform movement
As you may remember, women, in the 1890s, were not yet able to vote. The suffrage movement
had pushed for the vote, albeit unsuccessfully. During the Progressive Era, the emergence of the
New Woman challenged the ways in which women were perceived and how they could act.

Week 2.3 !2

New Woman
The New Woman was a feminist ideal which emerged in the late nineteenth century. The New
Woman had a lot more autonomy than her predecessors. She was a suffragist. She had access to
higher education. (I will get back to this in a few minutes). The New Woman also left the dress
of her ancestors behind (for example the corset) to wear something more suited to her active
nature. (she especially wore the shirtwaist).

Side note: there is a difference between the terms suffragist and suffragette. The
suffragist was usually less radical. She pushed for legal method to get suffrage. The
suffragette was seen mainly in the UK context. She was more radical, broke away from
playing feminine roles and traditional women’s roles. The suffragettes were not against
using violence to get the vote (some even used bombs in the UK).

In terms of her activities, the New Woman could ride a bicycle, cross gender boundaries, or be
self-sufficient without the help of a husband.

Boston Marriage
She could also be in what many at the time called a “Boston marriage.” The term came from the
publication of Henry James’s novel The Bostonians in 1886. The novel was based on the long-
term relationship of two women who lived together and supported themselves without the help of
husbands.

These relationships were not necessarily romantic relationships, but could be. It is important to
know that women used romantic language to speak to each other in the 19th century without
necessarily being in a romantic relationship. For that reason, from a historical perspective, it is
hard to tell if these women were romantically involved or not. However, it is important to
understand that these relationships were seen as acceptable, but rarely discussed.

If the New Woman married, she could delay having children. As you can see from the graphs,
during this period, age of first marriage rises and number of children per women declines (this is
a national phenomenon).

Bachelor culture
Urbanization also offered men the ability to live on their own without the help of women. They
could eat sitting in restaurants, have their laundry done, tailors could sew for them, cobblers
could make their shoes, etc. These services available in the city could replace women’s duties in
the home. I would like to point out that a large number of these services were provided to men by
immigrants who had recently settled in the city.

Creation of a culture of the city
During the Progressive era, we can see the emergence of a city culture. Vaudeville, for example,
emerged in the 1880s. Vaudeville performances were made up of a series of separate and

Week 2.3 !3

unrelated acts, grouped together on a common bill. Acts could be popular and classical
musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, strongmen, female and male
impersonators, acrobats, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes,
lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and movies. It was not a freak show, but could include freak
show acts, it was not a burlesque but could involve burlesque acts. In Boston, Vaudeville had to
be quite tame as to not offend the conservative middle-class and elite.

Education of Women
Considering all of these, the only piece missing to the puzzle is the increase in education for
women. This access to education could explain why Massachusetts was at the forefront of the
reform movement prior to the Progressive Era. As we discussed in past lectures, women who
lived in Boston had access to education up to a certain level through the city’s public schools.
However, higher education was still restricted to men only. During the first half of the century,
some colleges opened for women.

For example:
• Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina was founded in 1772
• Oberlin in Ohio opened in 1833 (this is where Lucy Stone enrolled)
• Mary Lyon helped in opening Wheaton Female Seminary in Norton, MA in 1835

prior to founding Mount Holyoke College in 1837.
• Wesleyan College of Macon, Georgia, was founded in 1839
• Bridgewater State University was opened in 1840 as a normal school. It’s first class

admitted 21 women and 5 men for teachers’ training. (A normal school usually
focused on teachers’ training)

• In 1848, a group opened the Boston Female Medical School to train female doctors.
The school closed its doors in 1874.

• Auburndale Female Seminary (now Lasell College) opened in 1851 by Edward
Lassell who was a professor of Chemistry at Mount Holyoke. The college is located
Auburndale, MA.

• Salem State College was also opened with the intention of training women at its
foundation as Salem Normal School in 1854. It became coeducational in 1892.

• Boston State college was founded in 1852 as a Girls’ high school, and became a
Normal school in 1872.

• Vassar College 1861 (relationship with Yale University)
• Massachusetts College of Arts and Design opened 1869 and allowed men and

women

From the Gilded Age on, more colleges opened for women:
• Wellesley College chartered 1870, opened in 1875 (Relationship with MIT)
• Smith College chartered in 1871, opened in 1875 (Relationship with Amherst

College)
• Radcliffe College opened in 1879, chartered in 1894 (relationships with Harvard)

Week 2.3 !4

• Gordon College opened in 1889 in Wenham, Massachusetts admitted men and
women of different ethnicity to train them as Christian missionaries.

• Carney Hospital Training School for Nurses (Labouré College) was founded in 1892
in South Boston

• Tufts had been opened in 1852, but received its first class of women in 1892.
• Simmons College opened in 1899.



The study of sociology, economics, psychology, and anthropology gave future reformers the
tools that they needed to understand their world better and attempt to act on it. The development
of social work as a university discipline, using those discipline as a scientific background, gave
the framework necessary for the reform movement to become a professional movement.

Caveat: if women, especially middle-class women, who were the ones getting into private
schools, but were supposed to stay in the private sphere, how did they carve themselves a
position in the public sphere with the reform movement here?

Extension of the role of women through the public sphere using their role as
women
Women, and especially the New Woman, justified their role in the public sphere as reformers
through the extension of their role in the home to the street and to the city. For example,
reformers would argue that if the street was dirty, their house was dirty. If the poor was suffering,
their home was suffering. This helped frame the Settlement House movement.

Settlement House Movement
The movement emerged in London, England. in the mid-19th century. The Toynbee Hall was
opened in the East End of London in 1883. The Toynbee Hall was seen as community of
university men living together in a home. It acted as a bridge between people of all social
backgrounds who wanted to focus on working toward a future without poverty. In 1887, The
Women’s University Settlement was opened by representatives from the Women’s Colleges at
Oxford and Cambridge. Most of these institutions offered shelter, food, activities, and access to
education (especially higher education) to their residents.

The most popular settlement house in the United States is the Hull House founded by Jane
Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in 1889 in Chicago. Addams and Starr had studied at Toynbee
Hall and brought the concept across the ocean. The mission of the Hull House, however, was not
to give higher education to their residents. They only offered shelter, food, activities, English and
history classes, mostly to immigrant women had just arrived in the city. They also took on tasks
that other organizations did not do. For example, preparing the dead for burial or taking in
women who were fleeing domestic abuse. The Hull House had an Americanization mission,
where they helped immigrants assimilate to the American culture. Quickly the movement picked
on in other cities.

Week 2.3 !5

Settlement House in Boston
In 1891, William J. Tucker, a professor at the Andover Theological Seminary, opened the
Andover House in the South End of Boston. Tucker believed that the foundation of the residence
on Rollins Street would simply “bring about a better and more beautiful life in its neighborhood
and district and to develop new ways (through study and action in this locality) of meeting some
of the serious problems of society.” He worked with Robert A. Woods who was a social worker.
Woods took over as head of the house. The mission of the house was “designed to stand for the
single idea of resident study and work in the neighborhood where it may be located…” It was a
religious mission but the founders made it such that the tone was educational and not
evangelistic.

Their goals were as follows (According to the City Wilderness, a book on the Andover house)
• to rehabilitate neighborhood life and give it some of that healthy corporate vitality

which a well-ordered village has
• to undertake objective investigations of local conditions
• to aid organized labor both in the way of inculcating higher aims and in the way of

supporting its just demands
• to furnish a neutral ground where separate classes, rich poor, professional and

industrial, capitalist and wage earners, may meet each other on the basis of common
humanity

• to initiate local co-operation for substantial good purposes
• to strive for a better type of local politics, and to take part in municipal affairs as they

affect the district
• to secure for the district its full share of all the best fruits of the city’s intellectual and

moral progress
• to lead people throughout the city to join in this aim and motive.
• Its aim is to work directly in one neighborhood, indirectly through the city as a

whole, for the organic fulfillment of all the responsibilities, whether written down or
implied for the well being of the community that attach to the citizen in a republic.

