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Harvard University:"Harvard" redirects here. For information about undergraduate education at Harvard University, see Harvard College. For other uses of the name Harvard, see Harvard (disambiguation).
Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and a member of the Ivy League. It was founded on September 8, 1636, by a vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, making it the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. In 1893, Baedeker's guidebook called it "the oldest, richest, and most famous of American seats of learning."
Originally referred to simply as the New College, it was named Harvard College on March 13, 1639, after its first principal donor, a young clergyman named John Harvard. A graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, John Harvard bequeathed a few hundred books in his will to form the basis of the college library collection, along with several hundred pounds.
The earliest known official reference to Harvard as a "university" rather than a "college" occurred in the new Massachusetts constitution of 1780. Seventy-five Nobel prize winners are affiliated with the university, and since 1974, nineteen Nobel Prize winners and fifteen Pulitzer Prize winners have served on the Harvard faculty. There are 167 Harvard faculty in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Currently, Harvard has the world's largest university library collection (third overall after the Library of Congress and the British Library) and the largest financial endowment of any academic institution, standing at $25.9 billion as of 2005.
Institution
financial endowment" statue in Harvard Yard is a frequent target of pranks, hacks, and humorous decorations, such as the colorful lei shown above.]]
A faculty of about 2,300 professors serves about 6,650 undergraduate and 13,000 graduate students. The school color is crimson, which is also the name of the Harvard sports teams and the daily newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. The color was unofficially adopted (in preference to magenta) by an 1875 vote of the student body, although the association with some form of red can be traced back to 1858, when Charles William Eliot, a young graduate student who would later become Harvard's president, bought red bandannas for his crew so they could more easily be distinguished by spectators at a regatta.
Admissions
Harvard's overall undergraduate acceptance rate for 2005 was 9.1%.. The 2006 figures from U.S. News indicated that the business school admitted 14.3% of its applicants, the engineering division admitted 12.5%, the law school admitted 11.3%, the education school admitted 11.2%, and the medical school admitted 4.9%.
Organization
Harvard today has nine faculties, listed below in order of foundation:
Charles William Eliot
- The Faculty of Arts and Sciences and its sub-faculty, the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which together serve:
- Harvard College, the University's undergraduate portion (1636)
- The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (organized 1872)
- The Harvard Division of Continuing Education, including Harvard Extension School and Harvard Summer School
- The Faculty of Medicine, including the Medical School (1782) and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine (1867, the first U.S. dental school).
- Harvard Divinity School (1816)
- Harvard Law School (1817)
- Harvard Business School (1908)
- The Graduate School of Design (1914)
- The Graduate School of Education (1920)
- The School of Public Health (1922)
- The John F. Kennedy School of Government (1936)
In 1999, the former Radcliffe College was reorganized as the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
The Harvard University Library System, centered in Widener Library and comprising over 90 individual libraries and over 14.5 million volumes, is the largest university library system in the world and, after the Library of Congress, the second-largest library system in the United States. Harvard operates several art museums, including the Fogg Museum of Art (with galleries featuring history of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present, with particular strengths in Italian early Renaissance, British pre-Raphaelite, and 19th-century French art); the Adolph Busch Museum (formerly Busch-Reisinger Museum, formerly Germanic Museum) (central and northern European art; and a Flentrop pipe organ, familiar from recordings by E. Power Biggs); the Sackler Museum (ancient, Asian, Islamic and later Indian art); the Museum of Natural History, which contains the famous Blaschka Glass Flowers exhibit; the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology; and the Semitic Museum.
Glass Flowers
Prominent student organizations at Harvard include the aforementioned Crimson; the Harvard Lampoon, a humor magazine; the Harvard Advocate, one of the nation's oldest literary magazines; and the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, which produces an annual burlesque and celebrates notable actors at its Man of the Year and Woman of the Year ceremonies; and the Harvard Glee Club, the oldest college chorus in America. The Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, composed mainly of undergraduates, was founded in 1808 as the Pierian Sodality and has been performing as a symphony orchestra since the 1950s.
The radio station WHRB (95.3FM Cambridge), is run exclusively by Harvard students, and is given space on the Harvard campus in the basement of Pennypacker Hall, a freshman dormitory. Known throughout the Boston metropolitan area for its classical, jazz, underground rock and blues programming, WHRB uses the radio "Orgy" format, where the entire catalog of a certain band, record, or artist is played in sequence.
Harvard's athletic rivalry with Yale is intense in every sport in which they meet, coming to a climax in their annual football meeting, which dates to 1875 and is usually called simply The Game. While Harvard's football team is no longer one of the country's best, as it often was a century ago during football's early days, today Harvard does field top teams in several other sports, such as ice hockey, rowing, and squash. As of 2003, there were 43 Division I intercollegiate varsity sports teams for women and men at Harvard, more than at any other college in the country.
Harvard College has traditionally drawn many of its students from private schools, though today the majority of undergraduates come from public schools across the United States and around the globe.
sports
Harvard has a friendly rivalry with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology which dates back to 1900, when a merger of the two schools was frequently mooted and at one point officially agreed upon (ultimately cancelled by Massachusetts courts). Today, the two schools cooperate as much as they compete, with many joint conferences and programs, including the [http://hst.mit.edu/ Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology], the [http://www.hmdc.harvard.edu/ Harvard-MIT Data Center] and the [http://dibinst.mit.edu/ Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology]. In addition, students at the two schools can cross-register without any additional fees, for credits toward their own school's degrees.
Over its history, Harvard has graduated many famous alumni, along with a few infamous ones. Among the best-known are political leaders John Hancock, John Adams, and John F. Kennedy; philosopher Henry David Thoreau and author Ralph Waldo Emerson; poets Wallace Stevens, T. S. Eliot and E. E. Cummings; composer Leonard Bernstein; actor Jack Lemmon; architect Philip Johnson; civil rights leader W. E. B. Du Bois; and terrorist Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber). Among its most famous faculty members are biologists James D. Watson and E. O. Wilson. For a fuller listing of famous faculty and alumni, see List of Harvard University people.
Harvard affiliates' politics are generally liberal (center-left): Richard Nixon famously attacked it as the "Kremlin on the Charles". In 2004, the Harvard Crimson found that Harvard undergraduates favored Kerry over Bush by 73% to 19%, consistent with Kerry's margin in major eastern cities such as Boston and New York City. At the same time, Harvard has been criticized from the Left as the "incubator for an American ruling class" (Douthat)
and "hostile to progressive intellectuals". (Trumpbour)
President George W. Bush, in fact, graduated from the Harvard Business School. Indeed, there are both prominent conservative and prominent liberal voices among the faculty of the various schools.
Though Harvard has been featured in many US films, including Legally Blonde, The Firm, The Paper Chase, Good Will Hunting, With Honors, How High, and Harvard Man, the University has not allowed any movies to be filmed on its campus since Love Story in the 1960s; most films are shot in look-alike cities, such as Toronto, and colleges such as Wheaton and Bridgewater State . Also set in Harvard is Korean hit TV series Love Story in Harvard, filmed at University of Southern California. Many movies have characters identified as Harvard graduates, including A Few Good Men, American Psycho, and Two Weeks Notice.
