New England
Region in the Northeastern United States
New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick to the northeast and Quebec to the north. The Gulf of Maine and Atlantic Ocean are to the east and southeast, and Long Island Sound is to the southwest. Boston is New England's largest city and the capital of Massachusetts. Greater Boston is the largest metropolitan area, with nearly a third of New England's population; this area includes Worcester, Massachusetts, the second-largest city in New England; Manchester, New Hampshire, the largest city in New Hampshire; and Providence, Rhode Island, the capital of and largest city in Rhode Island.
In 1620, the Pilgrims established Plymouth Colony, the second successful settlement in British America after the Jamestown Settlement in Virginia, founded in 1607. Ten years later, Puritans established Massachusetts Bay Colony north of Plymouth Colony. Over the next 126 years, people in the region fought in four French and Indian Wars until the English colonists and their Iroquois allies defeated the French and their Algonquian allies.
In the late 18th century, political leaders from the New England colonies initiated resistance to Britain's taxes without the consent of the colonists. Residents of Rhode Island captured and burned a British ship which was enforcing unpopular trade restrictions, and residents of Boston threw British tea into the harbor. Britain responded with a series of punitive laws stripping Massachusetts of self-government which the colonists called the "Intolerable Acts". These confrontations led to the first battles of the American Revolutionary War in 1775 and the expulsion of the British authorities from the region in spring 1776. The region played a prominent role in the movement to abolish slavery in the United States, and it was the first region of the U.S. transformed by the Industrial Revolution, initially centered on the Blackstone and Merrimack river valleys.
The physical geography of New England is diverse. Southeastern New England is covered by a narrow coastal plain, while the western and northern regions are dominated by the rolling hills and worn-down peaks of the northern end of the Appalachian Mountains. The Atlantic fall line lies close to the coast, which enabled numerous cities to take advantage of water power along the many rivers, such as the Connecticut River, which bisects the region from north to south.
Each state is generally subdivided into small municipalities known as towns, many of which are governed by town meetings. Unincorporated areas are practically nonexistent outside of Maine and Vermont, and village-style governments common in other areas are limited to Vermont and Connecticut. New England is one of the U.S. Census Bureau's nine regional divisions and the only multi-state region with clear and consistent boundaries. It maintains a strong sense of cultural identity, although the terms of this identity are often contrasted, combining Puritanism with liberalism, agrarian life with industry, and isolation with immigration.
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History.
The earliest known inhabitants of New England were American Indians who spoke a variety of the Eastern Algonquian languages. Prominent tribes included the Abenakis, Mi'kmaq, Penobscot, Pequots, Mohegans, Narragansetts, Nipmucs, Pocumtucks, and Wampanoags. Prior to the arrival of European colonists, the Western Abenakis inhabited what is now New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont, as well as parts of Quebec and western Maine. Their principal town was Norridgewock in today's Maine.
The Penobscots lived along the Penobscot River in Maine. The Narragansetts and smaller tribes under their sovereignty lived in Rhode Island, west of Narragansett Bay, including Block Island. The Wampanoags occupied southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. The Pocumtucks lived in Western Massachusetts, and the Mohegan and Pequot tribes lived in Connecticut. The Connecticut River Valley linked numerous tribes culturally, linguistically, and politically.
As early as 1600 CE, French, Dutch, and English traders began exploring the New World, trading metal, glass, and cloth for local beaver pelts.
Colonial period.
On April 10, 1606, King James I of England issued a charter for the Virginia Company, which consisted of the London Company and the Plymouth Company. These two privately funded ventures were intended to claim land for England, to conduct trade, and to return a profit. In 1620, the Pilgrims arrived on the "Mayflower" and established Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, beginning the history of permanent European colonization in New England.
In 1616, English explorer John Smith named the region "New England". The name was officially sanctioned on November 3, 1620, when the charter of the Virginia Company of Plymouth was replaced by a royal charter for the Plymouth Council for New England, a joint-stock company established to colonize and govern the region. The Pilgrims wrote and signed the Mayflower Compact before leaving the ship, and it became their first governing document. The Massachusetts Bay Colony came to dominate the area and was established by royal charter in 1629 with its major town and port of Boston established in 1630.
Massachusetts Puritans began to establish themselves in Connecticut as early as 1633. Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts for theological reasons; he led a group south where they founded Providence Plantations, which grew into the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in 1636. At this time, Vermont was uncolonized, and the territories of New Hampshire and Maine were claimed and governed by Massachusetts. As the region grew, it received many immigrants from Europe due to its religious tolerance and economy.
French and Indian Wars.
Relationships alternated between peace and armed skirmishes between colonists and local Native American tribes, the bloodiest of which was the Pequot War in 1637 which resulted in the Mystic massacre. On May 19, 1643, the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut joined in a loose compact called the New England Confederation (officially "The United Colonies of New England"). The confederation was designed largely to coordinate mutual defense, and it gained some importance during King Philip's War which pitted the colonists and their Indian allies against a widespread Indian uprising from June 1675 through April 1678, resulting in killings and massacres on both sides. In the aftermath of settler-Native conflicts, hundreds of captive Indians were sold into slavery. Up until 1700, Native Americans comprised a majority of the non-white labor force in colonial New England.
During the next 74 years, there were six colonial wars that took place primarily between New England and New France, during which New England was allied with the Iroquois Confederacy and New France was allied with the Wabanaki Confederacy. Mainland Nova Scotia came under the control of New England after the Siege of Port Royal (1710), but both New Brunswick and most of Maine remained contested territory between New England and New France. The British eventually defeated the French in 1763, opening the Connecticut River Valley for British settlement into western New Hampshire and Vermont.
The New England Colonies were settled primarily by farmers who became relatively self-sufficient. Later, New England's economy began to focus on crafts and trade, aided by the Puritan work ethic, in contrast to the Southern colonies which focused on agricultural production while importing finished goods from England.
Dominion of New England.
By 1686, King James II had become concerned about the increasingly independent ways of the colonies, including their self-governing charters, their open flouting of the Navigation Acts, and their growing military power. He therefore established the Dominion of New England, an administrative union including all of the New England colonies. In 1688, the former Dutch colonies of New York, East New Jersey, and West New Jersey were added to the dominion. The union was imposed from the outside and contrary to the rooted democratic tradition of the colonies, and it was highly unpopular among the colonists.
The dominion significantly modified the charters of the colonies, including the appointment of royal governors to nearly all of them. There was an uneasy tension among the royal governors, their officers, and the elected governing bodies of the colonies. The governors wanted unlimited authority, and the different layers of locally elected officials would often resist them. In most cases, the local town governments continued operating as self-governing bodies, just as they had before the appointment of the governors.
After the Glorious Revolution, in 1689, Bostonians overthrew the royal governor, Sir Edmund Andros. During a popular and bloodless uprising, they seized dominion officials and adherents to the Church of England. These tensions eventually culminated in the American Revolution, boiling over with the outbreak of the War of American Independence in 1775. The first battles of which were fought in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, leading to the Siege of Boston by continental troops. In March 1776, British forces were compelled to retreat from Boston.
New England in the new nation.
After the dissolution of the Dominion of New England, the colonies of New England ceased to function as a unified political unit but remained a defined cultural region. There were often disputes over territorial jurisdiction, leading to land exchanges such as those regarding the Equivalent Lands and New Hampshire Grants.
By 1784, all of the states in the region had taken steps towards the abolition of slavery, with Vermont and Massachusetts introducing total abolition in 1777 and 1783, respectively. The nickname "Yankeeland" was sometimes used to denote the New England area, especially among Southerners and the British.
Vermont was admitted to statehood in 1791 after settling a dispute with New York. The territory of Maine had been a part of Massachusetts, but it was granted statehood on March 15, 1820, as part of the Missouri Compromise. Today, New England is defined as the six states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
New England's economic growth relied heavily on trade with the British Empire, and the region's merchants and politicians strongly opposed trade restrictions. As the United States and the United Kingdom fought the War of 1812, New England Federalists organized the Hartford Convention in the winter of 1814 to discuss the region's grievances concerning the war, and to propose changes to the United States Constitution to protect the region's interests and maintain its political power. Radical delegates within the convention proposed the region's secession from the United States, but they were outnumbered by moderates who opposed the idea.
Politically, the region often disagreed with the rest of the country. Massachusetts and Connecticut were among the last refuges of the Federalist Party, and New England became the strongest bastion of the new Whig Party when the Second Party System began in the 1830s. The Whigs were usually dominant throughout New England, except in the more Democratic Maine and New Hampshire.
Industrial Revolution.
New England was key to the Industrial Revolution in the United States. The Blackstone Valley running through Massachusetts and Rhode Island has been called the birthplace of America's industrial revolution. In 1787, the first cotton mill in America was founded in the North Shore seaport of Beverly, Massachusetts as the Beverly Cotton Manufactory. The Manufactory was also considered the largest cotton mill of its time. Technological developments and achievements from the Manufactory led to the development of more advanced cotton mills, including Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Towns such as Lawrence, Massachusetts, Lowell, Massachusetts, Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and Lewiston, Maine became centers of the textile industry following the innovations at Slater Mill and the Beverly Cotton Manufactory.
The Connecticut River Valley became a crucible for industrial innovation, particularly the Springfield Armory, pioneering such advances as interchangeable parts and the assembly line which influenced manufacturing processes all around the world. From early in the nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth, the region surrounding Springfield, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut served as the United States' epicenter for advanced manufacturing, drawing skilled workers from all over the world.
The rapid growth of textile manufacturing in New England between 1815 and 1860 caused a shortage of workers. Recruiters were hired by mill agents to bring young women and children from the countryside to work in the factories. Between 1830 and 1860, thousands of farm girls moved from rural areas where there was no paid employment to work in the nearby mills, such as the Lowell Mill Girls. As the textile industry grew, immigration also grew. By the 1850s, immigrants began working in the mills, especially French Canadians and Irish.
New England as a whole was the most industrialized part of the United States. By 1850, the region accounted for well over a quarter of all manufacturing value in the country and over a third of its industrial workforce. It was also the most literate and most educated region in the country.
Political and demographic shift.
During the same period, New England and areas settled by New Englanders (upstate New York, Ohio's Western Reserve, and the upper midwestern states of Michigan and Wisconsin) were the center of the strongest abolitionist and anti-slavery movements in the United States, coinciding with the Protestant Great Awakening in the region. Abolitionists who demanded immediate emancipation had their base in the region, such as William Lloyd Garrison, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Wendell Phillips. So too did anti-slavery politicians who wanted to limit the growth of slavery, such as John Quincy Adams, Charles Sumner, and John P. Hale. The anti-slavery Republican Party was formed in the 1850s, and all of New England became strongly Republican, including areas that had previously been strongholds for both the Whig and the Democratic parties. New England remained solidly Republican until Catholics began to mobilize behind the Democrats, especially in 1928. This led to the end of "Yankee Republicanism" and began New England's relatively swift transition into a consistently Democratic stronghold in national elections.
