The history of Boston plays a central role in American history. In 1630, Puritan colonists from England founded the town, which quickly became the political, commercial, financial, religious and educational center of the New England region. The American Revolution erupted in Boston, as the British retaliated harshly for the Boston Tea Party and the patriots fought back. They besieged the British in the city, with a famous battle at Bunker Hill and won the Siege of Boston, forcing the British to retreat. However, the British blockade of the port seriously damaged the economy, and the population fell by two thirds in the 1770s. The city recovered after 1800, becoming the transportation hub for the New England region with its network of railroads, and even more important, the intellectual, educational and medical center of the nation. Along with New York, Boston was the financial center of the United States in the 19th century, and was especially important in funding railroads nationwide. In the Civil War era, it was the base for many anti-slavery activities. In the 19th century the city was dominated by an elite known as the Boston Brahmins. They faced the political challenge coming from Catholic immigrants. The Irish Catholics, typified by the Kennedy Family, took political control of the city by 1900. The industrial foundation of the region, financed by Boston, reached its peak around 1950; thereafter thousands of textile mills and other factories were closed down and the city went into decline. By the 21st century the city's economy had recovered and was centered on education, medicine, and high technology—notably biotechnology, while the many surrounding towns became residential suburbs.
Read more about History Of Boston: Prehistoric Era, Founding, Colonial Era, Boston in Rebellion, 1770s, 21st Century, Geographic Expansion
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“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“Properly speaking, history is nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race.”
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“The years when we are parenting teenagers are the high point, the crest when everything seems to be in bright colors and in ten-foot letters.”
—Jean Jacobs Speizer. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Womens Health Collective, ch. 4 (1978)