History
Two Weeks Notice
Harvard's foundation in 1636 came in the form of an act of the colony's Great and General Court. By all accounts the chief impetus was to allow the training of home-grown clergy so the Puritan colony would not need to rely on immigrating graduates of England's Oxford and Cambridge universities for well-educated pastors, "dreading," as a 1643 brochure put it, "to leave an illiterate Ministry to the Churches." In its first year, seven of the original nine students left to fight in the English Civil War.
Harvard was also founded as a school to educate American Indians in order to train them as ministers among their tribes. Harvard's Charter of 1650 calls for "the education of the English and Indian youth of this Country in knowledge and godliness". Indeed, Harvard and missionaries to the local tribes were intricately connected. The first Bible to be printed in the entire North American continent was printed at Harvard in an Indian language, Massachusett. Termed the Eliot Bible since it was translated by John Eliot, this book was used to facilitate conversion of Indians, ideally by Harvard-educated Indians themselves. Harvard's first American Indian graduate, Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck from the Wampanoag tribe, was a member of the class of 1665. Caleb and other students-- English and American Indian alike-- lived and studied in a dormitory known as the Indian College, which as founded in 1655 under then-President Charles Chauncy. In 1698 it was torn down owing to neglect. The bricks of the former Indian College were later used to build the first Stoughton Hall. Today a plaque on the SE side of Matthews Hall in Harvard Yard, the approximate site of the Indian College, commemorates the first American Indian students who lived and studied at Harvard University.
The connection to the Puritans can be seen in the fact that, for its first few centuries of existence, the Harvard Board of Overseers included, along with certain commonwealth officials, the ministers of six local congregations (Boston, Cambridge, Charlestown, Dorchester, Roxbury and Watertown), who today, although no longer so empowered, are still by custom allowed seats on the dais at commencement exercises.
Despite the Puritan atmosphere, from the beginning the intent was to provide a full liberal education such as that offered at European universities, including the rudiments of mathematics and science ('natural philosophy') as well as classical literature and philosophy. Nonetheless, Harvard became the bastion of a distinctly Protestant elite--the so-called Boston Brahmin class--well into the 20th century. Its discriminatory policies against immigrants, Catholics and Jews were partly responsible for the founding of Boston College in the 19th century and Brandeis University in 1948. The social milieu at Harvard is depicted in Owen Wister's Philosophy 4, set in the 1870s, which contrasts the character and demeanor of two undergraduates who "had colonial names (Rogers, I think, and Schuyler)" with that of their tutor, one Oscar Maironi, whose "parents had come over in the steerage." Myron Kaufman's 1957 novel Remember Me to God follows the life of a Jewish undergraduate in 1940s Harvard, navigating the shoals of casual antisemitism as he desperately seeks to become a gentleman, be accepted into The Pudding, and marry the Yankee protestant Wimsy Talbot.
Recent developments
Myron Kaufman
On March 15, 2005, members of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which instructs graduate students in GSAS and undergraduates in Harvard College, passed 218-185 a motion of "lack of confidence" in the leadership of the current president Lawrence Summers, with 18 abstentions. In response, Summers convened two committees to study this issue: the Task Force on Women Faculty and the Task Force on Women in Science and Engineering. Summers has also pledged $50 million to support their recommendations and other proposed reforms.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Harvard, along with numerous other institutions of higher education across the United States and Canada, offered to take in students who were unable to attend universities and colleges that were closed for the fall semester. Twenty-five students were admitted to the College, and the Law School made similar arrangements. Tuition was not charged and housing was provided.
Criticism of Harvard
Harvard is the target of a number of persistent criticisms from both external and internal sources. Some of the criticisms, such as admissions bias and under-representation of women and minorities on faculty, have also been leveled at comparable Ivy League institutions, such as Yale and Princeton.
Grade inflation
The high percentage of honors awarded prior to 2005 raised concerns about declining standards. Harvard conferred honors upon 91% of its graduating seniors, while other schools in the Ivy League ranged from 51% (Yale) to 8% (Cornell). [http://www.dartreview.com/archives/2002/03/01/grade_inflation_at_the_other_ivies.php] These accusations prompted reforms in grading and honors determinations. In June 2005, less than 60% of the class graduated with honors, a 50% reduction from 2004, and more in line with comparable Ivy League institutions such as Yale and Princeton. [http://www.registrar.fas.harvard.edu]. In addition, it has been accused of grade inflation, like other Ivy League institutions and Stanford University..
Teaching issues
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, The New York Times, and some students have criticized Harvard for its reliance on teaching fellows in undergraduate education, as many in the faculty are engaged in research (assistant teaching is not taken into account by the major college and university rankings); they consider this to be detrimental to the quality of education. The New York Times article also detailed that the problem was prevalent in other comparable Ivy League universities as well, such as Yale. According to some internal faculty and external observers, including former Harvard president Derek Bok, the Harvard Corporation exercises disproportionate power, negatively compromising the independence of Harvard academics. However, the former Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Henry Rosovsky, who was once appointed as a member of the corporation, sees it as instrumental in maintaining a long-term view and sound stewardship.
Undergraduate experience
The Harvard Crimson Magazine leveled a number of criticisms against the quality of the Harvard undergraduate experience, including widespread student dissatisfaction, exhaustion of the students, complacency of the administration, inattentiveness of professors, problems with the residential housing system, lack of campus community, and the dearth of on-campus social options. [http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=350153] [http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=350154]
In fairness, the Harvard Crimson has also quoted some professors and students with a more positive perspective on Harvard's undergraduate experience. [http://thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=509925] [http://thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=509921] [http://thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=509907]
In an internal memo from October 2004 that referenced the COFHE (Consortium on Financing Higher Education) student satisfaction survey of 31 top universities including the Ivy League and Stanford, Harvard's administration acknowledged that: "Harvard students are less satisfied with their undergraduate educations than the students at almost all of the other COFHE schools. Harvard student satisfaction compares even less favorably to satisfaction at our closest peer institutions." Harvard students who participated in the COFHE survey rated Harvard below average on faculty availability, quality of instruction, advising in the major, social life on campus, and sense of community. Former Dean of Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell said, "I think we have to concede that we are letting our students down." [http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/03/29/student_life_at_harvard_lags_peer_schools_poll_finds/]
Admissions bias
Harvard's undergraduate admissions policy has been criticized as well. In particular, the undergraduate admissions office's preference for children of alumni and wealthy benefactors has been the subject of much scrutiny and debate. As documented by sociologist Jerome Karabel in his book "The Chosen", Harvard's current admissions policies, like those of other Ivy League institutions such as Yale and Princeton, originated in the 1920s, when the school sought to limit the number of Jewish students. Harvard officials worried that admissions based purely on academic promise and intelligence would result in a large proportion of Jews in the student body, which in turn would degrade the school's social standing. The officials sought to prevent this by introducing more "well rounded" admissions criterion such as participation in sports and other extracurricular activities, which they felt would benefit white protestant candidates. See also [http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/articles/051010crat_atlarge]. Defenders of Harvard assert that, whatever the unsavory origins of the policy, the benefits of a diverse student body outweigh the cost in lowered academic standards. They further point out that even with the liberalized admission policy, Harvard's academic standards are still among the highest in the country. Its preference for underrepresented minorities, shared with many other schools, is also the subject of much debate. The New York Times considers minorities and women underrepresented on the faculty of Harvard, as at several other Ivy League universities. The College is not the sole target of criticism: the Business School has been criticized for over-reliance on the case method,.