Mission of the Andover House
The Andover House operated on several fronts.

Housing
it conducted studies on housing conditions in the city, and testified before several commissions
to advocate for city involvement in the construction, and to secure laws on housing. They
especially lobbied for the enforcement of the building code since they did not want a second
Great Fire.

Streets and Sanitation
It acted as a center to receive the complaints of residents in the neighborhood on sanitation issues
(debris in the street, sewage issues, etc),

Week 2.3 !6

Playgrounds (A number of settlement houses get involved in the playground reform nationwide).
In the case of Boston, they cooperated with the various city-wide endeavors for parks and
playgrounds. They helped to secure the Ward Nine playground. They also “endeavor[ed] to
secure the adequate use of the playground by providing direction of groups of children and
young people.” (i.e. they trained people to play in playgrounds since playgrounds are a new
concept at the time). They also maintained vacant lot playgrounds.

Public Schools and education
They “cooperated with neighborhood public schools through visitation, meetings with teachers,
conferences, work for backward children, etc.” (backward children could be students with
disabilities or immigrants here). A resident at the Andover House acted as home and school
visitor. Furthermore, the manual added that “The head residents has long interested himself in the
development of the idea of industrial education, pointing out the present waste of years between
the age of 14 and 16 in the case of working children, and served as temporary secretary of the
state commission on industrial education.” -> this points to a change in the perception of
education and the emergence of the vocational and technical education that we know today.

Labor
They established relationships with trade unions, and the head of the house acted as treasurer of
the relief committee of the Central Labor Union in 1893-1894. Unions cooperated with the house
to secure the Dover Street Bath house (Bathhouses are used by anyone who does not have indoor
plumbing in the city. They were especially important for working class people who rarely had
indoor plumbing in their apartments). They organized conferences on labor matters, arbitrated in
times of strike, and acted as an intermediary between unions and government (city & state). They
also developed an interest in women’s work and helped form the Women’s Trade Union League.

Suffrage movement vs anti suffrage movement
The suffrage movement was part of this reform movement. As you may remember, Lucy Stone,
Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe had founded the American Woman Suffrage Association
in 1869. Their organization emphasized a state by state strategy to secure the vote. For that
reason, they present petitions to the state legislature every year until 1880. They had the support
of reformers, editors, politicians, educators, and church people. Even after all of these attempts,
the state does not do anything to support the vote of women. In 1879, though, the suffrage
associations thought that they had made a breakthrough.

Partial suffrage
With the temporary support of the Republicans, who controlled the state, suffrage associations
secured the right for women to vote for and to serve on their local school committees. The
Republicans recognized the stake women, as mothers, had in the education of their children.
However, this new privilege was also a tactical maneuver from the Republicans party. They
hoped that middle-class Yankee women would help fight the growing voting power of Catholic
immigrants and working-class men in local communities. The bill to pass women’s suffrage in
school committee only required a simple majority hence passed it without any difficulty.

Week 2.3 !7

The Members of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association (The MWSA) moved to take
advantage of the victory of 1879. They worked to secure additional partial suffrage at the city
level, and played down their demand for a state wide vote. Their argument this time was that
women could clean up city politics, combat boss rule, and restore municipal order which had
been upset by industrialization and immigration. As you can imagine those women were mostly
middle-class Yankee women whose families had been in Boston or in the state for many
generations.

The new strategy, however, was a disaster. In Boston, they had crafted an alliance with the
Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Catholic Loyal Women of America. After
they failed to reclaim the Republican Party’s support for more rights, they turned to the
Democratic party. As you can imagine, the Democrats did not like the women’s nativist stance.
As a result, their activism elicited the strongest anti-suffrage movement in the city and in the
State.

The Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of the
Suffrage to Women (MAOFESW)
The MAOFESW was formed in 1895 to defeat a state referendum on whether or not women
should vote in municipal election. Women who had the right to vote in the school elections could
vote in the referendum, and overwhelmingly voted yes to the question. However, only 4% of
them cast their ballot. The anti-suffragists used the low turnout to prove their point, that women
were not interested in gaining suffrage.Yet, even if the referendum did not secure the vote for
women, several organizations were reinvigorated in their fight for suffrage, and began to push
even more for a state law.

Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government
The Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government was formed in 1901 by Pauline
Agassiz Shaw, Maud Wood Park, and Mary Hutcheson Page to “…to promote a better civic life,
the true development of the home and the welfare of the family, through the exercise of suffrage
on the part of the women citizens of Boston.”

The President, Pauline Agassiz Shaw, was an interesting woman. She was born in Switzerland in
1841 to Louis Agassiz, who was a professor of biology and geology. Her father visited Harvard
in 1847 and they moved to Boston in 1850. In 1860 at age 19, she married Quincy Adam Shaw,
who was a Boston Brahmin and a business magnate who worked in the mining industry (Quincy
Adam Shaw was the uncle of Robert Gould Shaw, who commanded the 54th Massachusetts).
After her marriage, she used her new found wealth and social capital in the city to help the poor.
She founded the first Trade school, the North Bennet Street Industrial School in the North End.
She introduced kindergartens in the public school system. She also opened several child care
centers in the city (the idea was that Child Care centers, if ran properly would help make up for
the shortcomings of the working class).

Week 2.3 !8

Her organization, the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government, showcased the
push for protestant reform in the city. They especially addressed issues of poverty, prison reform,
and suffrage. Instead of aligning themselves with the anti-Catholic leagues and the WCTU, they
sought support in colleges. They also looked at how the British suffragists were leading their
campaign in England to gain the vote and used several of their strategies. For example, they used
a door-to-door approach to the immigrant neighborhoods and handed out Yiddish and Italian
flyers to rally the immigrant vote.

Florence Luscomb was one of the activists who did the door-to-door canvassing. She was born in
Lowell in 1887, and moved to Boston with her mother when her parents separated. After
accompanying her mother to women’s suffrage events to see Susan B. Anthony speak, she
became a suffragist. She was one of the first 10 women to earn an architecture degree from MIT
in 1910. Despite her degree in-hand from MIT, she could not find an internship (she had to ask
12 firms before one even considered her application seriously!). She became a fervent activist for
the vote, using the tactic of neighborhood canvassing. Why do you think that the Boston Equal
Suffrage Association for Good Government did not associate with the Woman’s Christian
Temperance Union? (think about who drinks and who does not in Boston at the time).

Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
The organization was founded in 1873 in Ohio. It quickly became a national movement. The
WCTU aimed to end the manufacturing and sale of liquor, and agitated against the use of
tobacco. They attacked a number of social issues, labor, prostitution, public health, sanitation,
and international peace, but did so through an evangelical approach. They were nativists,
especially against Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and promoted the Americanization of immigrants.
They believed that alcohol limited one’s ability to climb up the social ladder. They opened a
chapter in Boston in the late 1870s. Boston reformers also form the Anti-Saloon League. The
Anti-Saloon league was mainly a men’s organization while the WCTU was a women’s
association. As you can imagine, both organization promoted nativism to some extent.

Push for Americanization
As I mentioned in several of the blurbs above, reform organization pushed for the
Americanization of immigrants. They wanted to “convert” immigrants, if you will, to the
American way of life through language, culture, and history courses. Some of them did so
through food.

In the 1890s, Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards pioneered work in “sanitary engineering” and
domestic science. She is considered to be the scientist who invented home economics as a
science. Her idea was to apply scientific principles to the home.

Richards was born in 1842. She was the first American woman to obtain a degree in Chemistry
which she earned at Vassar College in 1870. She was then the first woman admitted the MIT,
where she earned a second bachelors in chemistry in 1873. She continued her studies and would

Week 2.3 !9

have gotten a Masters in Chemistry, had the university not refused to grant an advanced degree
to a woman.

Richards especially worked on applying science to homemaking, for example with the idea of
home sanitation. She worked from the premise that women were responsible for the home and
for the proper nutrition of their family. For that reason, she promoted teaching women basic
scientific knowledge to help them in their duties. For example, she wrote a book called The
Chemistry of Cooking and Cleaning in 1882. In 1885, she wrote Food Materials and Their
Adulterations which leads to the state to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act in Massachusetts
several years before the federal government passed its own law. Richards promoted the use of
gas over cooking oil and coal heating in the home due to the risk of pollution in the home, and
created the field of home economics to promote the use of efficient home management
techniques.

