The
Historical
Atlas of Massachusetts
©The
University of Massachusetts Press, 1991
Reprinted with permission
Reading
for 2/5/03 and 2/12/03
Introduction
Part I
"There
is not now and never has been a work on Massachusetts
history embracing the whole field of the experience
of the state, either chronologically or topically."
So wrote Albert Bushnell Hart, editor of the magisterial
five-volume Commonwealth History of Massachusetts,
as he set out to remedy that oversight some
fifty years ago. Since that time there have been
other attempts to describe the people and events,
ideas and institutions, that have shaped the state's
rich and varied past. Yet none has combined the
skills of the historian, the geographer, and the
cartographer to explore the totality of experiences
embodied in the notion* of a "commonwealth."
Such is the goal of the Historical Atlas of Massachusetts.
A
historical atlas is a blend of geography and history,
the study of the natural and cultural landscape
and the study of the human past. By join-ing these
two disciplines, it seeks to illuminate the interaction
between people and their physical environment, showing how
the land shaped human history as well as how humans
reshaped the land. The desired result is a mosaic
of people, places, and events that provides a link
between the seemingly remote past and the ever-changing
present.
The
last Massachusetts atlas was published in 1894,
was not historical in approach, and was a town by
town location of geographic place names. To render
a vivid portrait of the state, the cartographers,
geog-raphers, and historians working on the Historical
Atlas of Massachusetts have used computer generated
graphics, satellite imagery, full color maps and
illustrations, and photographs. Complementing these
more contemporary visual aids are a variety of historical
maps and other arti-facts that capture the spirit
of times past.
The
chapter that follows introduces the contextual framework
that will be developed more fully in the rest of
the volume. The first section, entitled "The
Historical Landscape," is devoted to a chronological
his-tory that identifies eight key periods of change,
beginning with Native American settlements and culminating
with the postindustrial service economy that evolved
after 1950. Rather than adopting a more traditional
political approach, this analysis focuses on the
dynamic inter-change between human beings and their
environment: where and how people settled, how they
used the land and reshaped the landscape, how they
generated economic change. The second section explores
a variety of political and social topics: the state's
political organization and history, the status of
women, ethnicity and race, demography, health care,
architecture, communications, transportation, energy,
and the unique story of the Quabbin Reservoir.
Throughout,
the Historical Atlas of Massachusetts interweaves
past and present to illuminate the forces of change
that have transformed not only the state but the
nation as a whole.
OVERVIEW
The
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, true to the origins
of its name, part British, part Native American-has
always been a land of contrast. From early on the
state's economy has been a mixture of agriculture,
fishing, and industry; its politics, a blend of
conservatism and radicalism; its cultural life,
a potpourri of distinct ethnic traditions. Yet perhaps
nowhere is the state's rich diversity more evident
than in its geography-the physical setting that
has provided the context for the making of the Commonwealth's
history.
Situated
at the intersection of several physical regions,
Massachusetts features a patchwork landscape of
widely varied terrain: barren beaches and fertile
lowland valleys, rocky hills and thick woodlands,
freshwater lakes and tidal salt marshes. Much of
that landscape was shaped by the glaciers of the
last ice age, which crossed the region some 18,000
years ago. Cape Cod, protruding into the Atlantic
like a flexed arm, was cre-ated from the glaciers'
terminal moraine, as were the islands of Martha's
Vineyard and Nantucket.
Throughout
the Bay State, zones of transition abound. The state's
8,257 square miles can be divided into 10 large
ecological
regions, with 27 subregions. The rocky, sharply
defined coastline north of Boston dif-fers markedly
from the beaches of Cape Cod, where the sandy coastal
ecology of the mid-Atlantic region ends after more
than 1,200 miles. The state's forest ecology reflects
the gradual shift from broad-leaved decid-uous trees
that lose their leaves in the fall to coniferous
evergreens. The predominant geological structure
of the New England Appalachian mountains was formed
400 to 350 million years ago, when plates of the
earth's crust collided. This collision was particularly
severe in southern New England, and in Massachusetts
nine tightly constricted zones of underlying geological
structure exist in a width of only 200 miles. The
collision was also responsible for the north-south
orientation of the state's mountains.
The
climate of the state is equally varied. Seasonal
changes are extreme, and even day-to-day weather
is difficult to predict. Whereas most of the North
American continent has a climate that is affected
by a , small variety of air masses, Massachusetts
is in a zone of interacting air masses that converge
on the region. Interaction from these diverse storm
paths from the colder continental interior to the
north and west and the warmer tropical regions to
the south and southeast produces a wide variety
of storm types. Ocean
currents are partly responsible for the weather's
variability. Cold currents from the northern Labrador
cur-rent meet the warmer Gulf Stream currents from
the south off the coast of southeastern Massachusetts
and Cape Cod. Because this area of the state extends
farther into the Atlantic Ocean than any other part
of the United States except Cape Hatteras, it is
especially vulnerable to violent coastal storms
and hurricanes.
Within
this diverse and ever-changing environment, the
people of Massachusetts have created a distinctive
way of life, at once steeped in tradition and open
to innovation. With its quaint colonial villages
and bustling modern cities, rolling farmlands and
high-tech industrial parks, Massachusetts is a place
where past and present coexist-at times harmoniously,
at times uneasily—at the threshold of the
future.
The
Formation of Cities and Towns Beginning with
the founding of Plimoth Plantation in 1620, the
colonial settlement of Massachusetts proceeded steadily
apace. Over time, 129 cities and towns had been
incorporated, and from these "parent communities"
an additional 222 cities and towns were formed.
Many of the original "parent communities"
were much larger than they are today. Among the
largest were Plymouth, Duxbury, Taunton, Rehoboth,
Dorchester, Dedham, Lancaster, Rutland, Oxford,
Brimfield, Deerfield, Hadley, Springfield, and Sheffield.