Self promotion
Harvard and Harvard students have frequently been criticized for self-promotion in various forms. In "A Flood of Crimson Ink" (Wall Street Journal, April, 2005) [http://www.opinionjournal.com/forms/printThis.html?id=110006623], the author asserts that one reason Harvard receives a great deal of press coverage is because "Harvard graduates are disproportionately represented in the upper echelons of American journalism." Many articles and books arguing for or making representations of Harvard's pre-eminent prestige have been written by Harvard graduates, such as "GWB: HBS MBA" [http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=3378]. Some critical pieces, however, end up balancing out the more self-serving ones -- such as in Privilege : Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class, Harvard is described as "a terrible mess of a place... an incubator for an American ruling class that is smug, self-congratulatory, and intellectually adrift" while his undergraduate experience was "a combination of vacuous classroom assignments, cruel social climbing and feverish networking". But overall, critics of Harvard graduates' marketing approach charge that the school is filled with students "specifically selected for their skills at self-promotion" [http://maroon.uchicago.edu/viewpoints/articles/2005/05/09/its_no_surprise_that.php].
Campus
Privilege : Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class]The main campus is centered around Harvard Yard in central Cambridge, and extends into the surrounding Harvard Square neighborhood, approximately two miles (3.2 km) from the MIT campus. The Harvard Business School and many of the university's athletics facilities, including Harvard Stadium, are located in Allston, on the other side of the Charles River from Harvard Square. Harvard Medical School is located in the Longwood district of Boston.
Harvard Yard itself contains the central administrative offices and main libraries of the University, several academic buildings and the majority of the freshman dormitories. Upperclass students live in twelve residential Houses; three Houses are located at the Quadrangle, in a residential neigborhood half a mile northwest of the Yard, and the other nine are in a largely commercial district south of the Yard, situated along or close to the banks of the Charles River.
Radcliffe Yard, the center of the campus of the former Radcliffe College (and now Radcliffe Institute), is west of Harvard Yard, adjacent to the Graduate School of Education.
Major campus expansion
Throughout the past several years, Harvard has purchased large tracts of land in Allston, a short walk across the Charles River from Cambridge, with the intent of major expansion southward. The university now owns approximately fifty percent more land in Allston than in Cambridge. Various proposals to connect the traditional Cambridge campus with the new Allston campus include new and enlarged bridges, a shuttle service and/or a tram.
One of the foremost driving forces for Harvard's pending expansion is its goal of substantially increasing the scope and strength of its science and technology programs. The university plans to construct two 500,000 square foot (50,000 m²) research complexes in Allston, which would be home to several interdisciplinary programs, including the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and an enlarged Engineering department.
In addition, Harvard intends to relocate the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Harvard School of Public Health to Allston. The university also plans to construct several new undergraduate and graduate student housing centers in Allston, and it is considering large-scale museums and performing arts complexes as well.
Harvard University people
- List of Harvard University people
- Presidents of Harvard
Further reading
- John T. Bethell, Harvard Observed: An Illustrated History of the University in the Twentieth Century, Harvard University Press, 1998, ISBN 0674377338
- <span id="Trumpbour">John Trumpbour, ed.</span>, How Harvard Rules, Boston: South End Press, 1989, ISBN 0896082830
- Hoerr, John, We Can't Eat Prestige: The Women Who Organized Harvard; Temple University Press, 1997, ISBN 1566395356
- <span id="Douthat">Ross Gregory Douthat</span>, Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class, Hyperion, 2005, ISBN 1401301126
External links
- [http://www.harvard.edu/ Official site]
- [http://www.fas.harvard.edu/ Faculty of Arts and Sciences]
- [http://www.gocrimson.com/ Official Harvard athletics site]
- [http://www.commencement.harvard.edu/ Harvard Commencement Information]
- [http://www.thecrimson.com/ The Harvard Crimson] (student newspaper)
- [http://www.hpronline.org/ The Harvard Political Review]
- [http://www.harvardgeo.org/ Harvard Geographic Society]
- [http://hir.harvard.edu/ Harvard International Review]
- [http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~hapr/ Harvard Asia Pacific Review]
- [http://www.hpair.org/ Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations]
- [http://www.harvardlawreview.org/ Harvard Law Review]
- [http://rooseveltinstitution.org/harvard Harvard chapter of the Roosevelt Institution]
References
# Zachary M. Seward. "Endowment Up 21 Percent". The Harvard Crimson. September 15, 2004. http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=503347
# "World University Rankings". The Times Educational Supplement. http://www.thes.co.uk/worldrankings/
# Daniel J. T. Schuker. "Admissions Rate Sets New Low". The Harvard Crimson. April 4, 2005. http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=506804
# Don Peck. "The Selectivity Illusion". The Atlantic Monthly. November 2003. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200311/peck
# "The Best Graduate Schools 2006". U.S. News & World Report. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/rankindex_brief.php
# Rebecca D. O'Brien. "Kerry Tops Crimson Poll". The Harvard Crimson. October 29, 2004. http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=504151
# Ty Burr. "Reel Boston". The Boston Globe. February 27, 2005. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2005/02/27/reel_boston/
# Linda Wertheimer. "Harvard Grade Inflation". All Things Considered. National Public Radio. November 21, 2001. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1133702
# Rebecca M. Milzoff, Amit R. Paley, and Brendan J. Reed. "Grade Inflation is Real". Fifteen Minutes. March 1, 2001. http://www.thecrimson.com/fmarchives/fm_03_01_2001/article4A.html
# "Princeton becomes first to formally combat grade inflation". Associated Press. April 26, 2004. http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2004-04-26-princeton-grades_x.htm
# David L. Hicks. "Should Our Colleges Be Ranked?" Letter to The New York Times. September 20, 2002. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9803E5D71130F933A1575AC0A9649C8B63
# John Merrow. "Grade Inflation: It's Not Just an Issue for the Ivy League". Carnegie Perspectives. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. June 2004. http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/perspectives/perspectives2004.June.htm
# Mark Alden Branch. "Who's Teaching Whom?" Yale Alumni Magazine. Summer 1999 http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/99_07/GESO.html
# http://www.dartreview.com/archives/1998/04/29/harvard_research_and_destroy.php
# Bok, in Derek Bok, Universities in the Marketplace, Princeton (2003)
# Rosovsky, in Henry Rosovsky, The University: An Owner's Manual, Norton (1990)
# John Trumpbour, ed., How Harvard Rules, South End (1989)
# http://www.digitas.harvard.edu/~perspy/old/issues/1997/nov/second.html
# http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/01/education/01college.html
# http://www.cfoeurope.com/displayStory.cfm/1777470
# http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=503493
Category:Association of American Universities
Category:Ivy League
Category:New England Association of Schools %26 Colleges
Category:Colonial colleges
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ko:하버드 대학교
ja:ハーバード大学
Harvard College overlooking one of the buildings of Harvard College]]
Harvard College is the main undergraduate section of Harvard University and the oldest part of the University, having been founded in 1636. The College is part of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which also contains the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the Harvard Extension School. Of the seven presidents who have been Harvard graduates, five (John and John Quincy Adams, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, and John Kennedy) have come from the College.