In 1890, she founded the New England Kitchen of Boston at 142 Pleasant Street. The New
England Kitchen aimed to teach poor women how to prepare inexpensive, nutritious, and
delicious foods. She used accessible ingredients, portioned meals (prior to the advent of home
economics, women “winged it”), and standardized practices in the kitchen. She published several
books for the homemaker to use to improve their homemaking skills, and helped modernize the
kitchen through her experimentations on efficiency. She created the first Public School lunch
programs in the city 1894 with the idea to provide nutritional meals at low price to poor students
through the New England Kitchen. The idea was taken on by Harry S. Truman in 1946 to create
the national school lunch programs.

Cooking as a way to Americanize people
So how was cooking a way to Americanize people? What is American food anyways? Reformers
developed the idea that immigrants needed to reduce their use of spices, since it made them “too
fiery.” For example garlic, dill, hot spices, paprika, which were not commonly used in the United
States were suspected of agitating people. In New England, especially in Boston, bland food
(cabbage, potatoes & root vegetables, beef, pork, chicken, and dairy) made up for the bulk of
one’s nutritional intake daily.

The clam chowder became the quintessential Boston/New England food during the Progressive
era. Prior to the Progressive Era, the clam chowder was seen as a poor people’s food. If you think
about it, clam chowder does not require much. It is usually made of clams, potatoes, onion,
celery, milk or cream, and some flour as a thickening agent (it was often thickened with oyster
crackers, invented in 1828, instead of flour). In Boston, it was especially popular due to the
availability and low cost of the catches in the port, and the need for Catholics to abstain from
eating meat on Fridays. In the Progressive era, reformers use it as an Americanization too since
they believed that milk appeased people. It was also an extremely efficient food: it was cheap,
nutritious, and delicious. As a result, the chowder became associated with Boston and New
England, and adopted across classes as a “refined” food in the late 19th century.

Week 2.3 !10

African Americans in Boston
During the Progressive Era, African Americans in Boston became especially vocal against the
rise of Jim Crow in the South. People like Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Frederick Douglass,
William Monroe Trotter, and others used the radicalism of the abolitionist legacy to justify their
voice in the public arena. As with the abolitionists though, most of the civil rights activism which
took place in the Progressive Era was based on the work of a biracial coalition, which regrouped
elites from both races. We will see more about this coalition in the upcoming weeks. You have to
keep in mind though that racism and segregation are still present in Boston, even if the leaders of
the community are especially vocal at a national level. They used Boston as an example of
liberalism but this reputation is not true for most African Americans living in the city. They are
the ones who confront Jim Crow on a daily basis, especially with the arrival of migrants from the
South.

Roxbury Fire of 1894
Despite all of the reform and the efforts to enforce the city’s laws, the city remained in bad shape
throughout the Progressive Era. In 1894, the neighborhood of Roxbury was partially destroyed in
a fire which started at a Boston Beaneaters’ game. On May 15, the Beaneaters played the
Baltimore Orioles. The ball park had been built in 1871, but enlarged to host the new stands in
1888. After the end of the third inning, attendees noticed smoke coming from under the right
field bleachers. Reports after the fire said that a small group of men saw the fire, and could have
stomped it out, but that a policeman told them to leave it alone, and that he would take care of it.
As you can imagine, things did not go as planned.

When Beaneater right fielder Jimmy Bannon saw flames through the stands, he ran to put it out.
A gust of wind fed the flames, and Bannon was driven back. Soon, the right field bleachers
caught fire. From there, the outfield fence caught fire, and ran to the left field bleachers,
engulfing them as well. Fans stood in the middle of the field to avoid the flames. Observers later
said that district fire chief Sawyer, present at the game, refused to call in the alarm until it was
too late to prevent the spread of the fire from the bleachers to the grandstand and out into the
surrounding neighborhood. The buildings that backed on Berlin street were soon burning. In an
hour, twelve acres had burned, 200 buildings had been destroyed, and 1900 people were
homeless. The neighborhood had to be rebuilt, this time, with more care and precaution.

So where does that lead us?
During the Progressive Era, the reform movement is led by middle-class white Anglo-Saxon
Protestant, educated people. Women especially played an important role in the reform
movement. The New Woman, a younger and more educated woman, pushed for the vote. As you
saw, the reform movement, even with its scientific approach, does not resolve all of Boston’s
problems. However, it pushed boundaries and helped the city lead progressive reform
nationwide.

Week 2.3 !11

Discussion this week
For our discussion this week, you will read two pieces published by reformers in The Bostonians.
They are pieces aimed at Reformers living in the city. When reading these pieces, think about the
context of reform in Boston in the late 1890s.

Week 2.1 History 385 – !1

Week 2.1 The Civil War and the Reconstruction
History 385

Julie de Chantal

March to the Civil War
The armed conflict began with the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861. Prior to the attack on the
fort, seven states had declared their secession from the United States and had formed the
Confederate States of America. They acted along the same principle the colonies did during the
war of Independence. The Southern States declared their independence from an oppressive
nation, here the United States instead of England.

There were 5 major causes for the secession of the Southern states
• Slavery -> It is usually the first cause that comes to mind. Indeed, some feared that

slavery would be abolished. However, slavery, in and of itself was not the sole cause
of the conflict.

• Sectionalism -> the country was divided by different economies, social structures,
and political values. Those divisions were profound enough for the Southern states to
feel like they were not part of the same country as the Northern states.

• Protectionism -> The South did not want to have tariffs imposed on their exports.
The North wanted to protect its industrial economy from the outside. Tariffs would
reduce competition from England for example but also reduce England’s incentives
to import American cotton.

• States’ Rights -> this is a big one. States in the South felt that the North was
infringing on their rights to self-govern.

• Finally, some Southern politicians saw the American Constitution as compact,
similar to the contract that the Massachusetts Bay Company had signed in order to
create the Massachusetts colony. For that reason, they felt that all of these reasons
violated the compact hence that they could secede.

Ambivalence in Boston
People in the North did not see the conflict through the same lens, and there was a lot of division
among factions of Northerners.

• Opposition to the Secession
• Industrialists were opposed to the war. This was somewhat logical. People

who have a lot, and have a lot to lose, seek stability to preserve their fortune.
Industrialists established in Boston did not want to lose their access to cotton
from the South. They especially did not want the country to go into a
recession due to the war

• Some members of the government called for a compromise to avoid the
Secession and the War. They gathered 22,313 signatures in a petition
favoring a compromise on slavery. They called themselves “The Union-
Savers.” Governor Andrew, for example, felt that if he did not go to

Week 2.1 History 385 – !2

Washington to try to negotiate an agreement, he could later be blamed for
not having done enough to save the Union.

• Neutrality
• African Americans were afraid that any compromise would tip Boston in

favor of the South. Some feared that either slavery would expand to the
North or that their personal liberties (right to vote, etc) would be revoked.
They feared that the North would sacrifice African Americans to preserve the
Union.

• In favor of the Secession
• Some of the abolitionists approved of the secession, but not necessarily of

the war. For example, people like Wendell Phillips, who wanted to get rid of
slavery, were happy at first. They believed that finally slavery would be gone
and that the country could move forward toward true civilization. Phillips
was mainly in line with the idea of self-control, rational mind, although he
admired rash activists like Elijah Lovejoy and John Brown.

Historian Gilbert Osofsky argues that Phillips’s nationalism was shaped by a religious ideology
derived from the European Enlightenment as expressed by Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson,
James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton. To Osofsky, the Puritan ideal of a Godly
Commonwealth, through a pursuit of Christian morality and justice, was the main influence on
Phillips’ nationalism. Phillips favored fragmenting the Republic in order to destroy slavery. He
sought to amalgamate all the American races. Thus, it was the moral end which mattered most.

After Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861, there was still a question as to what would happen
and what Lincoln would do with the Southern states. Would Lincoln simply rule the country and
not acknowledge the fact that many states have seceded? Would he try to compromise with them
and make them come back?

After the attack on Fort Sumter, many came to the conclusion that the war was eminent and that
there was nothing that they could do to avoid the conflict.

Reaction in Boston
Because the South fired first, many in Boston jumped to their weapons to defend the cause.
Quickly, the governor called for volunteer troops to support the war effort. The abolitionists who
were opposed to violence saw the conflict as a rebellion and not a war caused by the North. As a
result, they could push their agenda a little more forcefully.

African Americans were less enthusiastic but promised to provide 50,000 troops as soon as the
ban on Black troops were to be lifted.

Irish Americans were ambivalent. They were afraid that they would be stuck in integrated
regiments (African American and Irish) if the Irish Regiments were allowed again (remember
that the Know Nothing abolished Irish regiments during the anti-Catholic period).

Week 2.1 History 385 – !3

Quickly, the state shifted from an economy of peace to an economy of war, prioritizing
manufacturing of weapons, uniforms, etc over civilian goods. However, the shift was a long term
one and did not happen quickly enough to provide for soldiers who enrolled right away. Ten days
after the attack, a group of 100 Bostonians organized the “Massachusetts’ Soldiers’ Fund” to
solicit contributions to support the families of men recruited in the military.

Troops
Most people thought that the war would be a short military confrontation. Since the recruitment
slogan was “Peace in 90 days,” a number of men volunteered. Students left colleges and
universities to enlist in the military. Those who could not enlist for reason of age or disability
gave money to support the troops. Women hasten to help the sick and the wounded. Within days,
the state sent troops to Washington, D.C., by water to avoid having to deal with possible
sabotage of rail between Boston and the nation’s capital.

After the first 90 days, Americans had a weird impression that the war would last a wee bit
longer. The battles were much bloodier and more soldiers were wounded than expected.

In Massachusetts, the question of pay became a point of contention. The state had to pay soldiers
from the time that they reported to the service until the day that they were mustered into federal
service. Since the State government was not in session at that time, the governor expended the
money to pay, expecting the legislature to ratify the expenditure once back in session. Realizing
that the governor was pledging state credit, Boston banks advanced voluntary loans to meet the
state’s obligations. A few weeks later, the Governor convened a brief session to approve the acts.

However, recruitment also became more difficult than in the first few months, and the governor
had to create incentives for Boston men to volunteer. The legislature passed an act “in aid of
families of volunteers, and for other purposes,” that allowed towns to use tax money to help the
wife and children of volunteers. (Remember that women are not expected to work outside of the
home at the time). The state also pledged to reimburse up to $12 a month to towns for each
volunteers who received such allotment. Towns were still forbidden to pay a bounty to the
volunteers themselves. (An enrollment bonus if you will)

At a personal level, Bostonians created organizations to support families. They formed the
Soldiers’ Relief Society to hold communication between the families and the soldiers, and to
provide them with sympathy, counsel, and aid. Because there was no systematic distribution of
uniforms, women began to create packages for the soldiers. (See in particular the image of the
“Soldiers face their First Christmas in the field.” Imagine getting a care package for Christmas
when you are on the battlefield). Soldiers receive packages from home with socks, mittens, food,
etc

Week 2.1 History 385 – !4

Military of Massachusetts
The state of Massachusetts troops at the beginning of the war was much better than in any other
Northern states. Militia units were well trained and well equipped, and were the first to respond
to the call to arms. As soon as he could, Governor Andrew asked for 4 regiments or about 3,000
men to report for active duty. The response of the troops was speedy and efficient, and spoke to
the commitment of both the Governor and the people of Massachusetts to the cause. It is
important to remember, though, that the militia, when there is no real peril and no war, had few
soldiers and that they did not get a lot of public support. (The militia at that time was almost
what we consider the National Guard today. It was a reserve force at the service of the state).

If you remember when we talked about the vote, men had militia obligations in the state.
However, as I mentioned, some men refused to fulfill their obligations. They found ways to skip
on their duty to the state. Some were opposed to violence on a religious basis—the Quakers for
example refused and still refuse active military service—or because of moral principles—some
abolitionists for example. Both groups refused to enlist despite the call to arms. They were
conscientious objectors.

Others, however, took their job very seriously and made the job of the governor much easier. In
1851, Governor George Boutwell appointed Ebenezer W. Stone as the State’s adjutant general.
Stone was a 50 year old clothing merchant who was well established in the city. He had served in
the militia prior to becoming its commander. Stone was determined to upgrade the militia to a
first class reserve force. He traveled around the state, inspected local militia companies, certified
muster rolls, upgraded regulations and training manuals, and replaced old flintlock muskets with
the new percussion rifles.

When John Andrew came to power, he appointed William Schouler, a former whig newspaper
editor, turned politician, and the two (Boutwell and Schouler) continued to upgrade the militia.
As the war became eminent, they stimulated recruitment, inspected the armories, let out contracts
for uniforms and blankets. Then they planned the logistics of how they would transport of troops
to the capital. By the time that the war was declared, the governor responded immediately with a
well-trained, well equipped, and well organized militia.

When the order to report to Boston went out to the commanders of the different regiments, all
regiments responded quickly. In the following days, General Benjamin Butler, one of the
commanders, contacted his friends and worked his connections in Washington to “let them
know” that a general should accompany the troops to the capital. (He was hoping to be that
General hence he was nudging them in the “right direction”).

Benjamin Butler will become more important as we progress in the class. He was originally from
Deerfield, New Hampshire. His father served under General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812.
He went to school at the Phillips Exeter Academy in 1827. His mother moved to Lowell in 1828
where she operated a boarding house for the workers of the textile mills. He followed her and
attended the public schools in Lowell. As an adult, he went to Waterville College. He applied to

Week 2.1 History 385 – !5

join West Point Military Academy but was not accepted. He returned to Lowell where he clerked
to learn law. He was admitted to the Bar in 1840. He was a successful lawyer and became a
politician in 1850.

Despite being of Yankee origins, he was a Democrat. He was elected at the state legislature in
1852. In 1855, the Know Nothing had disbanded his militia hence why he did not have a military
position anymore. In 1857, he was appointed by Jefferson Davis (who would be the president of
the Confederacy) to the board of visitors of West Point. He supported Davis in his nomination for
the Democratic party in 1860, but the nomination went to John C. Breckinridge. Ultimately,
Governor Andrew signed the proper paperwork, and sent Butler to Washington with his soldiers.

Making their way to Washington
As mentioned earlier, there was a lot of discussion as to how troops should be sent to D.C. Some
proposed to send them by train which was risky considering that Confederacy supporters could
break the rails to slow down the troops. Troops could also be sent by ship to avoid the land
altogether. Massachusetts chose to do both ways.

The 6th Regiment from Boston was sent by railroad to the capital on April 17th. The regiment
stopped in NYC and stayed overnight, letting the soldiers have breakfast at the hotel on the 18th.
They then paraded down Broadway street that day. The next day, April 19th, shortly before noon,
the regiment arrived at the President Street station Baltimore. They boarded some horse drawn
railroad cars which took them in town to the Camden Street station. Maryland was one of the
Border states (neutral state in the war), and was equally divided between loyalties of the South
and of the North. One minute, people would sing “Dixie” in the Street, the next they would sing
the national anthem.

As the last three companies were brought across the city, they were attacked by a pro-secession
mob. They were pelted with rocks and stones. Some people fired their pistols at them. The troops
fired back into the crowd and cleared a path with their bayonets. As a response a number of
Confederate sympathizer shut down the President Street Station, destroyed the railroad bridges
into the capital and cut down all of the telegraph lines. From that point on, all troops had to be
taken to the capital by sea. Around 5 pm, officials in Washington began to worry about the 6th
Regiment but a train arrived in the Washington station with the soldiers in it. Some residents
rushed to take care of the wounded soldiers. They hosted the Regiment in the Senate Chambers
where the soldiers took in as much rest and food as they could before finally being mustered into
federal service. The rest of the regiments arrived in Philadelphia on the 20th of April

Learning that the road between Philly and Washington through Baltimore had been closed,
Butler took the troops on a railroad to the Chesapeake Bay, and them put them on a ship to
Annapolis. In Annapolis, his troops repaired the railroad tracks, and made sure that the
locomotives were working properly. They were ultimately welcomed in the capital and quartered
in the rotunda in the Capitol building.

