The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Most of its population of 6.4 million live in the Boston metropolitan area.
The eastern half of this relatively small state is mostly urban and suburban. The west is primarily rural, also with most of its population in urban enclaves.
Massachusetts is the most populous of the six New England states and ranks third in overall population density among the 50 states.
Massachusetts has been a significant state in American history.
Plymouth, Massachusetts, was the second permanent English settlement in North America. Colonists from England founded many towns and villages in the present-day territory of Massachusetts very early in the nation's history in the 1620s and 1630s.
The Boston area became known as the "Cradle of Liberty" for the ferment there which led to the American Revolution and the independence of the United States from Great Britain.
Massachusetts was the first U.S. state to abolish slavery and was a center of the temperance movement and abolitionist activity in the years leading to the American Civil War. The state has contributed many prominent politicians to national service, including the Kennedy family.
Originally dependent on agriculture and trade with Europe, Massachusetts was transformed into a manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution.
Migration of factories to the lower-wage Southern states caused economic stagnation during the first half of the 20th century. The Massachusetts economy was revived after World War II, and today is prominent in higher education, health care, and high technology.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was named after the indigenous population, the Massachusett, whose name can be segmented as mass-adchu-s-et, where mass- is "large", -adchu- is "hill", -s- is a diminutive suffix meaning "small", and -et is a locative suffix, identifying a place.
It has been translated as "near the great hill," "by the blue hills" "at the little big hill," or "at the range of hills," referring to the Blue Hills, or in particular, Great Blue Hill, located on the boundary of Milton and Canton, to the southwest of Boston. (c.f. the Narragansett name Massachusêuck; Ojibwe misajiwensed, "of the little big hill").
Massachusetts is officially a "commonwealth." Colloquially, it is often referred to simply as "the Commonwealth," although "state" is used interchangeably.
While this designation is part of the state's official name, it has no practical implications. Massachusetts has the same position and powers within the United States as other states and a similar form of internal government.
Geography
Massachusetts is bordered on the north by New Hampshire and Vermont; on the west by New York; on the south by Connecticut and Rhode Island; and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean.
Most of the state is uplands of resistant metamorphic rock that were scraped by Pleistocene glaciers that deposited moraines and outwash on a large, sandy, arm-shaped peninsula called Cape Cod and the islands Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket to the south of Cape Cod.
Upland elevations increase to the north and west and the highest point in the state is Mount Greylock at 3,491 feet (1,064 m) near the state's northwest corner.
The uplands are interrupted by the downfaulted Pioneer Valley along the Connecticut River and further west by the Housatonic Valley separating the Berkshire Hills from the Taconic Range along the western border with New York.
Boston is located at the innermost point of Massachusetts Bay, at the mouth of the Charles River, the longest river entirely within Massachusetts. Most of the population of the Boston metropolitan area (approximately 4.4 million) does not live in the city proper; eastern Massachusetts on the whole is fairly densely populated and largely suburban as far west as Worcester.
Central Massachusetts encompasses Worcester County, and includes the cities of Worcester, Fitchburg, Leominster, Gardner, Southbridge and small upland towns, forests, and small farms.
The Quabbin Reservoir borders the western side of the county, and is the main water supply for the eastern part of the state.
The Pioneer Valley along the Connecticut River in Western Massachusetts is urbanized from the Connecticut border (and greater Hartford) to north as far as Northampton, and includes Springfield, West Springfield, Westfield, and Holyoke.
Pioneer Valley economy and population was influenced by agriculturally productive Connecticut River Valley land in the 17th and 18th century, water power for the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and expansion of higher education in the 20th century.
The remainder of the state west of Pioneer Valley is mainly uplands, a range of small mountains known as the Berkshires, summer home to the Boston Symphony Orchestra (Lenox), Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, the Norman Rockwell Museum (Stockbridge), Monument Mountain and Mount Greylock, the highest point in Massachusetts.
It largely remained in aboriginal hands until the 18th century when Scotch-Irish settlers arrived and found the more productive lands already settled. Availability of better land in western New York and then the Northwest Territories soon put the upland agricultural population into decline.
Available water power led to 19th century settlement along upland rivers. Pittsfield and North Adams grew into small cities and there are a number of smaller mill towns along the Westfield River.
The geographic center of the state is in the town of Rutland, in Worcester county.
The National Park Service administers a number of natural and historical sites in Massachusetts.