In accordance with the American norm, the college remains the emotional heart of the university, and people often confuse the two; therefore, see Harvard University for more information relevant to life, academics, etc. at Harvard College.
History
The name Harvard College dates to 1638. In that year, the two-year-old school, which had yet to graduate its first students, was named in honor of the recently deceased John Harvard, a minister from nearby Charlestown, who in his will had bequeathed to it his library and a sum of money. In the understanding of its members at the time, the name "Harvard College" probably referred to the first (as they foresaw it) of a number of colleges which would someday make up a university along the lines of Oxford or Cambridge. The American usage of the word college had not yet developed: to the founders of Harvard, a college was an association of teachers and scholars for education, room, and board. Only a university could examine for and grant degrees; nonetheless, unhampered by this technicality, Harvard graduated its first students in 1642.
But no further colleges were founded beside it; and as Harvard began to grant higher degrees in the late eighteenth century, people started to call it "Harvard University." "Harvard College" survived, nonetheless; in accordance with the newly-emerging American usage of the words, it was the undergraduate division of the university—which was not a collection of similar colleges, but a collection of unique schools, each teaching a different subject.
Harvard's principal governing board (which happens to be the oldest continuous corporation in the western hemisphere) still goes by its original name of "The President and Fellows of Harvard College" even though it has charge of the entire university and the "fellows" today are simply external trustees such as those who govern most American educational bodies—not residential educators like the fellows of an Oxbridge college. In current Harvard parlance, this governing board is frequently referred to simply as The Harvard Corporation.
House system
Nearly all students at Harvard College live on campus. First-year students live in dormitories in or near Harvard Yard (see List of Harvard dormitories). Upperclass students live mainly in a system of twelve residential "Houses", which serve as administrative units of the College as well as dormitories. Each house is presided over by a "Master"—a senior faculty member who is responsible for guiding the social life and community of the House—and a "Senior Tutor", who acts as dean of the students in the House in its administrative role.
The House system was instituted by Harvard president Abbott Lawrence Lowell in the 1930s, although the number of Houses, their demographics, and the methods by which students are assigned to particular Houses have all changed drastically since the founding of the system. Funds for the Houses were donated by Edward Harkness, a Yale graduate, who had previously failed to persuade Yale of its merits (but which later adopted a very similar "college" system). Lowell modeled it on the system of constituent colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, and the Houses borrow terminology from Oxford and Cambridge such as Junior Common Room (the set of undergraduates affiliated with a House) and Senior Common Room (the Master, Senior Tutor, and other faculty members, advisors, and graduate students associated with the House). Non-faculty members of the Senior Common Room of a House are given the title "Tutor".
Nine of the Houses are situated south of Harvard Yard, near the busy commercial district of Harvard Square, along or close to the northern banks of the Charles River, and so are known colloquially as the River Houses. These are:
- Adams House [http://hcs.harvard.edu/~adams/], named for several alumni of that name, including U. S. President John Adams;
- Dunster House, named for Harvard's first President, Henry Dunster;
- Eliot House, named for Harvard President Charles William Eliot;
- Kirkland House, named for Harvard President John Thornton Kirkland;
- Leverett House, named for Harvard President John Leverett;
- Lowell House, said to be named for the Harvard-affiliated Lowell family in general (but the most obvious reference is to Abbott Lawrence Lowell);
- Mather House, named for Harvard President Increase Mather;
- Quincy House, named for Harvard President (and sometime mayor of Boston) Josiah Quincy III;
- Winthrop House, more officially called John Winthrop House, named for two famous men of that name: Massachusetts Bay Colony founder John Winthrop and his great-great-great-grandson John Winthrop, 2nd Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy
The remainder of the residential Houses are located around Harvard's Quadrangle (or "the Quad", formerly the "Radcliffe Quadrangle"), in a more suburban residential neighborhood half a mile (800 m) northwest of Harvard Yard. These housed Radcliffe College students until Radcliffe merged its residential system with Harvard. They are:
- Cabot House, previously called South House, renamed in 1983 for Harvard donors Thomas Dudley Cabot and Virginia Cabot;
- Currier House, named for Radcliffe alumna Audrey Bruce Currier;
- Pforzheimer House, often called PfoHo for short, previously called North House, renamed in 1995 for Harvard donors Carl and Carol Pforzheimer
There is a thirteenth House, Dudley House [http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~dudley/], which is nonresidential but fulfills, for some graduate students and off-campus undergraduates (including members of the [http://hcs.harvard.edu/~dudcoop/ Dudley Co-op]) the same administrative and social functions as the residential Houses do for undergraduates who live on campus. It is named after Thomas Dudley, who signed the charter of Harvard College when he was Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Tentative plans have been proposed for expanding the House system using land owned by Harvard in Allston, Massachusetts, across the Charles River from the River Houses. Suggestions include moving the Quadrangle Houses to Allston and building up to eight new Houses there. It has not yet been decided whether any of these proposals will be adopted.
Harvard's residential houses are paired with Yale's residential colleges in sister relationships; see the Harvard-Yale sister colleges article for more information.
Concentrations
Majors at Harvard College are known as concentrations. As of 2003, Harvard College offered 41 different concentrations:
Harvard College does not provide for unrelated secondary majors or double majors. Joint concentrations with a primary and secondary departmental focus are allowed by many departments provided the student can demonstrate how he/she intends to combine the subjects meaningfully.
Other special concentrations include the Mind/Brain/Behavior Interfaculty Initiative, a certification program in Neurosciences run jointly by the departments of Anthropology, Biochemical Sciences, Biology, Computer Science, History of Science, Linguistics, Philosophy, and Psychology. In 2005, Harvard College and the New England Conservatory will begin offering a joint 5-year program for a combined Harvard Bachelor's degree and NEC Master of Arts.
Organizations
Harvard has hundreds of student organizations. Every spring there is an "Arts First week", founded by John Lithgow during which arts and culture organizations show off performances, cook meals, or present other work; in 2005 over 40% of students participated in at least one Arts First event. Notable organizations include the daily newspaper The Harvard Crimson, the humor magazine the Harvard Lampoon. the a'cappella group the Krokodiloes, and the umbrella service group Phillips Brooks House.