Week 2.1 History 385 – !6

Medical care
One of the first things that the people on the homefront realized was that the government was
woefully unprepared for the number of casualties of the war. The government had recruited
doctors and surgeons, but at the time it only required the people who applied to have “evidence
of a regular medical education.” They also required these applicants have “strict temperance
habits and good moral character.” (You can see the priorities here, little concern about
performance in education but an emphasis on good character). A number of the doctors recruited
were incompetent butchers who only wanted to perform surgery.

In order to improve the conditions, the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston opened a full
wing to treat soldiers and constructed a new section to take care of them when the troops came
back home. Individual physicians in the city promised their services to soldiers and their families
left back home free of charge. The Massachusetts Homeopathic Medical Society and the Boston
Obstetric Society pledged the same.

A side note is important here.
The entirety of the medical corps of the U.S. and Confederate armies was composed of men only
at first. All of the doctors, nurses, and orderlies were men. The argument in favor of an all-men
corps was that the war was too violent for women’s sensitivities. Officials felt that the gore,
blood, and wounds of the soldiers would be offensive to women. Furthermore, having women in
the medical field would put wounded soldiers in a vulnerable position. As the war went and the
number of injured soldiers increased, women were progressively included in the medical
professions. They fulfilled the duties of orderlies, but were called nurses.

A Black Regiment
Massachusetts had more soldiers than it could send to the front at first. Within two weeks of the
call for troops, the state had reached the quota required by the federal government. The Secretary
of War reminded Governor Andrew not to send too many, as they wanted to stagger the entry of
soldiers in the war. A few weeks after the entry into the war, Boston’s Black leaders lobbied to
create a Black regiment in the city. In 1859, Governor Banks had vetoed a bill to allow Black
residents of the state to serve in the military. (They opposed the idea of Black men carrying
weapons.)

Starting in Spring 1861, members of the Black community lobbied more intensively to repeal the
law. With John Andrew, as the new governor, they hoped that the state would finally repeal it and
allow Black men to enlist. While waiting for the decision of the state, other members of the
community organized the Black drill society in Boston, and they petitioned the government to
remove the word white from the militia laws.

In September 1861, Black men were finally able to enroll in the Navy but only for menial tasks.
They were not considered to be soldiers nor sailors, nor were allowed in combat. This position,
as non-military personnel, justified their low pay and their inability to receive any promotions.
The War Department also refuses to allow Black men to enlist at a national level. Based on the

Week 2.1 History 385 – !7

biases against Black men (return to David Walker’s Appeal), they feared that Black men would
not follow orders, that they would turn against their commanders, etc.

In Summer 1862, Black Bostonians proposed to create a Regiment at the state level which would
be commanded by Black officers. Andrew refuses, as he could only conceive of troops being led
by white men. However, he convinced George Luther Sterns to create a committee to collect
money and to recruit Black soldiers. The Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves (I
will come back to this in a few minutes), authorized the formation of a Black regiment in 1863.
Sterns was a merchant, an industrialist, and an abolitionist. He was put in charge of recruiting
two infantry regiments the 54th and the 55th.

What is important to remember is that since it was the first Black regiment, the 54th Regiment
was seen as a social experiment. It was the ultimate test to show if African Americans could be
soldiers, let alone great soldiers. A large number of people wanted the regiment to fail since, if it
succeeded, it would prove that Black people were not savages nor required white guidance. If
you push this logic further, it would also challenge racial hierarchy, and mean that slavery was
based on prejudice, instead of a civilizing mission.

In February, Governor Andrew contacted Francis G. Shaw, an abolitionist who was a descendant
of one of Boston’s important families, to ask if he would allow his son, Robert Gould Shaw, to
take the command of the regiment

Robert Gould Shaw
Robert Gould Shaw was born in Boston on October 10, 1837. He was part of a prominent family
in the city. During his teen years, he travelled to Europe where he studied. From 1856 to 1859, he
attended Harvard University and joined the Porcellian Club (really really really elite Brahmin
club) but withdrew from the University before graduating. Prior to taking the command of the
54th regiment, he was a captain with the 2nd Regiment. When he came back to Boston to take on
the regiment, he met with his second in command Colonel Norwood Hallowell, who was the son
of Philadelphia Quaker. (In the movie Glory, released in 1989, Matthew Broderick plays Robert
Gould Shaw).

The response to recruitment for the 54th Regiment was not as enthusiastic as officials had
imagined. Several Black Bostonians felt that the whole thing was a publicity stunt. African
Americans had already been humiliated when they attempted to enlist and did not want to face
the same humiliation again. Many were determined to stay out of the war. They were especially
concerned with how the Black soldiers would be treated once out of Boston (and especially in
the South). They could be captured and treated as runaway slaves.

The Regiment used all sorts of tactics to recruit but especially, they promised a bounty of $100
for recruitment. It was a large sum of money at the time! (Remember that wives of soldiers
received $12 a month from the town to support their entire families). By Spring 1863, the
community was finally behind the Regiment and the soldiers were enlisting more easily. Shaw

Week 2.1 History 385 – !8

trained them at Readville, a few miles south of the city. In May, the regiment paraded in the city,
looking sharp and crisp.

There were a few issues though.
• They did not receive uniforms at first. Shaw pressured the state to receive the

appropriate material and weapons necessary for their soldiers.
• Then Black soldiers received a lower pay than white soldiers from the federal

government.
• white privates were paid $13 a month + $3.50 for clothing allowance
• Black soldiers were paid $10 a month minus $3 deducted in advance for

their uniform.

Governor Andrew was behind Shaw to fight against the injustice, writing to Charles Sumner:
“For God’s sake, how long is the injustice of the Government to be continued toward these men.”

President Lincoln even tried to explain to Frederick Douglass (major Black leader at the time)
that the low pay was a concession that the federal government made so that there could even be a
Black regiment. This obviously did not resolve the situation.

For the most part the Black soldiers were given menial tasks (justifying their low pay grade), or
stationed where white soldiers had been decimated by typhoid, typhus, yellow fever, or malaria.
The unhealthy garrison duty, in combination with the inadequate medical care, contributed to the
soldiers’ greater mortality rate which was about 40% higher than white soldiers in the Union
Army. That gave even more ammunition to the Governor who continued to fight against the
discriminatory practices of the Army.

On July 18, 1863, the regiment participated in the assault against Charleston, South Carolina.
Their objective was to capture Fort Wagner on Morris Island. They attacked the fort, and after 2
hours of fruitless attack, they retreated. Nearly half of their men and ⅓ of their officers, including
Shaw, died in combat. Shaw is commemorated in front of the Massachusetts State House in
Boston.

General Butler took some of the regiments men under his command. In the following months,
the regiment was reformed and the Governor lobbied to be able to form a cavalry regiment with
the elite of the different regiments already existing. By December 1863, the 5th Regiment
Massachusetts Colored Volunteer Cavalry, the only Black cavalry of Massachusetts, was formed
in Boston.

More on the military
The attacks on the Massachusetts regiments and the attacks on Fort Sumter galvanized the
support in the city. You have to remember that people in Massachusetts expected some 90 days
of conflict at the most. People on the home front jumped into action to help support the troops.
Throughout New England, the number of men enrolled in college declined substantially.

Week 2.1 History 385 – !9

• Harvard University 443 to 385 enrolled -> with a drop of 56% of those set to
graduate in Spring 1861 were sent to the war

• Yale University 521 to 438 enrolled
• Willams College 238 to 182 enrolled
• Amherst College 220 to 212 enrolled
• Dartmouth College -> 35% of their students sent to the war
• Brown University -> 50% sent to the war
• More than 24% of all Harvard graduates from between 1841 to 1861, and 23% of

Yale’s graduates fought in Lincoln Armies.