The fourteen counties, moving roughly from west to east, are Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire, Hampden, Worcester, Middlesex, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Bristol, Plymouth, Barnstable, Dukes, and Nantucket. All but two of the Commonwealth's fourteen counties are named for British counties, cities, or nobles.
Climate
Massachusetts has a humid continental climate, with warm summers and cold, snowy winters. Massachusetts receives about 40 inches (1016 mm) of rain annually, fairly evenly distributed throughout the year, slightly wetter during the winter.
Summers are warm with average high temperatures in July above 80 °F (26.7 °C) and overnight lows above 60 °F (15.5 °C) common throughout the state. Winters are cold, but generally less extreme on the coast with high temperatures in the winter averaging above freezing even in January, although areas further inland are much colder.
The state does have extreme temperatures from time to time with 90 °F (32.2 °C) in the summer and temperatures below 0 °F (-17.8 °C) in the winter not being unusual.
The state has its share of extreme weather, prone to Nor'easters and to severe winter storms. Summers can bring thunderstorms, averaging around 30 days of thunderstorm activity per year. Massachusetts has had its share of destructive tornadoes, with the western part of the state slightly more vulnerable than coastal areas in the east.
Massachusetts, like the entire United States eastern seaboard, is vulnerable to hurricanes. Because its location is farther east in the Atlantic Ocean than states farther south, Massachusetts has suffered a direct hit from a major hurricane three times since 1851, the same number of direct hits suffered by the southern Atlantic state of Georgia.
More often hurricanes weakened to tropical storm strength pass near Massachusetts.
History
Massachusetts was originally inhabited by several Algonquian tribes: the Wampanoag, Nauset, Nipmuc, Pocomtuc, Pennacook, Mahican, Massachuset, and some Narragansett and Pequot.
A vast number of the indigenous people were killed by waves of smallpox inadvertently brought to the New World by Sir Herbert Popham and his ship to the Saco, Maine area in 1616.
The first European settlers in Massachusetts, the Pilgrims, established their settlement at Plymouth in 1620, and developed friendly relations with the native Wampanoag.
This was the second successful permanent English colony in North America, after the Jamestown Colony; both were preceded by temporary camps, the unsuccessful Popham Colony, and Spanish settlements in Florida in the 1500s. Most early settlers came from within 60 miles (100 km) of Haverhill, England.
The Pilgrims were soon followed by Puritans who established the Massachusetts Bay Colony at present-day Boston in 1630. The Puritans, whose beliefs included exclusive understanding of the literal truth of the Bible, came to Massachusetts for religious freedom.
Dissenters such as Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams, and Thomas Hooker left Massachusetts because of the Puritan society's lack of religious tolerance.
Williams founded the colony of Rhode Island, and Hooker founded Connecticut.
By 1636, the colonists had begun to settle the inland Pioneer Valley along the Connecticut River, where the state's best agricultural land is concentrated.
Native American-European racial tensions led to King Philip's War 1675-76.
There were major campaigns in the Pioneer Valley and Plymouth Colony, as well as an unsuccessful expedition against Quebec under William Phips in 1690.
Massachusetts became a single colony in 1692, the largest in New England, and one where many American institutions and traditions were formed. The colony fought alongside British regulars in a series of French and Indian Wars that were characterized by brutal border raids and successful attacks on British forces in New France (present-day Canada).
Massachusetts was a center of the movement for independence from Great Britain, earning it the nickname, the "Cradle of Liberty".
Colonists here had long had uneasy relations with the English monarchy, including open rebellion under the Dominion of New England in the 1680s.
The Boston Tea Party is an example of the protest spirit of the later pre-revolutionary period in the 1770s, and the Boston Massacre is a famous incident which escalated the conflict.
With actions by patriots such as Sam Adams and John Hancock followed by counter-actions by the Crown were a main reason for the unity of the Thirteen Colonies and the outbreak of the American Revolution.
The Battles of Lexington and Concord initiated the American Revolutionary War and were fought in the Massachusetts towns of Concord and Lexington.
After independence and during the formative years of independent American government, Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in the western half of the state from 1786 to 1787.
The rebels were mostly small farmers angered by crushing war debt and taxes which resulted from their lack of representation in Congress.
On March 15, 1820, Maine separated from Massachusetts, of which it had been a non-contiguous part, and entered the Union as the 23rd State as a result of the ratification of the Missouri Compromise.
During the 19th century, Massachusetts became a national and world leader in the Industrial Revolution, with its mastery of machine tools and textiles.