Category:Harvard University
University
A university is an institution of higher education and of research, which grants academic degrees. A university provides both tertiary and quaternary education. University is derived from the Latin universitas, meaning corporation (since the first medieval European universities were simply groups of scholars).
medieval European universities]
History
Because of the above definition, the oldest universities in the world were all European, as the awarding of academic degrees was not a custom of older institutions of learning in Asia and Africa. However, institutions of higher learning considerably older than the most ancient European universities existed in countries such as China, Egypt and India.
The Academy, founded in 387 BC by the Greek philosopher Plato in the grove of Academos near Athens, taught its students philosophy, mathematics, and gymnastics, and is sometimes considered a forerunner of modern European universities. Other Greek cities with notable educational institutions include Kos (the home of Hippocrates), which had a medical school, and Rhodes, which had philosophical schools. Another famous classical university was the Museum and Library of Alexandria.
About a thousand years after Plato, institutions bearing a resemblance to the modern university existed in Persia and the Islamic world, notably the Academy of Gundishapur and later also al-Azhar University in Cairo.
In Asia, there were a number of institutions of higher learning that vaguely resembled universities in the Western sense of the word. In general, these are of considerable antiquity, predating western institutions of higher learning by centuries. In China, it's recorded that the education system had been established during the Yu period (2257 BC - 2208 BC) and the imperial central academy was named Shangyang (Shang means higher and Yang means school) at the time. The higher learning institution - imperial central academy, was called Piyong in Zhou Dynasty (1046 BC - 249 BC), Taixue in Han Dynasty (202 - 220) and Guozijian in Sui dynasty. For example, Nanjing University traces its source back to the imperial central academy at Nanking founded in 258 by the Kingdom of Wu. The early Chinese state depended upon literate, educated officials for operation of the empire, and an imperial examination was established in the Sui Dynasty (581 -618) for evaluating and selecting officials from the general populace. The ancient cities of Nalanda, Vikramasila, Kanchipura and Takshasila were greatly reputed centres of learning in the east, with students from all over Asia. In particular, Nalanda was a famous center of Buddhist scholarship, and as such it attracted a vast number of Buddhist scholars from China, central Asia and Southeast Asia.
In the Carolingian period, a famous academy was created by Charlemagne for the purpose of educating the children of aristocrats to help train the professionals needed to run an empire. It was a foreshadow of the rise of the University in the 11th century.
The first European medieval university was the University of Magnaura in Constantinople
(now Istanbul, Turkey), founded in 849 by the emperor Bardas, followed by the University of Salerno (9th century)University of Bologna (1088) in Bologna, Italy, and the University of Paris (c. 1100) in Paris, France. Many of the medieval universities in Western Europe were born under the aegis of the Catholic Church, usually as cathedral schools or by papal bull as Studia Generali. In the early medieval period, most new universities were founded from pre-existing schools, usually when these schools were deemed to have become primarly sites of higher education. Many historians state that universities and cathedral schools were a continuation of the interest in learning promoted by monasteries.
In Europe, young men proceeded to the university when they had completed the study of the trivium–the preparatory arts of grammar, rhetoric, and logic–and the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. (See degrees of Oxford University for the history of how the trivium and quadrivium developed in relation to degrees, especially in anglophone universities).
Universities are generally established by statute or charter. In the United Kingdom, for instance, a university is instituted by Act of Parliament or Royal Charter; in either case generally with the approval of Privy Council, and only such recognized bodies can award degrees of any kind.
Universities around the world
The funding and organisation of Universities is very different in different countries around the world. In some countries Universities are predominantly funded by the state, while in others funding may come from donors or from fees which students attending the University must pay. In some countries the vast majority of students attend University in their local town, while in other countries Universities attract students from all over the world, and may provide University accommodation for their students.
Universities and student life in different countries
- British universities
- Dutch universities
- French universities
- Irish universities
- Italian universities
- Spanish universities
- US universities
- Egyptian universities
Selective admissions
Unlike community colleges, enrollment at a university is generally not available to all. However, admission systems vary widely around the world, as discussed in the article college admissions.
Colloquial usage
Colloquially, the term university is used around the world for a phase in one's life: "when I was at university…"; in the United States, college is often used: "when I was in college…". See college, §3, for further discussion. In the United Kingdom and Australia "University" is often contracted to simply "Uni".
The usual practice in the United States today is to call an institution made up of several faculties and granting a range of higher degrees a "university" while a smaller institution only granting bachelor's or associate's degrees is called a "college". (See liberal arts colleges, community college). Nevertheless, a few of America's oldest and most prestigious universities, such as Boston College, Dartmouth College and the College of William and Mary, have retained the term "college" in their names for historical reasons though they offer a wide range of higher degrees.
See also
- Corporate universities
- List of colleges and universities
- List of oldest universities in continuous operation
- List of academic disciplines
- Medieval universities, including list of
- Muslim educational institutions
- Private university
- Public university
- School and university in literature
- University ranking
- College applications
- Wikiportal/University
- [http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikiversity Wikiversity]
Related terms
: academia - academic rank - academy - admission - alumnus - aula - [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/brain_farm Brain farm ]-Bologna process - business schools - Grandes écoles - campus - college - college and university rankings - dean - degree - diploma - discipline - [http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Dissertation dissertation] - faculty - fraternities and sororities - graduate student - graduation - lecturer - medieval university - medieval university (Asia) - mega university - perpetual student - professor - provost - rector - research - scholar - senioritis - student - tenure - tuition - undergraduate - universal access - university administration
References
- Walter Ruegg (ed), A History of the University in Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (3 vols) ISBN 0521361079 (vol 3 reviewed by Laurence Brockliss in the Times Literary Supplement, no 5332, 10 June 2005, pages 3-4).
Category:Educational stages
ko:대학교
ms:Universiti
ja:大学
simple:University
th:มหาวิทยาลัย
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in the Greater Boston area of Massachusetts, United States. It was named in honor of Cambridge, England, the town where its founding fathers had studied (at Cambridge University). Cambridge is most famous for the two prominent universities that call it home: Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 101,355, though even more people commute into Cambridge to work.
Cambridge is the county seat of Middlesex County, Massachusetts. However, the county
government was abolished in 1997. Although the county still exists as a geographical and political region, with Middlesex County courts and jails and such, county employees now work for the state.
About the city
Middlesex County, Massachusetts]
The diversity of the population is striking. Residents, known as Cantabrigians (although the term isn't in common currency as it is in Cambridge, England), range from distinguished Harvard professors to working-class families to immigrants from around the world.
This diversity contributes to the liberal atmosphere, and may be compared to Berkeley, California, in some respects. It is sometimes referred to as the "People's Republic of Cambridge" because of the city's famously liberal politics; The city, as it grows wealthier, has not yet lost its very liberal political culture.