The Brahmins, in particular, encouraged their young men to apply for commissions as officers.
Men from different origins applied for commissions and enlisted as soldiers. The army overall
was a great equalizer for the city’s population. (Remember the highly divided social structure
where people did not mingle outside of their class). At war, men fraternized, notwithstanding
their class. Women, notwithstanding their class, felt grief in the same way. The war allowed for
more interclass mixing than ever before.

While many Bostonians were convinced that the Union would win a clear victory, the news of
the first defeats destroys the morale at home. Fortunately, though, Massachusetts regiments saw
little action in the first months of the war. In August, the governor received another call for
troops.

Among those troops were some Irish soldiers.
When the Massachusetts Regiment was attacked in Baltimore, Irish Americans leaders sponsored
a meeting in which they pledged allegiance to the government and offered their service to
preserve the Union. If you remember well, the Irish regiments had been abolished in 1855 during
the Know Nothing movement. At the time Thomas Cass, who was the former commander of the
Columbian Artillery, one of the dismantled regiments, proposed his regiment be reactivated.

Cass was born in 1821 in Queen’s County Ireland. He was brought to the United States by his
parents at 9 months. At age 21, he married and became the owner of vessels trading with the
Azores Island and held stocks in a towboat company based in Boston. He became active in city
politics and was a School Committee member when the war broke.

He was appointed Colonel by the Governor, and began to recruit for the 9th Regiment
Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the Glorious 9th. He started with the old regiment’s base and
continued to recruit at the Columbian Association armory on Sudbury Street. Companies from
Boston took in Irishmen from Salem, Milford, Marlboro, and Stoughton. After training for part
of the summer on Long Island, the regiment returned to Boston to get its flag from the governor.
Toward the end of 1861, the governor allowed for the formation of a second Irish regiment.

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The heroism, patriotism, and the backing that the soldiers received from the public led to a wave
of tolerance in the city. The tolerance went so far as to see Harvard confer an honorary degree
upon Bishop John Fitzpatrick.

If you remember, following the election of the Know Nothing, the city instituted a policy which
required children to read the Protestant Bible on a daily basis. During this wave of tolerance, the
city changed the policy and came to a compromise. Children would still be required the reading
of the Bible however, they could also read from any Bible that was accepted by their clergy (i.e.
the Catholic Bible). The Irish elite also convinced the state to allow Irish soldiers to practice their
religion and allowed for Catholic priests to be commissioned as chaplains in the 9th and 28th
Regiments.

Casualties of the first half of the war
During the first years of the war, and especially during the second year, the North suffered many
casualties. Already in 1862, Lincoln felt that the Union might be forced to draft soldiers. All of
the troops so far were volunteer troops recruited either for a period of one or three years. When
the idea of the draft was discussed, many opposed it.

Governor Andrew rejected the idea of the conscription. He felt that the men from Massachusetts
would enlist voluntarily, and he felt that the draft would be against the spirit of the Constitution.
Instead, he asked Bostonians to organize rallies to recruit more men. Every day in August 1862,
shops closed at 2:00 pm, the church bells rang, and people went into the street to work on
recruiting. Within three months, the state had fulfilled its quota again.

On September 17, 1862, several Massachusetts Regiments participated in the Battle of Antietam,
one of the major battles of the Maryland Campaign. They suffered massive casualties. Across the
Union, nearly 23,000 men died and 12,000 were wounded. It took a long while for the reports to
reach the Northern public, as military record keeping was neither accurate, nor efficient. Military
commanders did not keep an official record of casualties. They had no proper hospital lists, no
methodical burial records, or grave registrations. Parents and wives tried to get news from their
sons, but they hit a brick wall. It is only when the trains brought back the wounded and the dead,
or when the local newspapers printed the names of those who died, were wounded or missing
that the news reached the families.

Draft Riots
From that point on, Bostonians’ opinion about the war darkened. In March 1863, the federal
government passed a conscription law which required all male citizens to be drafted according to
the need of the state. Some could avoid the draft

• Black men were dispensed from the draft since they could not enlist until the creation
of the 54th Regiment

• Rich people could pay $300 to get find a substitute. People paid a total of $1.085,800
to avoid the draft.

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The exemptions sent the message that the white working class was canon fodder and that the
government did not care about them. There were riots all over the country, including in Boston,
especially opposing Yankee and Irish. Because of the segregation of the neighborhoods within
the city, very few African Americans were involved in the riots. The riots mostly involved Irish
and Yankee. They sometimes included women and children who wanted to protect their men
from being drafted. The Boston riots did not cause as much trouble the NYC riots, but reflected
the issues already in place in the city in terms of class and ethnicity.

Home front
Now that we have talked about the different regiments and the ways in which recruitment was
done; how did the war change the life on the home front?

Women’s Role
If you remember, we spoke about women’s roles prior to the war. Women were supposed to stay
in the private sphere, and rule over the domestic realm. At the beginning of the war, this was still
possible. The number of men recruited was relatively small and women could remain in the
home and support themselves with any savings that the family had. Working-class women were
not restricted to the private sphere, due to their need to work.

At the beginning of the war, women took on tasks reserved to women, for example in creating
care packages, tailoring uniforms, or knitting socks. Those were usually individual initiatives or
initiatives done through aid societies. As the war progressed and more men enlisted, however, the
need to fill the jobs that men left behind emerged.

For example, some women took on jobs at the Watertown arsenal, where they worked at filling
ammo cartridges on an assembly line. You can see by the way that they are depicted that they
were well dressed, possibly even middle-class women. Women took on positions as school
teachers, secretaries in government offices, book keepers in commercial venues, clerks in stores.
Those were all positions which were still considered men’s positions at the time.

In 1861, government officials created the US Sanitary Commission to help with the distribution
of clothing, food, and medicine to the crops. The sanitary Commission sent women to act as
nurses, as I mentioned earlier. Women like Dorothea Dix and Louisa May Alcott took on those
positions.

Dorothea Dix
Born in Hampden Maine (April 4, 1802), she grew up in Worcester MA. At age 12, she took
refuge at her grandmother’s home in Boston to escape from an abusive and alcoholic father. As a
young woman, she opened a school in Boston which was patronized by wealthy families. She
established another school in 1831, but had a mental breakdown in 1836. She traveled to Europe
to recuperate (women were often sent abroad when they suffered mental illnesses, thinking that
isolation would help them!). After coming back, she pioneered the reform of treatment, and

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lobbied for more funding for mental illness treatment (psychology and psychiatry). During the
Civil War, she was appointed Super intendant of the Army nurses by the Union Army.

She set guidelines for the candidate nurses:
• 35 to 50 years of age
• plain looking
• They were required to wear unhooped black or brown dresses, with no jewelry or

cosmetics.

She wanted to avoid sending vulnerable, attractive young women into the hospitals, where she
feared that they would be exploited by the men (doctors as well as patients). She cared for both
Union and Confederate soldiers without regards of their allegiance. Her program recruited close
to 3,000 women to work as nurses under her supervision

Louisa May Alcott
Born in Germantown PA, Nov 29, 1832. Her father Amos Bronson Alcott was a transcendentalist
in Boston. He was part of the circles which included Emerson and Thoreau. In 1843-44, her
family moved to a utopian commune in Concord, MA, called Fruitlands. They attempted to
survive in the commune but failed due to poor planning (did not plant the crops in time). They
moved to a new family estate in 1845. Throughout her youth, she received education from people
like Hawthorne, Emerson, and Margaret Fuller (all transcendentalists).

She was poor, but of the middle class due to her and her family’s education and background. She
worked as a teacher, a seamstress, a governess, and a domestic servant before she became a
writer. During the Civil War, she served as a nurse. However, she caught typhoid fever and was
treated with a compound which contained mercury (as many compounds did at the time). She
was sent back home to recuperate, and was not longer able to serve the Union. In 1868, she
published the book “Little Women” which depicts the story of the March sisters whose father
was a chaplain in the war. She published several sequels to the series in subsequent years. She
died at age 55 of a stroke.