Hampden County, which today has 23 cities and towns,
originally included only five: Springfield, Brimfield,
Blandford, Chester, and Grandville. Springfield
alone comprised what would eventually become 14
different cities and towns. In other parts of the
Connecticut River Valley, in Norfolk County, and
in much of Worcester County, the situation was similar.
In fact, only on Cape Cod and in the far western
part of the state have many of the original town
boundaries remained unchanged.
Names
on the Land The original
names of most places in Massachusetts were those
given by Native
Americans. Over the years the meanings of many
of them have been distorted or lost, but the place
names themselves, with their distinctive sound and
rhythm, remain: Nantucket, Agawam, Saugus, Housatonic,
Chicopee, Scituate, and Quabbin.
The
name Massachusetts was taken from the Massachuset
tribe of Indians who lived near the Great Blue Hill
in Milton. According to The Origin of
Massachusetts Place Names, compiled by the Writers'
Project of the WPA in the 1930s, the name was first
applied to the Charles River region around the time
of John Smith's explorations in 1614, and then to
Boston Harbor by the Pilgrims in 1621. Subsequently
it was used to describe the entire bay between Cape Cod and Cape
Ann. The Massachusetts Bay Company was chartered
1629, and the region around the bay was officially
designated as the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
After 1691 the colony became the Province of Massachusetts
and, later, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The
names of all but two of the 14 counties in the state
had English origins. Half were named for counties
in England: Berkshire, Essex, Hampshire, Middlesex,
Norfolk, Suffolk, and Worcester. English seaports
accounted for names of Barnstable, Bristol, and
Plymouth counties,while
Dukes and Hampden counties were named after well-known
Englishmen-the duke of York and John Hampden. Franklin
County in western Massachusetts was named for Boston-born
Benjamin Franklin. Only one county, Nantucket, received
a Native American name.
The
accompanying map of cities and towns identifies
the 351 units and groups them into nine categories.
Names of English cities, towns, and counties account
for 106 of the total, about one-third, while 80
are named for distinguished Americans or local settlers,
52 for famous Englishmen, and 33 for geographical
features. In addition, 32 towns are named for other
communities in Massachusetts (e.g., New Salem, East
Brookfield) and 17 for places elsewhere (e.g., Peru,
Florida, Berlin); 15 have Native American names
(e.g., Cohasset, Natick, Seekonk, Mashpee); and
14 are named after other things (e.g., Blandford,
the boat that brought Governor Shirley in 173 1).
Two, Norwell and Rowe, are unknown.
Population
The U.S. Bureau of the Census estimated that
70,000 people
lived in Massachusetts by 1700 and that they
represented about a quarter (25.5%) of the population
of British Colonial America. Although the state's
population has continued to rise significantly,
its proportion of the total population has declined:
125,000 in 1730 (19%); 238,195 in the first colonial
census in 1765 (14%); 378,787 in the first U.S.
census in 1790 (10%); 994,514 in 1850 (4.3%); 2,805,346
in 1900 (3.7%); 4,690,514 in 1950 (3.1%); and an
estimated 5,890,000 in 1988 (2.4%).Massachusetts
and Rhode Island led the nation in the growth of
their urban population in the first half of the
nineteenth century. By 1850 these two states were
more than 50 percent urban. (The United States did
not become that urban until 1920.) Urban population
in the Bay State rose to 66.7 percent by 1870, 82
percent by 1890, and peaked at 90.2 percent in 1930.
In 1980 the urban population had declined to 83.8
percent because many people moved to rural communities,
commuting to cities to work. This shift is illustrated
on the two population cartograms for 1930
and 1980
that are used to introduce the theme for the atlas
as a whole.
Map Note: The population cartograms
illustrate population distribution of the state¹s
cities and towns for 1930, when the state was 90%
urban, and 1980. Cartograms combine the locational
qualities of maps with the proportional scaling
of data found in graphs. The size or volume of each
city or town is based upon its population rather
than its actual physical size. A conscious effort
was made to keep neighboring cities and towns in
their relative locations although the resultant
map appears distorted. The advantage of the cartogram
is that it highlights the data for the map reader.
As the cartograms and standards base map above illustrate,
data displayed on a standard map can mask important
socioeconomic or political facts. The cartogram
for 1930 shows the almost total dominance of the
state by a few large cities. The 1980 cartogram
shows that the population of the state had increased
from 4,249,614 to 5,737,637 (35%) but that Boston
and most major cities lost population. The cities
are still important, but the relative growth
of the suburban communities and on Cape Cod is increasingly
significant.
Spirit
of Place To the lifelong resident no less than
to the occasional visitor, mention of Massachusetts
is likely to conjure up any number of images. To
some the state is chiefly notable for the legacy
of its colonial past and its central role in the
birth of the nation. For such people, Massachusetts
is the home of Lexington and Concord, redcoats and
minutemen, the Sons of Liberty and the founding
fathers. Others think of the state primarily as
a center of commerce, medicine, culture, and learning-the
Massachusetts of Boston Brahmins and Cambridge intellectuals,
of Emerson, Melville, and Thoreau. Still others
associate the state with its climate and geography,
from the serene beauty of Cape Cod in the summer
to the stunning vibrance of the Berkshires in the
fall.
Which,
then, is the real Massachusetts? Is it the land
of the small town common and "yeoman"
Yankee farmers? Is it the world of the Gloucester
and New Bedford whalers and the China "clipper"
trade? Or is it the home of urban factory towns
and the birthplace of the American industrial revolution?
As this historical atlas attempts to show, it is
all of the above and none in particular-a place
where tradition thrives in the midst of innovation,
and continuity persists in the midst of change.