Cambridge has been called the "City of Squares" by some, as most of its commercial districts are major street intersections known as squares. Each of the squares acts as something of a neighborhood center. These include:
- Kendall Square, formed by the junction of Broadway, Main Street, and Third Street. Just over the Longfellow Bridge from Boston, at the eastern end of the MIT campus. It is served by an MBTA Red Line station. Most of Cambridge's large office towers are located here, giving the area somewhat of an office park feel. A flourishing biotech industry has grown up around here. The "One Kendall Square" complex is nearby, but -- confusingly -- not actually in Kendall Square.
- Central Square, formed by the junction of Massachusetts Avenue, Prospect Street, and Western Avenue. This is perhaps the closest thing Cambridge has to a downtown, and is well-known for its wide variety of ethnic restaurants. Even as recently as the late 1990s it was rather run-down; it has become more gentrified in recent years, and continues to grow more expensive. It is served by a Red Line station. Lafayette Square, formed by the junction of Massachusetts Avenue, Columbia Street, Sidney Street, and Main Street, is considered a part of the Central Square area.
Red Line station
- Harvard Square, formed by the junction of Mass. Avenue, Brattle Street, and JFK Street. This is the site of Harvard University, the oldest university in the United States and is a major Cambridge shopping area (although not as exclusively so as in years past). It is served by a Red Line station. The neighborhood north of Harvard but east of Mass Ave is known as Agassiz in honor of the famed scientist Louis Agassiz.
- Porter Square, about a mile north on Mass. Ave from Harvard Square, formed by the junction of Mass. Ave and Somerville Ave, and including part of the city of Somerville. It is served by a Red Line station.
- Inman Square, at the junction of Cambridge and Hampshire streets in Mid-Cambridge.
- Lechmere Square, at the junction of Cambridge and First streets, adjacent to the CambridgeSide Galleria shopping mall. Perhaps best known as the eastern terminus of the MBTA Green Line subway.
The residential neighborhoods in Cambridge border, but are not defined by the squares. These include:
- Cambridgeport between Central Square and the Charles River
- Riverside between Central Square and Harvard Square
- East Cambridge
- North Cambridge
- Agassiz
- Avon Hill
- Mid Cambridge
- Brattle Street
At the western edge of Cambridge, Mount Auburn Cemetery is widely known for its distinguished inhabitants, its superb landscaping and as a first-rate arboretum.
Although one often sees references to the "Boston/Cambridge area" in print, Cambridge prefers to retain its own unique identity.
Economy
Although manufacturing was an important part of the late ninetheeth- and early twentieth-century Cambridge economy, today long-established educational institutions are its biggest employers; Harvard employs over 10,000 people and MIT over 7,000 as of 2004. As a famous cradle of technological innovation, Cambridge has also been home to legendary technology firms, including Akamai, BBN, Lotus Development Corporation (now part of IBM), Polaroid, and Thinking Machines. Over the years, as companies have grown, prospered, and then either moved away or gone out of business (see this [http://www.cambridgema.gov/~CDD/data/index.html#labor list] of employers for more information), Cambridge's large-scale employment has shifted tremendously. In 1996, Polaroid, Arthur D. Little, and Lotus were all top employers with over 1,000 people in Cambridge, and all declined or disappeared a few years later. As of 2005, alongside Harvard and MIT, health care and biotechnology dominate the Cambridge economy, with Genzyme, Biogen Idec, and Novartis the biggest players. Biotech's geographical locus is Kendall Square and East Cambridge, the center of much of the city's manufacturing a century before. Of the computer-industry firms that once dominated the Cambridge economy, only Akamai remains a top-20 employer. However, many smaller start-ups and entrepreneurial companies remain an important part of the Cambridge employment scene.
Geography
Cambridge is located at 42°22'25" North, 71°6'38" West .
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 18.5 km² (7.1 mi²). 16.7 km² (6.4 mi²) of it is land and 1.8 km² (0.7 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 9.82% water.
Cambridge is bordered by the city of Boston on its south and east (across the Charles River), by the city of Somerville and the town of Arlington to its north, and by the city of Watertown and town of Belmont to its west.
Law and government
Cambridge has a 9-member City Council, and a 6-member School Committee. The councillors and school committee members are elected every two years using the single transferable vote (STV) system. [http://www.cambridgema.gov/~Election/prop-voting.html] Since the disbanding of the New York City Community School Boards in 2002, the Council is unusual in being the only governing body in the United States to use STV [http://ccrc.wustl.edu/~lorracks/projects/techreport/subsection3_4_4.html]. Once a laborious process that took several days to complete, vote counting is now done by computer.
The mayor is elected by the city councillors, from amongst themselves, and serves as the chair of City Council meetings. The mayor also sits on the School Committee. However, the Mayor is not the Chief Executive of the City. Rather, the City Manager, who is appointed by the City Council, serves in that capacity.
Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there are 101,355 people, 42,615 households, and 17,599 families residing in the city. The population density is 6,086.1/km² (15,766.1/mi²). There are 44,725 housing units at an average density of 2,685.6/km² (6,957.1/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 68.10% White, 11.92% Black or African American, 0.29% Native American, 11.88% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, 3.19% from other races, and 4.56% from two or more races. 7.36% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There are 42,615 households out of which 17.6% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 29.1% are married couples living together, 9.7% have a female householder with no husband present, and 58.7% are non-families. 41.4% of all households are made up of individuals and 9.2% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.03 and the average family size is 2.83.
In the city the population is spread out with 13.3% under the age of 18, 21.2% from 18 to 24, 38.6% from 25 to 44, 17.8% from 45 to 64, and 9.2% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 30 years. For every 100 females there are 96.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 94.7 males.
The median income for a household in the city is $47,979, and the median income for a family is $59,423. Males have a median income of $43,825 versus $38,489 for females. The per capita income for the city is $31,156. 12.9% of the population and 8.7% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 15.1% of those under the age of 18 and 12.9% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.
Famous people associated with Cambridge
poverty line
poverty line
- Bhumibol Adulyadej, King of Thailand
- Ben Affleck
- Louis Agassiz
- Julia Child
- Noam Chomsky
- Matt Damon
- Doc Edgerton
- Charles Eliot
- Charles William Eliot
- Patrick Ewing
- Richard P. Feynman
- John Kenneth Galbraith
- Louise Glück
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
- Henry James
- William James
- Henry Kissinger
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- James Russell Lowell
- Yo-Yo Ma
- Charles Eliot Norton
- Tip O'Neill
- Robert Reich
- Frederick Hastings Rindge
- Rumeal Robinson
- Patrick Stewart
- Sam Waterston
- Norbert Wiener
- Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth
- E. E. Cummings
:For more, see [http://www.mass.info/cambridge.ma/famous_people.htm Famous People from Cambridge] on the Mass.info page
Colleges and universities
- Cambridge College
- Harvard University
- Lesley University
- Longy School of Music
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Schools
Cambridge is host to many public and private schools serving the children of Cambridge.