More changes on the Home front
Merchants continued to make money throughout the war. However, they prioritized war
production over civilian goods. Since civilians still needed clothing and shoes, merchants turned
to the production of ready-made clothing and shoe. Due to the large volume of clothing made at
once (requiring less work), the prices dropped. With lower prices, the working-class bought
ready-made clothing in larger quantity.

Photography went through a lot of improvement during the Civil War, especially in Boston.
Daguerreotype were introduced in 1839. They were a silver-plated copper sheet which was
treated with fumes to make its surface sensitive to light. The sheets were then placed in a camera,
exposed, and then developed with chemicals. The time of exposure was really long, and forced

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people to stand in really stiff positions and not smile. By the beginning of the war, photography
was already less expensive and took less time to process.

In the 1860s, soldiers and their loved ones created such a demand that the “carte de visite,” a
small photo of about 2.5 inches x 4 inches, became really popular. Soldiers could leave photos
behind and bring photos of their loved ones with them (Hence why we have a lot of photographs
of Union soldiers, in particular).

Growth of Boston as a city
Despite the war, the city officials still pushed for the expansion and growth of the city. During
the War, Bostonians develop a taste for all things French. Second Empire architecture was
favored in the construction of new buildings. (As the Second Empire style evolved from its 17th
century Renaissance foundations, it acquired an eclectic mix of earlier European styles, most
notably the Baroque, often combined with mansard roofs and/or low, square based domes.)

The South End was finally completely filled and became the up-and-coming neighborhood. For
years, the tide had left the sewage dumped into a basin exposed to sun and open air. People at the
time described it as “nothing less than a great cesspool.” For that reason, the city decided to fill
the Back Bay, eliminating part of the diseases with the elimination of the pooling of sewage.
(epidemics due to poor sanitation were still extremely common at the time).

Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862
Another push for development came from the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862. The idea of
federal land grants to the states to build agricultural schools had been on the mind of many
politicians prior to the Civil War. During the war, the conditions came together to allow the act to
go through. Most opposing states had left the Union to form the Confederacy, and since the
federal government faced a dire need of money, the Morrill Land Grant Act came to the rescue.

Under the grant, each eligible state received a total of 30,000 acres (120 km2) of federal land,
either within or contiguous to its boundaries, for each member of congress that the state had as of
the census of 1860. (Massachusetts had 11 seats in the House + 2 senators)

The land or the proceeds from the sale of the land were to be used to establish and fund
educational institutions which taught the following fields:

• Military tactics (ROTC)
• Agriculture
• mechanical arts (engineering)
• liberal arts

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Massachusetts used the land as follows:
• Creation of UMass – Amherst (as the Massachusetts Agricultural College)
• It used the money selling land from Back Bay to create the Back Bay Lands fund

where
• ½ of the money was used for construction
• the other half was used for education

• 50% put in Massachusetts School Fund
• 20% given to Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology
• 12% for the construction of Tufts
• 18% to Amherst College, Williams College, and Wesleyan Academy

• to receive money, all of these schools had to provide
scholarships to students

• The state also granted a block of land to the Boston Society of
Natural History for the creation of a museum and a block to create
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Following the state initiative with the grants, private institutions also participated in the
construction. The Boston Water Power Company, for example, invested in a plot for the Museum
of Fine Arts.

The end of the Civil War
Toward the end of the war, 1864-1865, there was an increased sense of dissatisfaction among
people living in the city. The war had claimed a number of lives, and no one knew when it would
end. Throughout the war, Boston’s population increased substantially (especially during the two
last years). Since Massachusetts was a huge industrial center for the Union, industries required a
large number of workers who flocked to the state. Cities around Boston boomed during the war
(for example with the production of ammunition in Watertown, uniforms in Lowell, navy ships
on the North shore, etc). Skilled workers’ salaries increased due to the demand. As a
consequence, there was a steep rise in inflation on essential goods.

Black Bostonians were dissatisfied with the hypocrisy of the city. Racism and discrimination
increased overall in Boston. Tensions between working-class Irish and working-class Black
workers increased as well.

In 1864, the presidential election opposed two Northerner candidates, Abraham Lincoln and
George B. McClellan, who was from Philadelphia, and had been a general for the Union Army.
He had failed to garner Lincoln’s trust, was insubordinate, and was deriding of him. Although he
ran as a Democrat, he lost his support when he decided to repudiate the party’s platform. As you
can imagine, Bostonians were divided on the election. If you remember, Yankees voted mainly
for the Republican party and Irish voters for the Democratic party.

By the end of 1863, Abolitionists in Boston and around the nation pressed for an amendment to
abolish slavery. When Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, he did so as a measure of

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war. Captured slaves were seen as contraband of war. (Don’t forget that people in the U.S. see
slaves as property, not as people!) The Union Army could seize the contraband and prevent it
from being returned to its owner. The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to a small portion
of the slaves in the Southern states (which were technically part of another nation). Since the
Abolitionists knew that the Proclamation was a war measure, they continued to push for the
abolition through a constitutional amendment

In April 1865, it became clear that the war was coming to an end. Lincoln had made Ulysses
Grant the military commander of all Union armies. Sherman’s March and his policy of scorched
earth had annihilated the South. The Union had won several decisive battles. On April 9, 1865,
General Lee surrendered at Appomattox, and his other generals surrendered in the following
days. On April 14th, John Wilkes Booth killed President Lincoln in the Ford Theater. He died on
April 15 and his Vice president Andrew Johnson became president.

Reconstruction
Even prior to the end of the war Lincoln had planned for the Reconstruction of the nation
through different policies. Before we bring this back to Boston, I would like to give you an
overview of what happened during the Reconstruction.

There are three phases to the Reconstruction which lasted from 1865 to 1877.
• The Presidential Reconstruction, led by Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Both

presidents wanted to bring the nation back to normal as quickly as possible.
• The Congressional Reconstruction began in 1866 when Congress took control of the

Reconstruction. This period is a tug-of-war between Johnson and members of
Congress where each branch overturned decisions made the other branch of
government.

• The Radical Reconstruction began when a large number of Racial Republicans took
control of Congress in 1868. The Radical Reconstruction spanned from 1868 to
1877. (Most Radicals came from Massachusetts, while the moderate Republicans
came from other states). This was the period where most Bostonians were active in
the Reconstruction.

Context of the Reconstruction Nationwide
When facing the Reconstruction, both Presidents and the Congress had to address four major
questions:

• What should they do with the slaves?
• What should they do with the seceding states?
• What should they do with the intelligentsia and politicians of the South who rebelled

against the Union?
• How could they rebuild the nation?

Week 2.1 History 385 – !16

Presidential Reconstruction
As I mentioned, Lincoln had already made a plan for when the war would be over. Considering
that the Southern states had seceded, he hoped to reintegrate them quickly in the Union. For that
reason, he drafted what he considered to be fair conditions for their readmission. He required that
10% of the voters in the states pledge allegiance to the Union and that they ratify the 13th
Amendment.

13th Amendment
On April 8, 1864, a year before the end of the war, the Senate approved the Thirteenth
Amendment, and on January 31, 1865, the House of Representatives approved it. Charles
Sumner (Boston) and Thaddeus Stevens (Pennsylvania), wanted the bill to be even more radical
than the version that was ultimately approved.

Here is the text of the Amendment:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or
any place subject to their jurisdiction. The following section enforces the law.

As States surrendered, they ratified the Amendment. For example, Virginia Feb 9, 1865,
Louisiana Feb 17, 1865, Tennessee — April 7, 1865, ratified it before the war was over. Other
states followed. The last state to ratify the 13th Amendment was Mississippi. March 16, 1995,
Certified on February 7, 2013. (Not a mistake!)

After Lincoln’s death, Andrew Johnson devised his own plan. Johnson never acknowledged that
the Southern states had seceded. He kept Lincoln’s conditions for readmission, but with the
caveat that he would not allow for high ranking Confederates to pledge an oath of loyalty to the
Union. Without the oath, most high ranking Confederates would be stripped of their political
power and rights (no right to vote). He had hoped that this political power would go from the
hands of the planters to the plebeians who he always represented.