The economy transformed from primarily agricultural to manufacturing, making use of its many rivers to power factories for shoes, furniture, and clothing that drew labor from Yankees on subsistence farms at first, and later drew upon immigrant labor from Europe.
Horace Mann made the state system of schools the national model. Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson made major contributions to American thought.
Members of the Trancendentalism movement, they emphasized the importance of the natural world to humanity.
In the years leading up to the Civil War, Massachusetts was a center of social progressivism, the temperance movement, and abolitionist activity within the United States. Antagonism to their views resulted in anti-abolitionist riots in Massachusetts between 1835 and 1837.
The works of abolitionists contributed to subsequent actions of the state during the Civil War. Massachusetts was the first U.S. state to abolish slavery, in a 1783 judicial interpretation of its 1780 constitution, and was the first state to recruit, train, and arm a Black regiment with White officers, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.
The industrial economy declined in the early twentieth century with the exodus of many manufacturing companies. By the 1920s low-wage competition from the South, followed by the Great Depression, led to the collapse of Massachusetts' two main industries, shoes and textiles.
In the years following World War II, Massachusetts was transformed from a factory system to a largely service and high-tech based economy.
Government contracts, private investment, and research facilities led to a new and improved industrial climate, with reduced unemployment and increased per capita income.
Suburbanization flourished, and by the 1970s, the Route 128 corridor was dotted with high-technology companies who recruited graduates of the area's many elite institutions of higher education.
The Kennedy family was prominent in Massachusetts politics in the 20th century, especially with President John F. Kennedy in the 1960s.
In 1987, the state received federal funding for the $14.6 billion Central Artery/Tunnel Project. Known colloquially as the "the Big Dig," it was at the time the biggest federal highway project ever approved. As of 2007, the highway is open but landscaping is still underway.
In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state in the country to allow same-sex couples to marry.
Economy
The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that Massachusetts's gross state product in 2004 was US $318 billion. Per capita personal income in 2004 was US$42,102, making it the 2nd highest, just behind that of Connecticut.
Gross state product increased 2.6% from 2004 to 2005, below the national average of 3.5%.
Sectors vital to the Massachusetts economy include higher education, biotechnology, finance, health care, financial services and tourism.
Route 128 was a main center for the development of minicomputers. Massachusetts was the home of many of the largest computer companies such as Digital Equipment Corporation, Data General, and Wang Laboratories situated around Route 128 and Route 495 (another beltway approximately 25 miles (40 km) farther away from Boston).
Most of the larger companies fell into decline after the rise of the personal computer, which was based in large part on software such as Visicalc and Lotus 1-2-3 and hardware technology such as memory and operating systems developed by many of these companies. High technology remains an important sector, though few of the largest technology companies are based here.
Its agricultural outputs are seafood, nursery stock, dairy products, cranberries, tobacco and vegetables.
Its industrial outputs are machinery, electrical and electronic equipment, scientific instruments, printing, and publishing. Thanks largely to the Ocean Spray cooperative, Massachusetts is the second largest cranberry producing state in the union (after Wisconsin).
As of 2005, there were 6,100 farms in Massachusetts encompassing a total of 520,000 acres (2,100 km²), averaging 85 acres apiece.
Particular agricultural products of note include tobacco, animals and animal products, fruits, tree nuts, and berries, for which the state is nationally ranked 11th, 16th, and 17th, respectively.
Massachusetts has a flat-rate personal income tax of 5.3%, with an exemption for income below a threshold that varies from year to year.
The state imposes a 5% sales tax on retail sales of tangible personal property—except for groceries, clothing, and periodicals—in Massachusetts by any vendor.
The 5% sales tax is charged on clothing that costs more than $150.00. Only the amount over $150.00 is taxed.
All real and tangible personal property located within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is taxable unless specifically exempted by statute. The administration of the assessment and collection of all real and tangible personal property taxes in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is handled by the city and town assessor and collected in the jurisdiction where the property is located.
Massachusetts imposes a tax on any gains from the sale or exchange of capital assets held for more than one year. The state also collects a 12% tax on the sale or exchange of capital assets held for one year or less (short-term capital gains).
Interest from non-Massachusetts banks is no longer taxed at 12%, but the first $100 of interest from Massachusetts banks is tax exempt from even the 5.3% tax. There is no inheritance tax and limited Massachusetts estate tax related to federal estate tax collection.