The flow of immigrants continued at a steady pace from the 1840s until cut off by World War I. The largest numbers came from Ireland and Britain before 1890, and after that from Quebec, Italy, and Southern Europe. The immigrants filled the ranks of factory workers, craftsmen, and unskilled laborers. The Irish and Italians assumed a larger and larger role in the Democratic Party in the cities and statewide, while the rural areas remained Republican.
The Great Depression and post-World War II changes.
The Great Depression in the United States of the 1930s hit the region hard, with high unemployment in the industrial cities. The Boston Stock Exchange rivaled the New York Stock Exchange in 1930. The Democrats appealed to factory workers and especially Catholics, pulling them into the New Deal coalition and making the once-Republican region into one that was closely divided. However, the enormous spending on munitions, ships, electronics, and uniforms during World War II caused a burst of prosperity in every sector.
The region lost most of its factories starting with the loss of textiles in the 1930s and getting worse after 1960. The New England economy was radically transformed after World War II. The factory economy practically disappeared. Once-bustling New England communities fell into economic decay following the flight of the region's industrial base. The textile mills one by one went out of business from the 1920s to the 1970s. For example, the Crompton Company went bankrupt in 1984 after 178 years in business, costing the jobs of 2,450 workers in five states. The major reasons were cheap imports, the strong dollar, declining exports, and a failure to diversify. The shoe industry subsequently left the region as well.
What remains is very high technology manufacturing, such as jet engines, nuclear submarines, pharmaceuticals, robotics, scientific instruments, and medical devices. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology invented the format for university-industry relations in high tech fields and spawned many software and hardware firms, some of which grew rapidly. By the 21st century, the region had become famous for its leadership roles in the fields of education, medicine, medical research, high-technology, finance, and tourism.
Some industrial areas were slow in adjusting to the new service economy. In 2000, New England had two of the ten poorest cities in the U.S. (by percentage living below the poverty line): the state capitals of Providence, Rhode Island and Hartford, Connecticut. They were no longer in the bottom ten by 2010; Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire remain among the ten wealthiest states in the United States in terms of median household income and per capita income.
Geography.
The states of New England have a combined area, including water surfaces, of , making the region slightly larger than the state of Washington and slightly smaller than Great Britain. Maine alone constitutes nearly one-half of the total area of New England, yet is only the 39th-largest state, slightly smaller than Indiana. The remaining states are among the smallest in the U.S., including the smallest state—Rhode Island.
The areas of the states (including water area) are:
Geology.
New England's long rolling hills, mountains, and jagged coastline are glacial landforms resulting from the retreat of ice sheets approximately 18,000 years ago, during the last glacial period.
New England is geologically a part of the New England province, an exotic terrane region consisting of the Appalachian Mountains, the New England highlands and the seaboard lowlands. The Appalachian Mountains roughly follow the border between New England and New York. The Berkshires in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and the Green Mountains in Vermont, as well as the Taconic Mountains, form a spine of Precambrian rock.
The Appalachians extend northwards into New Hampshire as the White Mountains, and then into Maine and Canada. Mount Washington in New Hampshire is the highest peak in the Northeast, although it is not among the ten highest peaks in the eastern United States. It is the site of the second highest recorded wind speed on Earth, and has the reputation of having the world's most severe weather.
The coast of the region, extending from southwestern Connecticut to northeastern Maine, is dotted with lakes, hills, marshes and wetlands, and sandy beaches. Important valleys in the region include the Champlain Valley, the Connecticut River Valley and the Merrimack Valley. The longest river is the Connecticut River, which flows from northeastern New Hampshire for , emptying into Long Island Sound, roughly bisecting the region. Lake Champlain, which forms part of the border between Vermont and New York, is the largest lake in the region, followed by Moosehead Lake in Maine and Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire.
Climate.
The climate of New England varies greatly across its span from northern Maine to southern Connecticut:
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and western Massachusetts have a humid continental climate (Dfb in Köppen climate classification). In this region the winters are long and cold, and heavy snow is common (most locations receive of snow annually in this region). The summer's months are moderately warm, though summer is rather short and rainfall is spread through the year.
In central and eastern Massachusetts, northern Rhode Island, and northern Connecticut, the same humid continental prevails (Dfa), though summers are warm to hot, winters are shorter, and there is less snowfall (especially in the coastal areas where it is often warmer).
Southern and coastal Connecticut is the broad transition zone from the cold continental climates of the north to the milder subtropical climates to the south. The frost free season is greater than 180 days across far southern/coastal Connecticut, coastal Rhode Island, and the islands (Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard). Winters also tend to be much sunnier in southern Connecticut and southern Rhode Island compared to the rest of New England.
Biodiversity.
New England contains forested ecosystems with a variety of terrestrial vertebrates. Land-use patterns and land disturbance, such as the dramatic increase in land clearing for agriculture in the mid eighteenth century to nineteenth century, greatly altered the ecosystem and resulted in extinctions, local extirpations, and recolonizations.
According to an analysis of USDA Forest Service data, tree species diversity increases from north to south at about two to three species per degree in latitude. In addition, taller trees are associated with higher tree species diversity, and tree height is a better predictor than general forest age or biomass. Due to an increasing the amount of nitrogen in the soil from climate change, the red maple is becoming one of the most abundant trees in the region, and outcompeting other maples such as the sugar maple.
Largest cities.
The most populous cities as of the 2020 U.S. Census were (metropolitan areas in parentheses):
During the 20th century, urban expansion in regions surrounding New York City has become an important economic influence on neighboring Connecticut, parts of which belong to the New York metropolitan area. The U.S. Census Bureau groups Fairfield, New Haven and Litchfield counties in western Connecticut together with New York City and other parts of New York and New Jersey as a combined statistical area.
Metropolitan areas and capitals.
Metropolitan areas.
The following are metropolitan statistical areas as defined by the United States Census Bureau.
Demographics.
In 2020, New England had a population of 15,116,205, a growth of 4.6% from 2010. Massachusetts is the most populous state with 7,029,917 residents, while Vermont is the least populous state with 643,077 residents. Boston is by far the region's most populous city and metropolitan area.
Although a great disparity exists between New England's northern and southern portions, the region's average population density is 234.93 inhabitants/sq mi (90.7/km2). New England has a significantly higher population density than that of the U.S. as a whole (79.56/sq mi), or even just the contiguous 48 states (94.48/sq mi). Three-quarters of the population of New England, and most of the major cities, are in southern New England—the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island—where the combined population density is 786.83/sq mi (2000 census). In northern New England—the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont—the combined population density is 63.56/sq mi (2000 census).
According to the 2006–08 American Community Survey, 48.7% of New Englanders were male and 51.3% were female. Approximately 22.4% of the population were under 18 years of age; 13.5% were over 65 years of age. The six states of New England have the lowest birth rate in the U.S.
White Americans make up the majority of New England's population at 73.4% of the total population, Hispanic and Latino Americans are New England's largest minority, and they are the second-largest group in the region behind non-Hispanic European Americans. As of 2014, Hispanics and Latinos of any race made up 10.2% of New England's population. Connecticut had the highest proportion at 13.9%, while Vermont had the lowest at 1.3%. There were nearly 1.5 million Hispanic and Latino individuals reported in New England in 2014.
Puerto Ricans were the most numerous of the Hispanic and Latino subgroups. Over 660,000 Puerto Ricans lived in New England in 2014, forming 4.5% of the population. The Dominican population is over 200,000, and the Mexican and Guatemalan populations are each over 100,000. Americans of Cuban descent are scant in number; there were roughly 26,000 Cuban Americans in the region in 2014. People of all other Hispanic and Latino ancestries, including Salvadoran, Colombian and Bolivian, formed 2.5% of New England's population and numbered over 361,000 combined.
According to the 2014 American Community Survey, the top ten largest reported European ancestries were the following: Irish: 19.2% (2.8 million); English (includes "American" ancestry): 16.7% (2.4 million); Italian: 13.6% (2.0 million); French and French Canadian: 13.1% (1.9 million); German: 7.4% (1.1 million); Polish: 4.9% (roughly 715,000); Portuguese: 3.2% (467,000); Scottish: 2.5% (370,000); Russian: 1.4% (206,000); and Greek: 1.0% (152,000).
English is, by far, the most common language spoken at home. Approximately 81.3% of all residents (11.3 million people) over the age of five spoke only English at home. Roughly 1,085,000 people (7.8% of the population) spoke Spanish at home, and roughly 970,000 people (7.0% of the population) spoke other Indo-European languages at home. Over 403,000 people (2.9% of the population) spoke an Asian or Pacific Island language at home. Slightly fewer (about 1%) spoke French at home, although this figure is above 20% in northern New England, which borders francophone Québec. Roughly 99,000 people (0.7% of the population) spoke languages other than these at home.
As of 2014, approximately 87% of New England's inhabitants were born in the U.S., while over 12% were foreign-born. Of foreign-born residents, 35.8% were born in Latin America, 28.6% were born in Asia, 22.9% were born in Europe, and 8.5% were born in Africa.
Southern New England forms an integral part of the BosWash megalopolis, a conglomeration of urban centers that spans from Boston to Washington, D.C. The region includes three of the four most densely populated states in the U.S.; only New Jersey has a higher population density than the states of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
Greater Boston, which includes parts of southern New Hampshire, has a total population of approximately 4.8 million, while over half the population of New England falls inside Boston's Combined Statistical Area of over 8.2 million.
Economy.
Several factors combine to make the New England economy unique. The region is distant from the geographic center of the country, and it is a relatively small region but densely populated. It historically has been an important center of industry and manufacturing and a supplier of natural resource products, such as granite, lobster, and codfish. The service industry is important, including tourism, education, financial and insurance services, and architectural, building and construction services. The U.S. Department of Commerce has called the New England economy a microcosm for the entire U.S. economy.
The region underwent a long period of deindustrialization in the first half of the 20th century, as traditional manufacturing companies relocated to the Midwest, with textile and furniture manufacturing migrating to the South. In the late-20th century, an increasing portion of the regional economy included high technology, military defense industry, finance and insurance services, and education and health services. As of 2018, the GDP of New England was $1.1 trillion.
New England exports food products ranging from fish to lobster, cranberries, potatoes, and maple syrup. About half of the region's exports consist of industrial and commercial machinery, such as computers and electronic and electrical equipment. Granite is quarried at Barre, Vermont, guns made at Springfield, Massachusetts, Exeter, New Hampshire and Saco, Maine, submarines at Groton, Connecticut, surface naval vessels at Bath, Maine, and hand tools at Turners Falls, Massachusetts.
Urban centers.