The 12 public elementary schools include:
- Amigos School
- Baldwin School
- Cambridgeport School
- Fletcher-Maynard Academy
- Graham & Parks School
- Haggerty School
- Kennedy/Longfellow School
- King Open School
- Martin Luther King Jr. School
- Morse School
- Peabody School
- Tobin School
There is only one public high school in Cambridge, which is Cambridge Rindge and Latin, a.k.a. CRLS.
There are many other private schools in the region, serving a variety of needs in both parents and students. Some examples are The Shady Hill School, Buckingham Browne & Nichols (a.k.a. BB&N) and German International School Boston (a.k.a. GISBOS).
Transportation
Road
Cambridge has an irregular street network due to the fact that many of the roads date from the colonial era. Contrary to popular belief, the road system did not evolve from longstanding cow-paths. Roads connected various village settlements with each other and nearby towns, and were shaped by geographic features, most notably streams, hills, and swampy areas. Several major roads lead to Cambridge, including the Massachusetts Turnpike (Exit 18), Route 2, Route 16 and the McGrath Highway (Route 28). Massachusetts Avenue runs the length of the city. The Charles River forms the southern border of Cambridge and is crossed by 11 bridges, 8 of which are open to motorized road traffic. (Part of the new I-93 bridges might also cut across a corner of Cambridge without providing any access.)
It can be hard to find a place to park in Cambridge. Main streets have metered parking. Parking on most other streets is restricted to residents with a sticker, even in areas without a parking shortage. Nonresidents cannot park in these spaces for any length of time, except on Sundays, or with a visitor permit lent by a resident. Streets are cleaned once a month (over two days, one day per side of the street), except January through March. If you park on the wrong side of street on that street's cleaning day your car will be towed. City policy discourages public off-street parking, in favor of reserved parking for residential and commercial tenants, so paid off-street parking is very expensive, and is nonexistent in many areas.
Mass Transit
Cambridge has one stop on the Green Line and five stops on the Red Line. Alewife Station, with its large parking garage ($5 per day as of November 2005), is an ideal place for visitors coming from the area to the northwest to leave their cars if their destination is near a T station, although like many other Boston-area commuter lots, it tends to fill on workday mornings, and there can be major delays driving out of the garage during the evening rush. There are also several bus routes, with major local bus terminals at Alewife, Harvard Square, Central Square, and Lechmere Square, and four trolleybus routes that originate at Harvard Square.
Cycling
Cambridge has several bike paths, including one along the Charles River, the Minuteman Bikeway and a linear park connecting Alewife and the Somerville Community Path. Bike parking is common and there are bike lanes on many streets, although concerns have been expressed regarding the suitability of many of the lanes. From time to time, police target their traffic enforcement efforts towards bicyclists who do not follow the Rules of the Road for vehicles, especially going through red lights, failure to stop for pedestrians at unsignalized crosswalks, riding on the wrong side of the street or the wrong way on a one-way street, and riding without a headlight at night. Cambridge has an active, official bicycle committee.
Intercity
Intercity buses and Amtrak stop at South Station, which is a short ride on the Red Line from Cambridge. Logan International Airport is easy to get to by car or taxi. It can also be reached via mass transit by transferring to the Silver Line SL1 bus at South Station.
See also: Boston transportation
Points of interest
- Charles River
- Cooper-Frost-Austin House
- Elmwood
- Harvard University
- Hooper-Lee-Nichols House
- Longfellow National Historic Site
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Fresh Pond
- Mount Auburn Cemetery
- Cambridge Common
External links
- [http://www.ci.cambridge.ma.us/ Official City Page]
- [http://www.cpsd.us/ Cambridge Public Schools Homepage]
- [http://www.cpsd.us/CRLS Cambridge Rindge and Latin Homepage]
- [http://www.ci.cambridge.ma.us/~CPL/ Cambridge Public Library]
- [http://rwinters.com/ Cambridge Civic Journal by Robert Winters]
- [http://www2.townonline.com/cambridge/ Cambridge Chronicle Online]
- [http://harvardfilmarchive.org/ Harvard Film Archive]
- [http://www.brattlefilm.org/ The Brattle Theater]
- [http://www.ccae.org/ Cambridge Center For Adult Education]
- [http://www.cambridgechamber.org/ Cambridge Chamber Of Commerce]
- [http://www.cambridgema.gov/GIS/FindMapAtlas.cfm Cambridge Maps]
- [http://www.cambridgerotary.org Rotary Club of Cambridge]
Category:Cities in Massachusetts
Category:Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Category:Cambridge, Massachusetts
Category:University towns
ko:케임브리지 (매사추세츠 주)
th:เคมบริดจ์
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the United States of America.
Name
Mass-adchu-et
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was named after the indigenous population, the Massachusett, whose name can be segmented
:mass-adchu-et
where mass is "great", adchu is "hill" and et is a locative suffix.
It has been translated as
:at the great hill, or at the place of large hills, or at the range of hills
with reference to the Blue Hills, or in particular, Big Blue Hill, located on the boundary of Milton and Canton, to the southwest of Boston.
Commonwealth
Massachusetts officially designates itself a "commonwealth", although "state" is commonly used.
History
Early settlement
Various Algonquin tribes inhabited the area prior to European settlement. In the Massachusetts Bay area resided the Massachusett. Near the Vermont and New Hampshire borders and the Merrimack River valley was the traditional home of the Pennacook tribe. Cape Cod, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and southeast Massachusetts were the home of the Wampanoag, whom the Pilgrims met. The extreme end of the Cape was inhabited by the closely related Nauset tribe. Much of the central portion and the Connecticut River valley was home to the loosely organized Nipmuc peoples. The Berkshires were the home of both the Pocomtuc and the Mahican tribes. Spillovers of Narragansett and Mohegan from Rhode Island and Connecticut, respectively, were also present.
The Massachusett, as were all the native Americans on the coast of New England, were heavily decimated by waves of smallpox both before and after the arrival of Captain John Smith in 1614. They had developed no immunity to the disease, a common story when Europeans visited parts of the world remote from Europe. If the tribe had survivors, there is no record of them after this point.
The Pilgrims from the Humber region of England established their settlement at Plymouth in 1620, arriving on the Mayflower. One of their first tasks was to form a government, the Mayflower compact. They also suffered grievously from the native smallpox, but they were assisted in their time of trouble by the Wampanoags under chief Massasoit. In 1621 they celebrated their first Thanksgiving Day together to thank God for their survival. About half survived the first year.
From that time on the English settlers spread rapidly into clearings and fields depopulated by smallpox, their numbers swelled by the harsh treatment of puritans by Charles I at home. The natives called them the Yengeeze, their pronunciation of English, which became yankee. A shared culture prevailed for a time.
Massachusetts Bay Colony period (1629-1686)
The Pilgrims were soon followed by the Puritans from the River Thames region of England, who established the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It eclipsed Plymouth in numbers and economy, the chief factor being the good harbor at Boston. The English Revolution began and Massachusetts Bay Colony became a Puritan stonghold.