Because he wanted to favor the white working class and small farmers, Johnson also opposed
any type of aid to or even voting rights for African Americans offered by the North. He feared
that African Americans would side with their former masters against the white working-class
(which usually worked for the planters as overseers or in menial jobs, just above those of slaves).
He also feared that, if they received help from the government, former slaves would become
richer than the white working-class, hence would break the racial hierarchy.

Reaction of the South
As you can imagine the reaction of the South to the abolition of slavery was rather violent. On
one hand, ex-confederate officers formed what became known as the Ku Klux Klan as a secret
society. The organization became a terrorist organization, intimidating or committing violence
against Black communities in the South. On the other, Southern governments passed the Black
codes in order to limit movement, work, families, etc of former African American slaves.

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Freedmen’s Bureau
As a response, the North put in place the Freedmen’s Bureau. In 1863, Bostonian Samuel Gridley
Howe was the guiding force behind the Freedmen’s bureau. He was born in Boston 1801, his
father was a ship owner. He attended Boston Latin School. His father was a Democrat who
refused to let his son study at Harvard University. He felt that the university was “a den of
Federalists.” In 1818, he had him enroll at Brown University in Providence, RI. Howe was a
trouble maker but managed to graduate in 1821. He went to Harvard Medical School, and
graduated in 1824.

After graduation, he sailed to Greece and joined the Greek Army as a surgeon (he was fascinated
by the Greek Revolution). He returned to the States in 1831, and began to work for the blind. He
founded what became the Perkins institution in 1832. In 1848, he worked with Dorothea Dix to
found the Massachusetts School for Idiot and Feeble-Minded Youth.

In 1863, he was appointed to the American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission. He traveled to the
Deep South and to Canada to investigate the condition of emancipated slaves. (He went to
Canada because of the number of former slaves who established themselves in the British
Dominion through the Underground Railroad.) With his data in hand, he worked to establish the
Freedmen’s Bureau in 1865 to help freed slaves.

What kind of work did the Freedmen’s bureau do?
• It solved daily problems (getting clothes, food, water, health care, jobs)
• It helped reunite families, perform marriages to officiate non-official ones (slaves

could not enter contracts hence could not marry)
• at first, the Bureau tried to force Black women to work before they realized

that ex-slaves attempted to reproduce gender roles seen in the North and in
the South, with the husband as the primary breadwinner and the wife
remaining in the private sphere. After realizing that the former slaves wanted
to conform to this ideal of femininity, the Bureau allowed for exceptions, if
the woman was married and if she had children to take care of. Otherwise,
she was at risk under the Black codes of being arrested as a vagrant if she
was unemployed.

Education
One of the most important pieces of the Freedmen’s Bureau was to create an education system
similar to those seen in the North. Prior to the emancipation, slaves were not allowed to read or
write by fear that they would challenge the South’s social hierarchy. After the emancipation,
Northern missionaries and philanthropists went to the South to found schools. The American
Missionary Association was particularly active in founding schools. A number of teachers from
Boston went to the South to teach, and a large number of the new Southern schools were
modeled after schools in Boston (curriculum, schedule, pedagogy, even down to the furniture).

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The freedmen’s bureau was not only established in the South. There were branches all over the
United States. There were several branches in Boston, a branch in Brookline, Cambridge,
Concord, Dorchester, Framingham, Jamaica Plains, Newton, Roxbury, West Roxbury to name
only those who were in very close proximity. Even Harvard had a Branch.

The reason for their presence is simple, between 1865 and 1877, a considerable number of
former slaves migrated to the city seeking better opportunities and better treatment.

Migration
After the Civil War, Boston found itself in an interesting position. Except for the War, textile, and
leather industries in the suburbs, Boston did not have large industries. At the time, people could
not commute daily between Boston and the North or South Shore (for example living in Boston
and working in Lowell).

As a result, the competition for low working-class jobs was fierce. When African Americans
came to the city, they challenged this already difficult situation. They entered a segregated space
where their options were limited. Most found menial and non-specialized jobs, for example
domestic work for women, janitorial or dock work for men. Of the 177,840 people living in
Boston in 1860, 40,000 people were part of the working class. 11k were domestics, 9k were daily
laborers, and 7,9K were clerks. The rest did piece work or odd jobs.

Let’s continue with the Reconstruction.
In 1866, during the mid-term election, Radical Republicans take control of Congress. Here, I will
be skipping a bit of the action to get the bigger lines of the Reconstruction. Most of what
happened took place in the South and did not affect the city. However, what you have to
remember is that Bostonians were hardliners against the South. They were the radicals who
wanted the South to pay for what it had done. Even the Methodist Ministers Association of
Boston, who met two weeks after Lincoln’s assassination, called for a hard line against the
confederate leadership. At the meeting, they resolved:

“That no terms should be made with traitors, no compromise with rebels…. That we hold
the National authority bound by the most solemn obligation to God and man to bring all
the civil and military leaders of the rebellion to trial by due course of law, and when they
are clearly convicted, to execute them.”

Let that sink for a second… that piece was resolved by the Methodist Ministers Association!

That being said, due to the rise of the Black Codes, the Radical Republicans knew that the South
would never give African Americans the vote if they could help it. To counter this refusal, the
federal government had to take measure to ensure equality. In 1866, Radical Republicans
proposed the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Sumner had tried to abolish the word “white”

Week 2.1 History 385 – !19

from the naturalization laws in place but without success. The 14th Amendment gave citizenship
to anyone born in the United States (Birthright citizenship, notwithstanding one’s race).

In 1868, the 14th Amendment passed both Senate and the House of Representatives.

Here is the text of the first section of the Amendment:
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities
of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws.

Finally, they also passed the 15th Amendment, which gave African Americans the vote, in 1870.

Here is the text of the Amendment:
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or
abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous
condition of servitude.

Ultimately, the Reconstruction ended with the election of 1877 and what we know as the
Compromise of 1877. Through the Compromise, Rutherford B. Hayes was elected as a
Republican candidate under the condition that he appointed a Democrat to his cabinet and
fulfilled a few more conditions. Among was to pass a law where the federal government would
promote and be an active part of the industrialization of the South

The problem with the 15th Amendment
There is a large problem with the 15th Amendment for suffrage associations in the United States.
If you remember well, we spoke about how the Abolitionist movement in the 1830s and 1840s
had created a space for women to speak about their own rights alongside Black rights. Women
had assimilated their condition to that of African Americans in the nation: They were not free,
they belonged to their husbands, they had no political rights, and so on and so forth.

When the push for the Black vote began after the Civil War, two factions of the suffrage
movement emerge.

• On one side, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony pushed to add the term
“sex” as a non-discrimination clause in the 15th Amendment. Their understanding
was that if they did not seize the opportunity to do so at this specific moment in
history, they might not be able to secure the vote for another 100 years (they were
almost right). They believed that they should prioritize the white middle-class
women’s vote over the Black working-class men’s vote for example. They even
disparaged Frederick Douglass who could not believe how racist they were.
Douglass highlighted the fact that Black men were lynched in the South and that

Week 2.1 History 385 – !20

white women were not. He believed that this should be a justification as to why
Blacks should get the vote first. In 1869, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B.
Anthony split from the National Suffrage Association to form the National Woman
Suffrage Association (NWSA), which opposed the 15th Amendment and continued
to advocate for a federal amendment to get the vote.

• On the other hand, Bostonians formed a different association. Lucy Stone, her
husband Henry Blackwell, Josephine Ruffin, and Julia Ward Howe supported the
15th Amendment. They were fervent abolitionists who believed in equality. They
understood the importance of passing the 15th Amendment at this juncture. They also
understood that if they wanted to secure women’s right to vote, they could create an
alliance with Black men, as a quid pro quo, to secure the vote later. They created the
American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) which opted for a state by state
campaign instead of a federal Amendment.