In 2017, Boston was ranked as having the ninth-most competitive financial center in the world and the fourth-most competitive in the United States. Boston-based Fidelity Investments helped popularize the mutual fund in the 1980s and has made Boston one of the top financial centers in the United States. The city is home to the headquarters of Santander Bank and a center for venture capital firms. State Street Corporation specializes in asset management and custody services and is based in the city.
Boston is also a printing and publishing center. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is headquartered there, along with Bedford-St. Martin's and Beacon Press. The city is also home to the Hynes Convention Center in the Back Bay and the Seaport Hotel and Seaport World Trade Center and Boston Convention and Exhibition Center on the South Boston waterfront.
The General Electric Corporation announced its decision to move the company's global headquarters to the Boston Seaport District from Fairfield, Connecticut, in 2016, citing factors including Boston's preeminence in the realm of higher education. The city also holds the headquarters to several major athletic and footwear companies, including Converse, New Balance and Reebok. Rockport, Puma and Wolverine World Wide have headquarters or regional offices just outside the city.
Hartford is the historic international center of the insurance industry, with companies such as Aetna, Conning & Company, The Hartford, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, The Phoenix Companies and Hartford Steam Boiler based in the city, and The Travelers Companies and Lincoln National Corporation have major operations in the city. It is also home to the corporate headquarters of U.S. Fire Arms Mfg. Co., United Technologies, and Virtus Investment Partners.
Fairfield County, Connecticut, has a large concentration of investment management firms in the area, most notably Bridgewater Associates (one of the world's largest hedge fund companies), Aladdin Capital Management and Point72 Asset Management. Moreover, many international banks have their North American headquarters in Fairfield County, such as NatWest Group and UBS.
Agriculture.
Agriculture is limited by the area's rocky soil, cool climate, and small area. Some New England states, however, are ranked highly among U.S. states for particular areas of production. Maine is ranked ninth for aquaculture, and has abundant potato fields in its northeast part. Vermont is fifteenth for dairy products, and Connecticut and Massachusetts seventh and eleventh for tobacco, respectively. Cranberries are grown in Massachusetts' Cape Cod-Southcoast-South Shore area, and blueberries in Maine.
Energy.
The region is mostly energy-efficient compared to the U.S. at large, with every state but Maine ranking within the ten most energy-efficient states; every state in New England also ranks within the ten most expensive states for electricity prices. Wind power, mainly from offshore sources, is expected to gain market share in the 2020s.
Employment.
As of January 2017, employment is stronger in New England than in the rest of the United States. During the Great Recession, unemployment rates ballooned across New England as elsewhere; however, in the years that followed, these rates declined steadily, with New Hampshire and Massachusetts having the lowest unemployment rates in the country, respectively. The most extreme swing was in Rhode Island, which had an unemployment rate above 10% following the recession, but which saw this rate decline by over 6% in six years.
As of December 2016, the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) with the lowest unemployment rate, 2.1%, was Burlington-South Burlington, Vermont; the MSA with the highest rate, 4.9%, was Waterbury, Connecticut.
Overall tax burden.
In 2023, three of the six New England states were among the top ten states in the country in terms of taxes paid per taxpayer, while one was among the top five least. The rankings being #3 Maine (11.14%), #4 Vermont (10.28%), #5 Connecticut (9.83%), #11 Rhode Island (9.07%), #20 Massachusetts (8.48%), and #48 New Hampshire (6.14%). While overall tax burden varies widely, all six states sport exceptionally high property taxes with five of the six states being within the nationwide top 10. The rankings being #1 Maine (5.33%), #2 Vermont (4.98%), #3 New Hampshire (4.94%), #6 Connecticut (4.24%), #7 Rhode Island (4.17%), and #13 Massachusetts (3.42%).
Government.
Town meetings.
New England town meetings were derived from meetings held by church elders, and are still an integral part of government in many New England towns. At such meetings, any citizen of the town may discuss issues with other members of the community and vote on them. This is the strongest example of direct democracy in the U.S. today, and the strong democratic tradition was even apparent in the early 19th century, when Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in "Democracy in America":
By contrast, James Madison wrote in "Federalist No. 55" that, regardless of the assembly, "passion never fails to wrest the scepter from reason. Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob." The use and effectiveness of town meetings is still discussed by scholars, as well as the possible application of the format to other regions and countries.
Elections.
State and national elected officials in New England recently have been elected mainly from the Democratic Party. The region is generally considered to be the most liberal in the United States, with more New Englanders identifying as liberals than Americans elsewhere. In 2010, four of six of the New England states were polled as the most liberal in the United States.
As of 2021, five of the six states of New England have voted for every Democratic presidential nominee since 1992. In that time, New Hampshire has voted for Democratic nominees in every presidential election except 2000, when George W. Bush narrowly won the state. 2020 was a particularly strong year for Democratic nominee Joe Biden in New England, winning 61.2% of the total vote in the six states, the highest percentage for Democrats since the landslide election of 1964. As of the 117th Congress, all members of the U.S. House of Representatives from New England are members of the Democratic Party, and all but one of its senators caucus with the Democrats. Two of those senators, although caucusing with Democrats, are the only independents currently serving in Congress: Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, representing Vermont, and Angus King, an Independent representing Maine.
In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama carried all six New England states by 9 percentage points or more. He carried every county in New England except for Piscataquis County, Maine, which he lost by 4% to Senator John McCain (R-AZ). Pursuant to the reapportionment following the 2010 census, New England collectively has 33 electoral votes.
The following table presents the vote percentage for the popular-vote winner for each New England state, New England as a whole, and the United States as a whole, in each presidential election from 1900 to 2020, with the vote percentage for the Republican candidate shaded in red and the vote percentage for the Democratic candidate shaded in blue:
Political party strength.
Judging purely by party registration rather than voting patterns, New England today is one of the most Democratic regions in the U.S. According to Gallup, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont are "solidly Democratic", Maine "leans Democratic", and New Hampshire is a swing state. Though New England is today considered a Democratic Party stronghold, much of the region was staunchly Republican before the mid-twentieth century. This changed in the late 20th century, in large part due to demographic shifts and the Republican Party's adoption of socially conservative platforms as part of its strategic shift towards the South. For example, Vermont voted Republican in every presidential election from 1856 through 1988 with the exception of 1964, and has voted Democratic every election since. Maine and Vermont were the only two states in the nation to vote against Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt all four times he ran for president. Republicans in New England are today considered by both liberals and conservatives to be more moderate (socially liberal) compared to Republicans in other parts of the U.S.
New Hampshire primary.
Historically, the New Hampshire primary has been the first in a series of nationwide political party primary elections held in the United States every four years. Held in the state of New Hampshire, it usually marks the beginning of the U.S. presidential election process. Even though few delegates are chosen from New Hampshire, the primary has always been pivotal to both New England and American politics. One college in particular, Saint Anselm College, has been home to numerous national presidential debates and visits by candidates to its campus.
Education.
Colleges and universities.
New England contains some of the oldest and most renowned institutions of higher learning in the United States and the world. Harvard College was the first such institution, founded in 1636 at Cambridge, Massachusetts, to train preachers. Yale University was founded in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, in 1701, and awarded the nation's first doctoral (PhD) degree in 1861. Yale moved to New Haven, Connecticut, in 1718, where it has remained to the present day.
Brown University was the first college in the nation to accept students of all religious affiliations, and is the seventh oldest U.S. institution of higher learning. It was founded in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1764. Dartmouth College was founded five years later in Hanover, New Hampshire, with the mission of educating the local American Indian population as well as English youth. The University of Vermont, the fifth oldest university in New England, was founded in 1791, the same year that Vermont joined the Union.
In addition to four out of eight Ivy League schools, New England contains the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the bulk of educational institutions that are identified as the "Little Ivies", four of the original Seven Sisters, one of the eight original Public Ivies, the Colleges of Worcester Consortium in central Massachusetts, and the Five Colleges consortium in western Massachusetts. The University of Maine, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Connecticut, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the University of Rhode Island, and the University of Vermont are the flagship state universities in the region.
Private and independent secondary schools.
At the pre-college level, New England is home to a number of American independent schools (also known as private schools). The concept of the elite "New England prep school" (preparatory school) and the "preppy" lifestyle is an iconic part of the region's image.
See the list of private schools for each state:, , , , , .
Public education.
New England is home to some of the oldest public schools in the nation and was the first region in the United States to implement universal compulsory schooling. Boston Latin School is the oldest public school in America and was attended by several signatories of the Declaration of Independence. Hartford Public High School is the second oldest operating high school in the U.S.
As of 2005, the National Education Association ranked Connecticut as having the highest-paid teachers in the country. Massachusetts and Rhode Island ranked eighth and ninth, respectively.
New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont have cooperated in developing a New England Common Assessment Program test under the No Child Left Behind guidelines. These states can compare the resultant scores with each other.
Academic journals and press.
There are several academic journals and publishing companies in the region, including "The New England Journal of Medicine", Harvard University Press and Yale University Press. Some of its institutions lead the open access alternative to conventional academic publication, including MIT, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Maine. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston publishes the "New England Economic Review".
Culture.
New England has a shared heritage and culture primarily shaped by waves of immigration from Europe. In contrast to other American regions, many of New England's earliest Puritan settlers came from eastern England, contributing to New England's distinctive accents, foods, customs, and social structures. Within modern New England a cultural divide exists between urban New Englanders living along the densely populated coastline, and rural New Englanders in western Massachusetts, northwestern and northeastern Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, where population density is low. There is also a substantial divide between Connecticut and the other states of the region, owing to the former's close cultural and economic ties with the New York metropolitan area.
Religion.
Today, New England is the least religious region of the U.S. In 2009, less than half of those polled in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont claimed that religion was an important part of their daily lives. Connecticut and Rhode Island are among the ten least religious states, where 55% and 53% of those polled (respectively) claimed that it was important. According to the American Religious Identification Survey, 34% of Vermonters claimed to have no religion; nearly one out of every four New Englanders identifies as having no religion, more than in any other part of the U.S. New England had one of the highest percentages of Catholics in the U.S. This number declined from 50% in 1990 to 36% in 2008.
Cultural roots.
Many of the first European colonists of New England had a maritime orientation toward whaling (first noted about 1650) and fishing, in addition to farming. New England has developed a distinct cuisine, dialect, architecture, and government. New England cuisine has a reputation for its emphasis on seafood and dairy; clam chowder, lobster, and other products of the sea are among some of the region's most popular foods.
