Boston Brahmin

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Boston Brahmins are wealthy Yankee families characterized by a highly discreet and inconspicuous life style. Based in and around Boston, they form an integral part of the historic core of the East Coast establishment. They are associated with the distinctive Boston Brahmin accent, and with Harvard University.

Contents

[edit] Characteristics

The term Brahmin refers to the highest caste in the caste system in India. In the United States it has been applied to the old, upper crust New England families of British Protestant origin that were extremely influential in the development and leadership of arts, culture, science, politics, trade, and academia. The term was certainly applied partly in jest to characterize the often erudite and pretentious nature of the New England gentry to outsiders. The nature of the Brahmins is summarized in the doggerel "Boston Toast" by Harvard alumnus John Collins Bossidy.

"And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God."[1]

Boston's "Brahmin elite" developed a semi-aristocratic value system by the 1840s. Cultivated, urbane, and dignified, a Boston Brahmin was the very essence of enlightened aristocracy.[2][3] The ideal Brahmin was not only wealthy, but displayed suitable personal virtues and character traits. The term was coined in 1861 by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.[4] The Brahmin was expected to cultivate the arts, support charities such as hospitals and colleges, and assume the role of community leader. Although the ideal called on him to transcend commonplace business values, in practice many found the thrill of economic success quite attractive. The Brahmins warned each other against "avarice" and insisted upon "personal responsibility". Scandal and divorce were unacceptable. The total system was buttressed by the strong extended family ties present in Boston society. Young men attended the same prep schools and colleges,[5] and heirs married heiresses. Family not only served as an economic asset, but also as a means of moral restraint. Most belong to the Unitarian or Episcopal churches, although some were Congregationalists or Methodists. Politically they were successively Federalists, Whigs, and Republicans. They were marked by their manners and distinctive elocution, the Boston Brahmin accent, version of the New England accent.

[edit] Brahmin families

Many of the Brahmin families trace their ancestry back to the original founders of Boston while others entered New England aristocratic society during the nineteenth century with their profits from commerce and trade or by marrying into established Brahmin families like the Emersons and Winthrops. A few families are listed here.

[edit] Adams

Adams family

[edit] Amory

Amory family

[edit] Bacon

Bacon family

[edit] Cabot

Main article: Cabot family

[edit] Chaffee/Chafee

Chaffee family, originally of Hingham, Massachusetts[6]

[edit] Choate

Choate family

[edit] Codman

Codman family

[edit] Coffin

Coffin family, originally of Newbury and Nantucket

[edit] Coolidge

Coolidge family

[edit] Cooper

[edit] Cushing

Cushing family, originally of Hingham, Massachusetts[7]

Descendant by marriage:

[edit] Crowninshield

Crowninshield family

Descendant by marriage:

[edit] Dana

Dana family

[edit] Delano

Delano family

[edit] Dudley

Dudley–Winthrop family

  • Governor Thomas Dudley (1576-1653): a founder of Harvard College
  • Anne Dudley Bradstreet (1612–1672): poet
  • Governor Joseph Dudley (1647-1720): President of the Dominion of New England, Chief Justice of New York, Member of Parliament, Lt. Governor of the Isle of Wight
  • Paul Dudley (1675-1751): Chief Justice of Massachusetts, Member of the Royal Society, Founder of the Dudleian Lectures at Harvard

[edit] Dwight

New England Dwight family

[edit] Eliot

Eliot family

Descendant by marriage:

[edit] Emerson

Emerson family

[edit] Endicott

Endicott family

Salem:

Dedham:

[edit] Forbes

Forbes family

[edit] Gardner

Gardner family, originally of Essex county

[edit] Holmes

Holmes family

[edit] Jackson

Jackson family

[edit] Lawrence

Lawrence family

Descendant by marriage: Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1856–1943): President of Harvard University

[edit] Lodge

Lodge family

[edit] Lowell

Lowell family[9]

[edit] Minot

Minot Family

[edit] Norcross

Norcross family, original settlers of Watertown, MA

[edit] Otis

Otis family,[10]

[edit] Parkman

Parkman family

[edit] Peabody

Peabody family

[edit] Perkins

Perkins family

[edit] Phillips

Phillips family

[edit] Putnam

Putnam family

[edit] Quincy

Quincy family

[edit] Rice

Rice family, originally of Sudbury, MA

[edit] Saltonstall

Saltonstall family[11]

[edit] Sears

Sears family

[edit] Tarbox

Tarbox Academic and Political Family.

[edit] Thorndike

Thorndike family

[edit] Tudor

Tudor family

[edit] Weld

Weld family

[edit] Wigglesworth

Wigglesworth Family

[edit] Winthrop

Winthrop family[12]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Andrews, Robert (ed.) (1996). Famous Lines: A Columbia Dictionary of Familiar Quotations. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-10218-6. 
  2. ^ Ronald Story, Harvard and the Boston Upper Class: The Forging of an Aristocracy, 1800–1870 (1985).
  3. ^ Paul Goodman, "Ethics and Enterprise: The Values of a Boston Elite, 1800–1860", American Quarterly, Sept 1966, Vol. 18 Issue 3, pp 437–451.
  4. ^ Holmes entitled the first chapter of his 1861 novel Elsie Venner "The Brahmin caste of New England"; he had long been writing about the group without using the term "Brahmin".
  5. ^ Ronald Story, "Harvard Students, The Boston Elite, And The New England Preparatory System, 1800–1870", History of Education Quarterly, Fall 1975, Vol. 15 Issue 3, pp 281–298.
  6. ^ History of the Town of Hingham, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Solomon Lincoln Jr., Caleb Gill, Jr. and Farmer and Brown, Hingham, 1827
  7. ^ History of the Town of Hingham, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Solomon Lincoln, Jr., Caleb Gill, Jr. and Farmer and Brown, Hingham, Mass., 1827
  8. ^ Hall, Alexandra [2009]. The New Brahmins. Boston Magazine
  9. ^ Lowell, Delmar R., The Historic Genealogy of the Lowells of America from 1639 to 1899; Rutland VT, The Tuttle Company, 1899; ISBN 9780788415678.
  10. ^ John J. Waters, The Otis Family in Provincial and Revolutionary Massachusetts (U. of North Carolina Press, 1968)
  11. ^ Robert Moody, The Saltonstall Papers, 1607-1815: Selected and Edited and with Biographies of Ten Members of the Saltonstall Family in Six Generations. Vol. 1, 1607-1789 vol 2 1791-1815 (1975).
  12. ^ Malcolm Freiberg, "The Winthrops and Their Papers," Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 1968, Vol. 80, pp 55-70

[edit] External links

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