New England has largely preserved its regional character, especially in its historic places. The region has become more ethnically diverse, having seen waves of immigration from Ireland, Quebec, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Scandinavia, Asia, Latin America, Africa, other parts of the U.S., and elsewhere. The enduring European influence can be seen in the region in the use of traffic rotaries; the bilingual French and English towns of northern Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire; the unique, often non-rhotic traditional coastal dialect akin to the southeastern half of England; and the region's heavy prevalence of English town- and county-names. These repeat from state to state, primarily due to settlers throughout the region having named their new towns after their old ones. For example, the town of North Yarmouth, Maine, was named by settlers from Yarmouth, Massachusetts, which was in turn named for Great Yarmouth (still locally called Yarmouth) in England. Every New England state has a town named Warren (a French-English noble family of wealthy settlers), and each except Rhode Island has a city/town named Franklin and Washington (constitutional founding fathers), Andover, Bridgewater, Chester, Manchester, Plymouth, and Windsor (these six were towns in England). Every state except Connecticut has a Lincoln and has a Richmond. Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine each contain a Franklin County.
Cuisine.
New England maintains a distinct cuisine and food culture. Early foods in the region were influenced by Native American and English cuisines. The early colonists often adapted their original cuisine to fit with the available foods of the region. New England staples reflect the convergence of American Indian and Pilgrim cuisine, such as johnnycakes, succotash, cornbread and various seafood recipes. The Wabanaki tribal nations made nut milk.
New England also has a distinct food language. A few of the unique regional terms include "grinders" for submarine sandwiches and "frappes" for thick milkshakes, referred to as "Cabinets" in Rhode Island. Other foods native to the region include steak tips (marinated sirloin steak), bulkie rolls, maple syrup, cranberry recipes and clam chowder.
A type of India pale ale known as New England India Pale Ale (NEIPA) was developed in Vermont in the 2010s. Other regional beverages include Moxie, one of the first mass-produced soft drinks in the United States, introduced in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1876; it remains popular in New England, particularly in Maine. Coffee milk is associated with Rhode Island as the official state drink.
Portuguese cuisine is an important element in the annual Feast of the Blessed Sacrament in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the largest ethnic heritage festival in New England.
Accents and dialects.
There are several American English dialects spoken in the region, most famously the Boston accent, which is native to the northeastern coastal regions of New England. The most identifiable features of the Boston accent are believed to have originated from England's Received Pronunciation, which shares features such as the broad A and dropping the final R. Another source was 17th century speech in East Anglia and Lincolnshire, where many of the Puritan immigrants had originated. The East Anglian "whine" developed into the Yankee "twang". Boston accents were most strongly associated at one point with the so-called "Eastern Establishment" and Boston's upper class, although today the accent is predominantly associated with blue-collar natives, as exemplified by movies such as "Good Will Hunting" and "The Departed". The Boston accent and those accents closely related to it cover eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.
Some Rhode Islanders speak with a non-rhotic accent that many compare to a "Brooklyn" accent or a cross between a New York and Boston accent, where "water" becomes "wata". Many Rhode Islanders distinguish the "aw" sound , as one might hear in New Jersey; e.g., the word "coffee" is pronounced . This type of accent was brought to the region by early settlers from eastern England in the Puritan migration in the mid-seventeenth century.
Social activities and music.
Acadian and Québécois culture are included in music and dance in much of rural New England, particularly Maine. Contra dancing and country square dancing are popular throughout New England, usually backed by live Irish, Acadian or other folk music. Fife and drum corps are common, especially in southern New England and more specifically Connecticut, with music of mostly Celtic, English, and local origin.
New England leads the U.S. in ice cream consumption per capita.
Candlepin bowling is essentially confined to New England, where it was invented in the 19th century.
New England was an important center of American classical music for some time. The First New England School of composers was active between 1770 and 1820, and the Second New England School about a century later. Prominent modernist composers also come from the region, including Charles Ives and John Adams. Boston is the site of the New England Conservatory, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
In popular music, the region has produced Donna Summer, JoJo, New Edition, Bobby Brown, Bel Biv Devoe, Passion Pit, MGMT, Meghan Trainor, New Kids on the Block, Rachel Platten and John Mayer. In rock music, the region has produced Rob Zombie, Aerosmith, Extreme, the Modern Lovers, Phish, the Pixies, the Cars, the J. Geils Band, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Grace Potter, GG Allin, the Dresden Dolls, Dinosaur Jr., the Dropkick Murphys and Boston. Quincy, Massachusetts, native Dick Dale helped popularize surf rock. Hip hop acts hailing from New England include Gang Starr, Apathy, Mr. Lif and Akrobatik.
Media.
The leading U.S. cable TV sports broadcaster ESPN is headquartered in Bristol, Connecticut. New England has several regional cable networks, including New England Cable News (NECN) and the New England Sports Network (NESN). New England Cable News is the largest regional 24-hour cable news network in the U.S., broadcasting to more than 3.2 million homes in all of the New England states. Its studios are located in Newton, Massachusetts, outside of Boston, and it maintains bureaus in Manchester, New Hampshire; Hartford, Connecticut; Worcester, Massachusetts; Portland, Maine; and Burlington, Vermont. In Connecticut's Litchfield, Fairfield, and New Haven counties, it also broadcasts New York based news programs—this is due in part to the immense influence New York has on this region's economy and culture, and also to give Connecticut broadcasters the ability to compete with overlapping media coverage from New York-area broadcasters.
NESN broadcasts the Boston Red Sox baseball and Boston Bruins hockey throughout the region, save for Fairfield County, Connecticut. Connecticut also receives the YES Network, which broadcasts the games of the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Nets as well as SportsNet New York (SNY), which broadcasts New York Mets games.
NBC Sports Boston broadcasts the games of the Boston Celtics, New England Revolution and Boston Cannons to all of New England except Fairfield County.
While most New England cities have daily newspapers, "The Boston Globe" and "The New York Times" are distributed widely throughout the region. Major newspapers also include "The Providence Journal", "Portland Press Herald", and "Hartford Courant", the oldest continuously published newspaper in the U.S.
Comedy.
New Englanders are well represented in American comedy. Writers for "The Simpsons" and late-night television programs often come by way of "The Harvard Lampoon". A number of "Saturday Night Live" (SNL) cast members have roots in New England, from Adam Sandler to Amy Poehler, who also starred in the NBC television series "Parks and Recreation". Seth MacFarlane, the creator of "Family Guy", is from Connecticut, with the show taking place in a fictional town called Quahog, Rhode Island. Former "Daily Show" correspondents John Hodgman, Rob Corddry and Steve Carell are from Massachusetts. Carell was also involved in film and the American adaptation of "The Office" (alongside fellow Massachusetts natives Mindy Kaling, B. J. Novak, and John Krasinski), which features Dunder-Mifflin branches set in Stamford, Connecticut, and Nashua, New Hampshire.
Late-night television hosts Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien have roots in the Boston area. Notable stand-up comedians are also from the region, including Bill Burr, Steve Sweeney, Steven Wright, Sarah Silverman, Lisa Lampanelli, Denis Leary, Lenny Clarke, Patrice O'Neal and Louis CK. "SNL" cast member Seth Meyers once attributed the region's imprint on American humor to its "sort of wry New England sense of pointing out anyone who's trying to make a big deal of himself", with "The Boston Globe" suggesting that irony and sarcasm are its trademarks, as well as Irish influences.
Literature.
New Englanders have made significant contributions to literature. The first printing press in America was set up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by Stephen Daye in the 17th century. Writers in New England produced many works on religious subjects, particularly on Puritan theology and poetry during colonial times and on Enlightenment ideas during the American Revolution. The literature of New England has had an enduring influence on American literature in general, with themes that are emblematic of the larger concerns of American letters, such as religion, race, the individual versus society, social repression and nature.
19th century New England was a center for progressive ideals, and many abolitionist and transcendentalist tracts were produced. Leading transcendentalists were from New England, such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Frederic Henry Hedge. Hartford, Connecticut resident Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was an influential book in the spread of abolitionist ideas and is said to have "laid the groundwork for the Civil War". Other prominent New England novelists include John Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Louisa May Alcott, Sarah Orne Jewett, H. P. Lovecraft, Annie Proulx, Stephen King, Jack Kerouac, George V. Higgins, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Boston was the center of the American publishing industry for some years, largely on the strength of its local writers and before it was overtaken by New York in the middle of the nineteenth century. Boston remains the home of publishers Houghton Mifflin and Pearson Education, and it was the longtime home of literary magazine "The Atlantic Monthly". Merriam-Webster is based in Springfield, Massachusetts. "Yankee" is a magazine for New Englanders based in Dublin, New Hampshire.
Many New Englander poets have also been preeminent in American poetry. Prominent poets include Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, David Lindsay-Abaire, Annie Proulx, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Amy Lowell, John Cheever, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz, E. E. Cummings, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert P. T. Coffin and Richard Wilbur. Robert Frost who was described as an "artistic institution" frequently wrote about rural New England life. The Confessional poetry movement features prominent New England writers including Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath.
Film, television, and acting.
New England has a rich history in filmmaking dating back to the dawn of the motion picture era at the turn of the 20th century, sometimes dubbed Hollywood East by film critics. A theater at 547 Washington Street in Boston was the second location to debut a picture projected by the Vitascope, and shortly thereafter several novels were being adapted for the screen and set in New England, including "The Scarlet Letter" and "The House of Seven Gables". The New England region continued to churn out films at a pace above the national average for the duration of the 20th century, including blockbuster hits such as "Jaws", "Good Will Hunting" and "The Departed", all of which won Academy Awards. The New England area became known for a number of themes that recurred in films made during this era, including the development of yankee characters, smalltown life contrasted with city values, seafaring tales, family secrets and haunted New England. These themes are rooted in centuries of New England culture and are complemented by the region's diverse natural landscape and architecture, from the Atlantic Ocean and brilliant fall foliage to church steeples and skyscrapers.
Since the turn of the millennium, Boston and the greater New England region have been home to the production of numerous films and television series, thanks in part to tax incentive programs put in place by local governments to attract filmmakers to the region.
Notable actors and actresses that have come from the New England area include Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Chris Evans, Ryan O'Neal, Amy Poehler, Elizabeth Banks, Steve Carell, Ruth Gordon, John Krasinski, Edward Norton, Mark Wahlberg and Matthew Perry. Many films and television series have been produced in and set in New England.
Museums, historical societies, and libraries.
There are many museums located throughout New England, especially in the Greater Boston area. These museums include privately held collections as well as public institutions. Most notable of these museums are the Museum of Fine Arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Worcester Art Museum, and the Peabody Essex Museum. The oldest public museum in continuous operation in the United States is the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts, which opened in 1824.
The Boston Public Library is the largest public library in the region with over 8 million materials in its collection. The largest academic research library in the world is the Harvard Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The W. E. B. Du Bois Library of the University of Massachusetts Amherst is the tallest academic library in the world.
There are also many historical societies in the region. Historic New England operates museums and historic sites in the name of historical preservation. Many properties belonging to HNE include preserved house museums of prominent figures in New England and American history. Other societies include the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Essex Institute, the American Antiquarian Society, and The Bostonian Society. The Massachusetts Historical Society, founded in 1791, is the oldest operating in the United States. Many cities and towns across New England operate their own historical societies focused on historical preservation of local sites and the recording of local history.
Sports.
New England has a strong heritage of athletics, and many internationally popular sports were invented and codified in the region, including basketball, volleyball, and American football.
Football is the most popular sport in the region and was developed by Walter Camp in New Haven, Connecticut, in the 1870s and 1880s. The New England Patriots are based in Foxborough, Massachusetts, and are the most popular professional sports team in New England. The Patriots have won six Super Bowl championships and are one of the most winning teams in the National Football League. There are also high-profile collegiate and high school football rivalries in New England. These games are most often played on Thanksgiving Day and are some of the oldest sports rivalries in the United States. The high school rivalry between Wellesley High School and Needham High School in Massachusetts is considered to be the nation's oldest football rivalry, having started in 1882.
Before the advent of modern rules of baseball, a different form was played called the Massachusetts Game. This version of baseball was an early rival of the Knickerbocker Rules of New York and was played throughout New England. In 1869, there were 59 teams throughout the region which played according to the Massachusetts rules. The New York rules gradually became more popular throughout the United States, and professional and semi-professional clubs began to appear. Early teams included the Providence Grays, the Worcester Worcesters and the Hartford Dark Blues; these did not last long, but other teams grew to renown, such as the Boston Braves and the Boston Red Sox. Fenway Park was built in 1912 and is the oldest ballpark still in use in Major League Baseball. The Red Sox have won the World Series nine times, tied for third-most among all MLB teams. Other professional baseball teams in the region include the Hartford Yard Goats, New Hampshire Fisher Cats, Vermont Lake Monsters, Portland Sea Dogs, Bridgeport Bluefish, New Britain Bees and the Worcester Red Sox.
Basketball was developed in Springfield, Massachusetts, by James Naismith in 1891. Naismith was attempting to create a game which could be played indoors so that athletes could keep fit during New England winters. The Boston Celtics were founded in 1946 and are the most successful NBA team, winning 18 titles. The Celtics' NBA G League team, the Maine Celtics, is based in Portland, Maine. The Women's National Basketball Association's Connecticut Sun is based in Uncasville, Connecticut. The UConn Huskies women's basketball team is the most successful women's collegiate team in the nation, winning 11 NCAA Division I titles, and the UConn Huskies men's basketball team has won six titles, tied for third-most in the nation. The Basketball Hall of Fame is located in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Winter sports are extremely popular and have a long history in the region, including alpine skiing, snowboarding, and Nordic skiing. Ice hockey is also a popular sport. The Boston Bruins were founded in 1924 as an Original Six team, and they have a historic rivalry with the Montreal Canadiens. The Bruins play in the TD Garden, a venue that they share with the Boston Celtics. The Boston Fleet of the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) plays at Tsongas Center. College hockey is also a popular spectator sport, with Boston's annual Beanpot tournament between Northeastern University, Boston University, Harvard University and Boston College. Other hockey teams include the Maine Mariners, Providence Bruins, Springfield Thunderbirds, Worcester Railers, Bridgeport Sound Tigers and the Hartford Wolf Pack. The region's largest ice hockey and skating facility is the New England Sports Center in Marlborough, Massachusetts, home to the Skating Club of Boston, one of the oldest ice skating clubs in the United States.
Volleyball was invented in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1895 by William G. Morgan. Morgan was an instructor at a YMCA and wanted to create an indoor game for his athletes. The game was based on badminton and was spread as a sport through YMCA facilities. The international Volleyball Hall of Fame is located in Holyoke.
Rowing, sailing, and yacht racing are also popular events in New England. The Head of the Charles race is held on the Charles River in October every year and attracts over 10,000 athletes and over 200,000 spectators each year. Sailing regattas include the Newport Bermuda Race, the Marblehead to Halifax Ocean Race, and the Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic Race. The "New York Times" considers the Newport and Marblehead races to be among the most prestigious in the world.
The Boston Marathon is run on Patriots' Day every year and was first run in 1897. It is a World Marathon Major and is operated by the Boston Athletic Association. The race route goes from Hopkinton, Massachusetts, through Greater Boston, finishing at Copley Square in Boston. The race offers far less prize money than many other marathons, but its difficulty and long history make it one of the world's most prestigious marathons. It is New England's largest sporting event with nearly 500,000 spectators each year.
New England is represented in the top level of American professional soccer by the New England Revolution, an inaugural team of the Major League Soccer founded in 1994 and playing in Gillette Stadium which it shares with the New England Patriots. The Revolution have won a U.S. Open Cup and a SuperLiga Championship, and they have appeared in five MLS finals. In the USL Championship, the second division on the American soccer pyramid, New England is represented by Hartford Athletic which was founded in 2019 and plays its games at Dillon Stadium, and Rhode Island FC, which began play in 2024.
The International Tennis Hall of Fame is in Newport, Rhode Island.
Transportation.
Each of the New England states has its own Department of Transportation which plans and develops systems for transport, though some transportation authorities operate across state and municipal lines. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) oversees public transportation in the Greater Boston area. It is the largest such agency and operates throughout eastern Massachusetts and into Rhode Island. The MBTA oversees the oldest subway system (the Tremont Street subway) and the second most-used light rail line (the Green Line) in the United States, as well as one of five remaining trolleybus systems nationwide. Coastal Connecticut makes use of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York due to the connection of that region to New York's economy. The MTA operates the Metro-North Railroad in coordination with the Connecticut Department of Transportation. CTrail is a division of the Connecticut Department of Transportation which operates the Shore Line East along its southern coast, terminating in Old Saybrook and New London. It also operates the Hartford Line, leading south to New Haven and north to Springfield. Commuter rail service is provided north of Springfield to Greenfield, Massachusetts, as part of the "Valley Flyer" Amtrak route.
Amtrak provides interstate rail service throughout New England. Boston is the northern terminus of the Northeast Corridor. The "Vermonter" connects Vermont to Massachusetts and Connecticut, while the "Downeaster" links Maine to Boston. The long-distance "Lake Shore Limited" train has two eastern termini after splitting in Albany, one of which is Boston. This provides rail service on the former Boston and Albany Railroad which runs between its namesake cities. The rest of the "Lake Shore Limited" continues to New York City.
Bus transportation is available in most urban areas and is governed by regional and local authorities. The Pioneer Valley Transit Authority and the MetroWest Regional Transit Authority are examples of public bus transportation which support more suburban and rural communities.
South Station in Boston is a major center for bus, rail, and light rail lines. Major interstate highways traversing the region include I-95, I-93, I-91, I-89, I-84, and I-90 (the Massachusetts Turnpike). Logan Airport is the busiest transportation hub in the region in terms of number of passengers and total cargo, opened in 1923 and located in East Boston and Winthrop, Massachusetts. It is a hub for Cape Air and Delta Air Lines, and a focus city for JetBlue. It is the 16th busiest airport in the United States. Other airports in the region include Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport, Bradley International Airport, Rhode Island T. F. Green International Airport, Manchester–Boston Regional Airport, and Portland International Jetport.
See also.
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The Handmaid's Tale
1985 novel by Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid's Tale is a futuristic dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood published in 1985. It is set in a near-future New England in a patriarchal, totalitarian theonomic state known as the Republic of Gilead, which has overthrown the United States government. Offred is the central character and narrator and one of the "Handmaids": women who are forcibly assigned to produce children for the "Commanders", who are the ruling class in Gilead.
The novel explores themes of powerless women in a patriarchal society, loss of female agency and individuality, suppression of reproductive rights, and the various means by which women resist and try to gain individuality and independence. The title echoes the component parts of Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", which is a series of connected stories (such as "The Merchant's Tale" and "The Parson's Tale"). It also alludes to the tradition of fairy tales where the central character tells her story.
"The Handmaid's Tale" won the 1985 Governor General's Award and the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987; it was also nominated for the 1986 Nebula Award, the 1986 Booker Prize, and the 1987 Prometheus Award. In 2022, "The Handmaid's Tale" was included on the "Big Jubilee Read" list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, selected to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II. The book has been adapted into a 1990 film, a 2000 opera, a 2017 television series, and other media. A sequel novel, "The Testaments", was published in 2019.
Plot summary.
After staging an attack killing the president of the United States and most of Congress, a radical political group called the "Sons of Jacob" uses theonomic ideology to launch a revolution. The Constitution is suspended, newspapers are censored, and the United States of America is reformed into a military dictatorship known as the Republic of Gilead. The new regime quickly consolidates its power, overtaking all other religious groups, including Christian denominations.
The regime reorganizes society using a peculiar interpretation of some Old Testament ideas, and a new militarized, hierarchical model of social and religious fanaticism among its newly created social classes. One of the most significant changes is the limitation of women's rights. Women become the lowest-ranking class and are not allowed to own money or property, or to read and write. Most significantly, women are deprived of control over their own reproductive functions. Though the regime controls most of the country, various rebel groups remain active.
The story is told in first-person narration by a woman named Offred, a criminal guilty of trying to escape to Canada with a forged passport alongside her husband and five-year-old daughter; she is also considered an adulterer for being married to a divorced man. Her marriage was forcibly dissolved, and her daughter was taken from her. Instead of being sentenced under the Republic of Gilead's draconian criminal justice system, Offred accepted training to become a "Handmaid" at the Rachel and Leah Centre, an alternative only available to fertile women: environmental pollution and radiation have drastically affected fertility, and she is one of the few remaining women who can conceive. She has been assigned to produce children for the "Commanders", the ruling class of men, and is made a Handmaid, a role based on the biblical story of Rachel and her handmaid Bilhah.
Women are classed socially and follow a strict dress code, ranked highest to lowest: the Commanders' Wives in sky blue, their unmarried daughters in white, the Handmaids in red with highly visible large white bonnets, the Aunts (who train and indoctrinate the Handmaids) in brown, the Marthas (cooks and maids, possibly unmarried sterile women past child-bearing years) in green, Econowives (the wives of lower-ranking men who handle everything in the domestic sphere) in blue, red and green stripes, and widows in black.
Offred details her life starting with her third assignment as a Handmaid to a Commander. Interspersing narratives of her present-day experiences are flashbacks of her life before and during the beginning of the revolution, including her failed escape, indoctrination by the Aunts, and her friend Moira's escape from the indoctrination facility. At her new home, she is treated poorly by the Commander's wife, Serena Joy, a former Christian media personality who supported women's domesticity and subordinate role well before Gilead was established.
To Offred's surprise, the Commander asks to see her outside of the "Ceremony", ritualized rape conducted during the Handmaids' likely fertile period each month, with the wives present, intended to result in conception. His request to see her in the library is illegal in Gilead, but they meet nevertheless. They mostly play "Scrabble" and Offred is allowed to ask favors of him, such as information or material items. He asks Offred to kiss him as if she meant it and tells her about his strained relationship with his wife. Finally, he gives her lingerie and takes her to a covert, government-run brothel using Jezebels, women forced into sanctioned sex slavery. Offred unexpectedly encounters an emotionally-broken Moira there, who tells her that those found breaking the law are sent to the "Colonies" to clean up toxic waste or are allowed to work as Jezebels as punishment.
In the days between her visits to the Commander, Offred also learns her shopping partner, a woman called Ofglen, is with the Mayday resistance, an underground network working to overthrow Gilead's government. Not knowing of Offred's criminal acts with her husband, Serena begins to suspect that he is infertile, so she arranges for Offred to have sex with Nick, the Commander's personal servant, who had attempted to talk to her before and shown interest. Serena offers Offred information about her daughter in exchange. She later brings her a photograph of Offred's daughter which leaves Offred feeling dejected believing she has been erased from her daughter's life.
After their initial sexual encounter, Offred and Nick begin to meet on their own initiative as well; she discovers that she enjoys these intimate moments despite memories of her husband, and shares potentially dangerous information about her past with him. Offred later tells Nick that she thinks she is pregnant.
Offred hears from a new walking partner that Ofglen has disappeared (reported as a suicide). She contemplates suicide when Serena finds evidence of the illegal relationship with the Commander. Shortly afterward, men arrive at the house wearing uniforms of the secret police, known as the Eyes of God or simply "Eyes", to take her away. As she is led to a waiting van, Nick tells her to trust him and go with the men. Offred is unsure if Nick or the men are Eyes or secretly members of Mayday, or if they are here to capture her or aid in her escape; she ultimately enters the van. Her future is left uncertain while Serena and the Commander are left bereft in their house, each thinking about the repercussions of Offred's capture on their lives.
The novel concludes with a metafictional epilogue, described as a partial transcript of an international historical association conference taking place in the year 2195. The male keynote speaker explains that Offred's narrative was originally recorded on a set of audio cassettes, a technology roughly 200 years out of date at that time, and later transcribed by historians. The speaker appears to be very dismissive of the misogyny of Gilead and interprets the story's title as a sexist joke. He also comments on the difficulty of authenticating the account, due to how few records have survived from the early years of Gilead's existence, and speculates on the eventual fates of Offred and her acquaintances.
Background.
Fitting with her statements that "The Handmaid's Tale" is a work of speculative fiction, not science fiction, Atwood's novel offers a satirical view of various social, political, and religious trends of the United States in the 1980s. Her motivation for writing the novel was her belief that in the 1980s, the religious right was discussing what they would do with/to women if they took power, including the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and the Ronald Reagan administration. Atwood questions what would happen if these trends, and especially "casually held attitudes about women" were taken to their logical end.
Atwood argues that all of the scenarios offered in "The Handmaid's Tale" have actually occurred in real life—in an interview she gave regarding her later novel "Oryx and Crake", Atwood maintains that "As with "The Handmaid's Tale", I didn't put in anything that we haven't already done, we're not already doing, we're seriously trying to do, coupled with trends that are already in progress... So all of those things are real, and therefore the amount of pure invention is close to nil." Atwood was known to carry around newspaper clippings to her various interviews to support her fiction's basis in reality. Atwood has explained that "The Handmaid's Tale" is a response to those who say the oppressive, totalitarian, and religious governments that have taken hold in other countries throughout the years "can't happen here"—but in this work, she has tried to show how such a takeover might play out.
Atwood was also inspired by the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1978–79 that saw a theocracy established that drastically reduced the rights of women and imposed a strict dress code on Iranian women, very much like that of Gilead. In "The Handmaid's Tale", a reference is made to the Islamic Republic of Iran in the form of the history book "Iran and Gilead: Two Late Twentieth Century Monotheocracies" mentioned in the endnotes describing the historians' convention in 2195. Atwood's picture of a society ruled by men who professed high moral principles, but are in fact self-interested and selfish was inspired by observing Canadian politicians in action, especially in her hometown of Toronto, who frequently profess in a very sanctimonious manner to be acting from the highest principles of morality while in reality the opposite is the case.
During the Second World War, Canadian women took on jobs in the place of men serving in the military that they were expected to yield to men once the war was over. After 1945, not all women wanted to return to their traditional roles as housewives and mothers, leading to a male backlash. Atwood was born in 1939, and while growing up in the 1950s she saw first-hand the complaints against women who continued to work after 1945 and of women who unhappily gave up their jobs, which she incorporated into her novel. The way in which the narrator is forced into becoming an unhappy housewife after she loses her job, in common with all the other women of Gilead, was inspired by Atwood's memories of the 1950s.
Atwood's inspiration for the Republic of Gilead came from her study of early American Puritans while at Harvard, which she attended on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. Atwood argues that the modern view of the Puritans—that they came to America to flee religious persecution in England and set up a religiously tolerant society—is misleading, and that instead, these Puritan leaders wanted to establish a monolithic theonomy where religious dissent would not be tolerated.
Atwood has a personal connection to the Puritans, and she dedicates the novel to her own ancestor Mary Webster, who was accused of witchcraft in Puritan New England but survived her hanging. Due to the totalitarian nature of Gileadean society, Atwood, in creating the setting, drew from the "utopian idealism" present in 20th-century régimes, such as Cambodia and Romania, as well as earlier New England Puritanism. Atwood has argued that a coup, such as the one depicted in "The Handmaid's Tale", would misuse religion in order to achieve its own ends.
Atwood, in regards to those leading Gilead, further stated:
I don't consider these people to be Christians because they do not have at the core of their behaviour and ideologies what I, in my feeble Canadian way, would consider to be the core of Christianity ... and that would be not only love your neighbours but love your enemies. That would also be "I was sick and you visited me not" and such and such ...And that would include also concern for the environment, because you can't love your neighbour or even your enemy, unless you love your neighbour's oxygen, food, and water. You can't love your neighbour or your enemy if you're presuming policies that are going to cause those people to die. ... Of course faith can be a force for good and often has been. So faith is a force for good particularly when people are feeling beleaguered and in need of hope. So you can have bad iterations and you can also have the iteration in which people have got too much power and then start abusing it. But that is human behaviour, so you can't lay it down to religion. You can find the same in any power situation, such as politics or ideologies that purport to be atheist. Need I mention the former Soviet Union? So it is not a question of religion making people behave badly. It is a question of human beings getting power and then wanting more of it.
In the same vein, Atwood also declared that "In the real world today, some religious groups are leading movements for the protection of vulnerable groups, including women." Atwood draws connections between the ways in which Gilead's leaders maintain their power and other examples of actual totalitarian governments. In her interviews, Atwood offers up Afghanistan as an example of a religious theocracy forcing women out of the public sphere and into their homes, as in Gilead.
The "state-sanctioned murder of dissidents" was inspired by the Philippines under President Ferdinand Marcos, and the last General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party Nicolae Ceaușescu's obsession with increasing the birth rate (Decree 770) led to the strict policing of pregnant women and the outlawing of birth control and abortion. However, Atwood clearly explains that many of these actions were not just present in other cultures and countries, "but within Western society, and within the 'Christian' tradition itself".
The Republic of Gilead struggles with infertility, making Offred's services as a Handmaid vital to producing children and thus reproducing the society. Handmaids themselves are "untouchable", but their ability to signify status is equated to that of slaves or servants throughout history. Atwood connects their concerns with infertility to real-life problems our world faces, such as radiation, chemical pollution, and sexually transmitted disease (HIV/AIDS is specifically mentioned in the "Historical Notes" section at the end of the novel, which was a relatively new disease at the time of Atwood's writing whose long-term impact was still unknown). Atwood's strong stance on environmental issues and their negative consequences for our society has presented itself in other works such as her "MaddAddam" trilogy, and refers back to her growing up with biologists and her own scientific curiosity.
Characters.
Offred.
Offred is the protagonist and narrator who takes the readers through life in Gilead. She was labelled a "wanton woman" when Gilead was established because she had married a man who was divorced. All divorces were nullified by the new government, meaning her husband was now considered still married to his first wife, making Offred an adulteress. In trying to escape Gilead, she was separated from her husband and daughter.
She is part of the first generation of Gilead's women, those who remember pre-Gilead times. Proved fertile, she is considered an important commodity and has been placed as a "Handmaid" in the home of "the Commander" and his wife Serena Joy, to bear a child for them (Serena Joy is believed to be infertile). Readers are able to see Offred's resistance to the Republic of Gilead on the inside through her thoughts.
Sometimes Offred has thoughts most readers would disagree with, such as the Ceremony not being rape because she agreed to be a Handmaid, despite the implication that she had no real choice (the alternative may have been execution, or hard labour cleaning nuclear waste). This may be a belief she has adapted to lessen her mental strain, or may be due to brainwashing during her Handmaid training.
Offred is a slave name that describes her function: she is "of Fred" (i.e., she belongs to Fred – presumed to be the name of the Commander – and is considered a concubine). In the novel, Offred says that she is "not" a concubine, but a tool; a "two-legged womb". The Handmaids' names say nothing about who the women really are; their only identity is as the Commander's property. "Offred" is also a pun on the word "offered", as in "offered as a sacrifice", and "of red" because the red dress assigned for the Handmaids in Gilead.
In Atwood's original novel, Offred's real name is never revealed. In Volker Schlöndorff's 1990 film adaptation Offred was given the real name Kate, while the television series gave her the real name June.
The women in training to be Handmaids whisper names across their beds at night. The names are "Alma. Janine. Dolores. Moira. June", and all are later accounted for except June. In addition, one of the Aunts tells the Handmaids-in-training to stop "mooning and June-ing". From this and other references, some readers have inferred that her birth name could be "June". Academic Madonne Miner suggests that "June" is a pseudonym. As "Mayday" is the name of the Gilead resistance, June could be an invention by the protagonist. The Nunavut conference covered in the epilogue takes place in June.
When the Hulu TV series chose to state outright that Offred's real name is June, Atwood wrote that it was not her original intention to imply that Offred's real name is June "but it fits, so readers are welcome to it if they wish". The revelation of Offred's real name serves only to humanize her in the presence of the other Handmaids.
Commander.
The Commander says that he was a scientist and was previously involved in something similar to market research before Gilead's inception. Later, it is hypothesized, but not confirmed, that he might have been one of the architects of the Republic and its laws. Presumably, his first name is "Fred", though that, too, may be a pseudonym. He engages in forbidden intellectual pursuits with Offred, such as playing "Scrabble", and introduces her to a secret club that serves as a brothel for high-ranking officers.
He shows his softer side to Offred during their covert meetings and confesses to being "misunderstood" by his wife. Offred learns that the Commander carried on a similar relationship with his previous Handmaid, who later killed herself when his wife found out.
In the epilogue, Professor Pieixoto speculates that one of two figures, both instrumental in the establishment of Gilead, may have been the Commander, based on the name "Fred". It is his belief that the Commander was a man named Frederick R. Waterford who was killed in a purge shortly after Offred was taken away, charged with harbouring an enemy agent.
Serena Joy.
Serena Joy is a former televangelist and the Commander's Wife in the fundamentalist theonomy. Her real name is Pam and she is fond of gardening and knitting. The state took away her power and public recognition, and she tries to hide her past as a television figure. Offred identifies Serena Joy by recalling seeing her on TV when she was a little girl early on Saturday mornings while waiting for the cartoons to air.
Believed to be sterile (although the suggestion is made that the Commander is sterile, Gileadean laws attribute sterility only to women), she is forced to accept that he has use of a Handmaid. She resents having to take part in "The Ceremony", a monthly fertility ritual. She strikes a deal with Offred to arrange for her to have sex with Nick in order to become pregnant. According to Professor Pieixoto in the epilogue, "Serena Joy" or "Pam" are pseudonyms. The character's real name is implied to be Thelma.
Ofglen.
Ofglen is a neighbour of Offred's and a fellow Handmaid. She is partnered with Offred to do the daily shopping. Handmaids are never alone and are expected to police each other's behaviour. Ofglen is a secret member of the Mayday resistance. In contrast to Offred, she is daring. She knocks out a Mayday spy who is to be tortured and killed in order to save him the pain of a violent death. Offred is told that when Ofglen vanishes, it is because she has committed suicide before the government can take her into custody due to her membership in the resistance, possibly to avoid giving away any information.
A new Handmaid, also called Ofglen, takes Ofglen's place, and is assigned as Offred's shopping partner. She threatens Offred against any thought of resistance. However, she breaks protocol by telling her what happened to the previous Ofglen.
Nick.
Nick is the Commander's chauffeur, who lives above the garage. Right from the start, Nick comes across as a daring character as he smokes and tries to engage with Offred, both forbidden activities. By Serena Joy's arrangement, he and Offred start a sexual relationship to increase her chance of getting pregnant. If she were unable to bear the Commander a child, she would be declared sterile and shipped to the ecological wastelands of the Colonies. Offred begins to develop feelings for him. Nick is an ambiguous character, and Offred does not know if he is a party loyalist or part of the resistance, though he identifies himself as the latter. The epilogue suggests that he really was part of the resistance, and aided Offred in escaping the Commander's house.
Moira.
Moira has been a close friend of Offred's since college. In the novel, their relationship represents a female friendship that the Republic of Gilead tries to block. A lesbian, she has resisted the homophobia of Gileadean society. Moira is taken to be a Handmaid soon after Offred. She finds the life of a Handmaid unbearably oppressive and risks engaging with the guards just to defy the system. She escapes by stealing an Aunt's pass and clothes, but Offred later finds her working as a prostitute in a party-run brothel. She was caught and chose the brothel rather than to be sent to the Colonies. Moira exemplifies defiance against Gilead by rejecting every value that is forced onto the citizens.
Luke.
Luke was Offred's husband before the formation of Gilead. He was married when he first started a relationship with Offred and divorced his first wife to marry her. Under Gilead, all divorces were retroactively nullified, resulting in Offred being considered an adulteress and their daughter illegitimate. Offred was forced to become a Handmaid and her daughter was given to a loyalist family. Since their attempt to escape to Canada, Offred has heard nothing of Luke. She wavers between believing him dead or imprisoned.
Professor Pieixoto.
Pieixoto is the "co-discoverer [with Professor Knotly Wade] of Offred's tapes". In his presentation at an academic conference set in 2195, he talks about "the 'Problems of Authentication in Reference to "The Handmaid's Tale"'". Pieixoto is the person who is retelling Offred's story, and so makes the narration even more unreliable than it was originally.
Aunt Lydia.
Aunt Lydia appears in flashbacks where her instructions frequently haunt Offred. Aunt Lydia works at the 'Red Center' where women receive instructions for a life as a Handmaid. Throughout the narrative, Aunt Lydia's pithy pronouncements on the code of conduct for the Handmaids shed light on the philosophy of subjugation of women practised in Gilead. Aunt Lydia appears to be a true believer of Gilead's religious philosophy and seems to take her job as a genuine calling.
In the sequel "The Testaments", however, Aunt Lydia is revealed to have been aiding anti-Gilead resistance networks. Her actions in releasing internal information to selected contacts instigates an internal purge that demolishes Gilead's ability to function and restores the United States. She also writes an autobiography of her life, which she hides in a copy of Cardinal John Henry Newman's "Apologia Pro Vita Sua" in the restricted section of the Ardua Hall library.
Cora.
A Martha (female domestic servants are called Marthas) who works at the Commander's house because she is infertile. She hopes that Offred will get pregnant as she desires to help raise a child. She is friendly towards Offred and even covers up for her when she finds her lying on the floor one morning—a suspicious occurrence by Gilead's standards, worthy of being reported.
Rita.
Rita is a Martha at the Commander's house. Her job is cooking and housekeeping and she is one of the members of the "household". At the start of the novel, Rita has a contempt for Offred and though she is responsible for keeping Offred well fed, she believes a Handmaid should prefer going to the Colonies over working as a sexual slave.
Setting.
The novel is set in an indeterminate dystopian future, speculated to be around the year 2005, with a fundamentalist theonomy ruling the territory of what had been the United States but is now the Republic of Gilead. The fertility rates in Gilead have diminished due to environmental toxicity and fertile women are a valuable commodity owned and enslaved by the powerful elite. Individuals are segregated by categories and dressed according to their social functions. Complex dress codes play a key role in imposing social control within the new society and serve to distinguish people by sex, occupation, and caste.
The action takes place in what once was the Harvard Square neighbourhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts; Atwood studied at Radcliffe College, located in this area. As a researcher, Atwood spent a lot of time in the Widener Library at Harvard which in the novel serves as a setting for the headquarters of the Gilead Secret Service.
Gilead society.
Religion.
Bruce Miller, the creator and executive producer of "The Handmaid's Tale" television serial, declared with regard to Atwood's book, as well as his series, that Gilead is "a society that's based kind of in a perverse misreading of Old Testament laws and codes". The author explains that Gilead tries to embody the "utopian idealism" present in 20th-century regimes, as well as earlier New England Puritanism. Both Atwood and Miller stated that the people running Gilead are "not genuinely Christian".
The group running Gilead, according to Atwood, is "not really interested in religion; they're interested in power". In her prayers to God, Offred reflects on Gilead and prays "I don't believe for an instant that what's going on out there is what You meant... I suppose I should say I forgive whoever did this, and whatever they're doing now. I'll try, but it isn't easy." Margaret Atwood, writing on this, says that "Offred herself has a private version of the Lord's Prayer and refuses to believe that this regime has been mandated by a just and merciful God."
Christian churches that do not support the actions of the Sons of Jacob are systematically demolished, and the people living in Gilead are never seen attending church. Christian denominations, including Quakers, Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Roman Catholics, are specifically named as enemies of the Sons of Jacob. Nuns who refuse conversion are considered "unwomen" and banished to the Colonies, owing to their reluctance to marry and refusal (or inability) to bear children. Priests unwilling to convert are executed and hanged from the Wall. Atwood pits Quaker Christians against the regime by having them help the oppressed, something she feels they would do in reality: "The Quakers have gone underground, and are running an escape route to Canada, as—I suspect—they would."
Jews are named an exception and classified Sons of Jacob. Offred observes that Jews refusing to convert are allowed to emigrate from Gilead to Israel, and most choose to leave. However, in the epilogue, Professor Pieixoto reveals that many of the emigrating Jews ended up being dumped into the sea while on the ships ostensibly tasked with transporting them to Israel, due to privatization of the "repatriation program" and capitalists' effort to maximize profits. Offred mentions that many Jews who chose to stay were caught secretly practising Judaism and executed.
Fertile women whose social function is to bear children for infertile wives. Handmaids dress in ankle-length red dresses, white caps, and heavy boots. In summer, they change into lighter-weight (but still ankle-length) dresses and slatted shoes. When in public, in winter, they wear ankle-length red cloaks, red gloves, and heavy white bonnets, which they call "wings". The sides of the bonnets stick out like wings, blocking their peripheral vision and shielding their faces from view. Handmaids are women of proven fertility who have broken the law. The law includes both gender crimes, such as lesbianism, and religious crimes, such as adultery (redefined to include sexual relationships with divorced partners since divorce is no longer legal). The Republic of Gilead justifies the use of the Handmaids for procreation by referring to two biblical stories: Genesis 30:1–13 and Genesis 16:1–4. In the first story, Jacob's infertile wife Rachel offers up her handmaid Bilhah to be a surrogate mother on her behalf, and then her sister Leah does the same with her own handmaid Zilpah (even though Leah has already given Jacob many sons). In the other story, which appears earlier in Genesis but is cited less frequently, Abraham has sex with his wife's handmaid, Hagar. Handmaids are assigned to Commanders and live in their houses. When unassigned, they live at training centres. Handmaids who successfully bear children continue to live at their Commander's house until their children are weaned, at which point they are sent to a new assignment to a new Commander. Those who produce children will never be declared "unwomen" or sent to the Colonies, even if they never have another baby.
Women.
The division of labour among the women generates some resentment. Marthas, Wives and Econowives perceive Handmaids as promiscuous and are taught to scorn them. Offred mourns that the women of the various groups have lost their ability to empathize with each other.
The Ceremony.
"The Ceremony" is a non-marital sexual act sanctioned for reproduction. The ritual requires the Handmaid to lie on her back between the legs of the Wife during the sex act as if they were one person. The Wife has to invite the Handmaid to share her power this way; many Wives consider this both humiliating and offensive. Offred describes the ceremony:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />My red skirt is hitched up to my waist, though no higher. Below it the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he's doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven't signed up for.
Reception.
Critical reception.
"The Handmaid's Tale" received critical acclaim, helping to cement Atwood's status as a prominent writer of the 20th century. Not only was the book deemed well-written and compelling, but Atwood's work was notable for sparking intense debates both in and out of academia. Atwood maintains that the Republic of Gilead is only an extrapolation of trends already seen in the United States at the time of her writing, a view supported by other scholars studying "The Handmaid's Tale". Many have placed "The Handmaid's Tale" in the same category of dystopian fiction as "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and "Brave New World", a categorization that Atwood has accepted and reiterated in many articles and interviews.
Even today, many reviewers hold that Atwood's novel remains as foreboding and powerful as ever, largely because of its basis in historical fact. Yet when her book was first published in 1985, not all reviewers were convinced of the "cautionary tale" Atwood presented. For example, Mary McCarthy's 1986 "New York Times" review argued that "The Handmaid's Tale" lacked the "surprised recognition" necessary for readers to see "our present selves in a distorting mirror, of what we may be turning into if current trends are allowed to continue".
Genre classification.
"The Handmaid's Tale" is a feminist dystopian novel, combining the characteristics of dystopian fiction: "a genre that projects an imaginary society that differs from the author's own, first, by being significantly worse in important respects and second by being worse "because" it attempts to reify some utopian ideal", with the feminist utopian ideal which: "sees men or masculine systems as the major cause of social and political problems (e.g. war), and presents women as not only at least the equals of men but also as the sole arbiters of their reproductive functions".
"The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction" notes that dystopian images are almost invariably images of future society, "pointing fearfully at the way the world is supposedly going in order to provide urgent propaganda for a change in direction". Atwood's stated intent was indeed to dramatize potential consequences of current trends.
In 1985, reviewers hailed the book as a "feminist "1984"", citing similarities between the totalitarian regimes under which both protagonists live, and "the distinctively modern sense of nightmare come true, the initial paralyzed powerlessness of the victim unable to act". Scholarly studies have expanded on the place of "The Handmaid's Tale" in the dystopian and feminist traditions.
The classification of utopian and dystopian fiction as a sub-genre of the collective term, speculative fiction, alongside science fiction, fantasy, and horror is a relatively recent convention. Dystopian novels have long been discussed as a type of science fiction; however, with publication of "The Handmaid's Tale", Atwood distinguished the terms science fiction and speculative fiction quite intentionally. In interviews and essays, she has discussed why, observing:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />I like to make a distinction between science fiction proper and speculative fiction. For me, the science fiction label belongs on books with things in them that we can't yet do, such as going through a wormhole in space to another universe; and speculative fiction means a work that employs the means already to hand, such as DNA identification and credit cards, and that takes place on Planet Earth. But the terms are fluid.
Atwood acknowledges that others may use the terms interchangeably, but she notes her interest in this type of work is to explore themes in ways that "realistic fiction" cannot do.
Among a few science fiction aficionados, however, Atwood's comments were considered petty and contemptuous. (The term speculative fiction was indeed employed that way by certain New Wave writers in the 1960s and early 1970s to express their dissatisfaction with traditional or establishment science fiction.) Hugo-winning science fiction critic David Langford observed in a column: ""The Handmaid's Tale" won the very first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987. She's been trying to live this down ever since."
Reception in schools.
Atwood's novels, and especially her works of speculative fiction, "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Oryx and Crake", are frequently offered as examples for the final, open-ended question on the American Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition exam each year. As such, her books are often assigned in high-school classrooms to students taking this Advanced Placement course, despite the mature themes the work presents. Atwood herself has expressed surprise that her books are being assigned to high-school audiences, largely due to her own censored education in the 1950s, but she has assured readers that this increased attention from high-school students has not altered the material she has chosen to write about since.
Censorship in the United States.
The American Library Association lists "The Handmaid's Tale" as number 37 on the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000". In 2019, "The Handmaid's Tale" is still listed as the seventh-most challenged book because of profanity, vulgarity, and sexual overtones. Atwood participated in discussing "The Handmaid's Tale" as the subject of an ALA discussion series titled "One Book, One Conference".
In May 2022, Atwood announced that, in a joint project undertaken with Penguin Random House, an "unburnable" copy of the book would be produced and auctioned off, the project intended to "stand as a powerful symbol against censorship". On 7 June 2022, the unique, "unburnable" copy was sold through Sotheby's in New York for $130,000.
The book has been banned in school libraries in Florida, Missouri, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
In higher education.
In institutions of higher education, professors have found "The Handmaid's Tale" to be useful, largely because of its historical and religious basis and Atwood's captivating delivery. The novel's teaching points include: introducing politics and the social sciences to students in a more concrete way; demonstrating the importance of reading to our freedom, both intellectual and political; and acknowledging the "most insidious and violent manifestations of power in Western history" in a compelling manner.
The chapter entitled "Historical Notes" at the end of the novel also represents a warning to academics who run the risk of misreading and misunderstanding historical texts, pointing to the satirized Professor Pieixoto as an example of a male scholar who has taken over and overpowered Offred's narrative with his own interpretation.
Academic reception.
Feminist analysis.
Much of the discussion about "The Handmaid's Tale" has centred on its categorization as feminist literature. Atwood does not see the Republic of Gilead as a purely feminist dystopia, as not all men have greater rights than women. Instead, this society presents a typical dictatorship: "shaped like a pyramid, with the powerful of both sexes at the apex, the men generally outranking the women at the same level; then descending levels of power and status with men and women in each, all the way down to the bottom, where the unmarried men must serve in the ranks before being awarded an Econowife".
Econowives are women expected to carry out child-bearing, domestic duties, and traditional companionship; they are married to men that don't belong to the elite. When asked about whether her book was feminist, Atwood stated that the presence of women and what happens to them are important to the structure and theme of the book. This aisle of feminism, by default, would make a lot of books feminist. However, she is adamant in her stance that her book did not represent the brand of feminism that victimizes or strips women of moral choice.
Atwood has argued that while some of the observations that informed the content of "The Handmaid's Tale" may be feminist, her novel is not meant to say "one thing to one person" or serve as a political message—instead, "The Handmaid's Tale" is "a study of power, and how it operates and how it deforms or shapes the people who are living within that kind of regime".
Some scholars have offered a feminist interpretation, connecting Atwood's use of religious fundamentalism in the pages of "The Handmaid's Tale" to a condemnation of its presence in current American society. Atwood goes on to describe her book as not a critique of religion, but a critique of the "use" of religion as a "front for tyranny". Others have argued that "The Handmaid's Tale" critiques typical notions of feminism, as Atwood's novel appears to subvert the traditional "women helping women" ideals of the movement and turns toward the possibility of "the matriarchal network ... and a new form of misogyny: women's hatred of women".
Scholars have analyzed and made connections to patriarchal oppression in "The Handmaid's Tale" and oppression of women today. Aisha Matthews tackles the effects of institutional structures that oppress woman and womanhood and connects those to the themes present in "The Handmaid's Tale". She first asserts that structures and social frameworks, such as the patriarchy and societal role of traditional Christian values, are inherently detrimental to the liberation of womanhood. She then makes the connection to the relationship between Offred, Serena Joy, and the Commander, explaining that through this "perversion of traditional marriage, the Biblical story of Rachel, Jacob, and Bilhah is taken too literally". Their relationship and other similar relationships in "The Handmaid's Tale" mirror the effects of patriarchal standards of womanliness.
In the world of "The Handmaid's Tale", the sexes are strictly divided. Gilead's society values white women's reproductive commodities over those of other ethnicities. Women are categorized "hierarchically according to class status and reproductive capacity" as well as "metonymically colour-coded according to their function and their labour". The Commander expresses his personal opinion that women are considered inferior to men, as the men are in a position where they have power to control society.
Women are segregated by clothing, as are men. With rare exceptions, men wear military or paramilitary uniforms. All classes of men and women are defined by the colours they wear, drawing on colour symbolism and psychology. All lower-status individuals are regulated by this dress code. All "non-persons" are banished to the "Colonies". Sterile, unmarried women are considered to be non-persons. Both men and women sent there wear grey dresses.
The women, particularly the Handmaids, are stripped of their individual identities as they lack formal names, taking on their assigned Commander's first name in most cases.
Sterile women, the unmarried, some widows, feminists, lesbians, nuns, and politically dissident women: all women who are incapable of social integration within the Republic's strict gender divisions. Gilead exiles Unwomen to "the Colonies", areas both of agricultural production and deadly pollution. Joining them are Handmaids who fail to bear a child after three two-year assignments.
Jezebels are women who are forced to become prostitutes and entertainers. They are available only to the Commanders and to their guests. Offred portrays Jezebels as attractive and educated; they may be unsuitable as Handmaids due to temperament. They have been sterilized, a surgery that is forbidden to other women. They operate in unofficial but state-sanctioned brothels, unknown to most women.
Jezebels, whose title comes from Jezebel in the Bible, dress in the remnants of sexualized costumes from "the time before", such as cheerleaders' costumes, school uniforms, and Playboy Bunny costumes. Jezebels can wear make-up, drink alcohol and socialize with men, but are tightly controlled by the Aunts. When they pass their sexual prime or their looks fade, they are discarded without any precision as to whether they are killed or sent to the Colonies.
Philosophical analysis.
Many elements of Gilead recall details from Plato's "Republic". Gilead's social hierarchy of commanders, guardians, Marthas and handmaids, for example, has similarities to Plato's social hierarchy of philosopher-guardians, auxiliary-guardians and producers. Both societies are also home to a state-based eugenics program, and see gymnasiums used as educational spaces in which women are socialized into new gender roles. The powers that be in Gilead legitimize their rule through the extensive use of propaganda, much as Plato's rulers ensure co-operation on the part of the public by propagating a noble lie.
According to philosopher Andy Lamey, rather than straightforward allusions, the similarities to Plato are combined with features that differ, at times dramatically, from Plato's original. As Lamey writes, "the result is that Atwood's dystopia deliberately calls to mind a distorted version of Platonism, one that differs in ways large and small from the original." In the case of gymnasiums, for example, in Plato they see women socialized into roles that make them the equal of men, while in Gilead they are where handmaids are first taught their duties.
Vernon Provençal has suggested that the novel is a satire of Platonism. Lamey, however, argues that this interpretation cannot explain why the book contains distorted references to philosophies beyond Platonism. Two such references are evident in mottos that handmaids are forced to repeat during their training. "Pen is envy" is a corrupt rendering of Freud's notion of penis envy, while "From each according to her ability; to each according to his needs" is a garbled version of Marx's slogan "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Lamey argues that such allusions, rather than satirizing the philosophies in question, see Gilead employ a practice frequently used by actual dictatorships, that of seeking to bolster their prestige and legitimacy by twisting ideas already in circulation to suit their own ends.
Race analysis.
African Americans, the main non-White ethnic group in this society, are called the Children of Ham. A state TV broadcast mentions they have been relocated "en masse" to "National Homelands" in North Dakota, which are suggestive of the apartheid-era homelands (Bantustans) set up by South Africa or forced death marches. Ana Cottle characterized "The Handmaid's Tale" as "White feminism", noting that Atwood does away with Black people in a few lines by relocating the "Children of Ham" while borrowing heavily from the African-American experience and applying it to White women, specifically Gilead's explicit anti-literacy laws, which was borrowed from real life anti-literacy campaigns in the United States, alongside the removal of surnames among handmaids, an ode to how enslaved Africans were not given last names until Emancipation.
It is implied that a total genocide has been committed against Native Americans living in territories under the rule of Gilead. Jews were given a choice between converting to the state religion or being "repatriated" to Israel. Converts who were subsequently discovered with any symbolic representations or artifacts of Judaism were executed, and the repatriation scheme was privatized, with the result that many Jews died en route to Israel.
Sequel.
In November 2018, Atwood announced the sequel, titled "The Testaments", which was published in September 2019. The novel is set fifteen years after Offred's final scene, with the testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.
Citations.
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Sources.
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Further reading.
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