Relations with the natives were still good at this time. In 1646 the Long Parliament gave John Eliot a commission and funds to preach to the Wampanoags. He succeeded in converting a large number. The colonial government placed them in a ring of villages around Boston as a defensive strategy. They were called praying indians. The oldest, Natick, was built in 1651.
Although the Puritans came to Massachusetts for religious freedom, they were not tolerant of any religion other than theirs. Pilgrims, as well as Anglicans, Quakers, and a handful of other denominations were grudgingly accepted in the Puritan communities for a time. Then Quakers were banned, and in 1660 four were hanged on Boston Common (see Mary Dyer). People such as Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams, and Thomas Hooker left Massachusetts and went South because of the Puritans' lack of religious tolerance. Williams ended up founding the colony of Rhode Island and Hooker founded Connecticut.
The colonists' policy toward natives fared no better than their religious tolerance. They treated natives as simpletons, leading at last to a sanguinary attempt to drive the English into the sea under Massasoit's son, Philip. King Philip's War (1675-1676), the bloodiest Indian war of the early colonial period, included major campaigns in the Pioneer Valley and Plymouth Colony. It took many years for the colonies of southern New England to recover from the effects of the war.
The praying indians had attempted to give warning, but they were scorned and ignored. When the blow fell in 1675 the praying indians were caught in the middle. Most left Massachusetts.
The colonists took those who stayed into internment on Deer and Long Islands in Boston Harbor, partly for their own protection. The government succeeded in preventing the colonists from massacring them there, but they died of deprivation and disease. Only 400 emerged in 1677, to reoccupy Wampanoag lands in southeastern Massachusetts.
Until they merged in 1691, Massachusetts Bay Colony and Plymouth Colony were separate colonies.
Dominion of New England (1686-1692)
In May of 1686, the Massachusetts Bay Colony came to an end, as Joseph Dudley became President of New England under a commission of King James II. He established his authority later in New Hampshire and the King's Province (part of today's Rhode Island), maintaining this position until Sir Edmund Andros arrived to become the Royal Governor of the Dominion of New England. Dudley continued on as a member of Governor Andros' council.
At the news of the accession of William and Mary, the Boston colonials rebelled. Andros and his officials were held on Castle Island and then sent back to England as prisoners. Andros was exonerated and went on to become Governor of Virginia (1692–98).
Royal Colony of Massachusetts (1692-1774)
Notable governors during this period were Thomas Hutchinson, Sir Francis Bernard, and Thomas Gage. Gage was the last British governor of Massachusetts.
Revolutionary Massachusetts (1760s-1780s)
Massachusetts was the first colony to revolt against the Crown, and thus the instigator of the American Revolution. On February 9, 1775, the British Parliament declared Massachusetts to be in rebellion, and sent additional troops to restore order to the colony.
In Boston on March 5, 1770, an African-American named Crispus Attucks, from Framingham, was killed (along with four other American colonists) at an event that became known as the Boston Massacre; Attucks is often considered the first casualty of the American Revolution.
Several early Revolutionary battles took place in Massachusetts, including the Battles of Lexington and Concord (where the famous shot heard 'round the world was fired), the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1780-present)
A Constitutional Convention drew up a Constitution drafted mainly by John Adams, and the people ratified it on June 15, 1780. At that time, Adams along with Samuel Adams, and James Bowdoin wrote in the Preamble to the Constitution of the Commonwealth, 1780:
"We, therefore, the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the goodness of the Great Legislator of the Universe, in affording us, in the course of His Providence, an opportunity, deliberately and peaceably, without fraud, violence or surprize, on entering into an Original, explicit, and Solemn Compact with each other; and of forming a new Constitution of Civil Government, for Ourselves and Posterity, and devoutly imploring His direction in so interesting a design, Do agree upon, ordain and establish, the following Declaration of Rights, and Frame of Government, as the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."
Other notable history
- Battles of the American Revolution - Battles of Lexington and Concord, Siege of Boston, Battle of Bunker Hill.
- Shays' Rebellion - Western Massachusetts uprising after the Revolution.
- First Governor of the Commonwealth - John Hancock was the first governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
- U.S. Constitution - On February 6, 1788, Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the United States Constitution.
- Slavery - According to a 1790 census, Massachusetts had a zero population of slaves.
- District of Maine - On March 15, 1820, Maine was separated from Massachusetts, of which it had been a non-contiguous part, and entered the Union as the 23rd State. (See Missouri Compromise)
- Massachusetts contains many historic houses.
- Invention of sports:
:
- Basketball was invented in Springfield, Massachusetts.
:
- Volleyball was invented in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
:
- The earliest reference to Baseball was also in Massachusetts, in Pittsfield.
Geography
Pittsfield, much more rural than Springfield, in the southern part of the valley, or Boston, which is on the coast.]]
Massachusetts is bordered on the north by New Hampshire and Vermont, on the west by New York, on the south by Connecticut and Rhode Island, and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean. At the southeastern corner of the state is a large, sandy, arm-shaped peninsula called Cape Cod. The islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket lie to the south of Cape Cod.
Massachusetts is known as the Bay State because of the several large bays that give its coastline its distinctive shape: Massachusetts Bay and Cape Cod Bay on the state's east coast, and Buzzards Bay to the south. A few cities and towns on the Massachusetts–Rhode Island border are also adjacent to Narragansett Bay.
Boston is the largest city, located at the inmost point of Massachusetts Bay, at the mouth of the Charles River, the longest river entirely within Massachusetts. Most of the population of the Boston metropolitan area (approximately 5,800,000) does not live in the city; eastern Massachusetts on the whole is fairly densely populated and largely suburban. Western Massachusetts is more rural and sparsely populated, especially in the Berkshires, the branch of the Appalachian Mountains which forms the western border of the state. The most populated part of western Massachusetts is the "Pioneer Valley," alongside the Connecticut River, which flows across Western Massachusetts from north to south.
Economy
Connecticut River produces the paper for Federal Reserve notes]]
[http://www.bea.gov/ The Bureau of Economic Analysis] estimates that Massachusetts's total state product in 2003 was $297 billion. Per capita personal income in 2003 was $39,504, 4th in the nation.
Its agricultural outputs are seafood, nursery stock, dairy products, cranberries, and vegetables. Its industrial outputs are machinery, electric equipment, scientific instruments, printing, and publishing. Thanks largely to the Ocean Spray cooperative, Massachusetts is the second largest cranberry producing state in the union (after Wisconsin). Other sectors vital to the Massachusetts economy include higher education, health care, financial services and tourism.
Demographics
Population
The population of Massachusetts in 2004 was 6,416,505 according to the US Census Bureau. There were 881,400 foreign-born residents living in the state in 2004. Since 1990 the population has increased 400,000, a growth of 6.7%
The bulk of the state's population surrounds Greater Boston, with approximately 5,800,000 people, and the North and South Shores. Historically, the coast has been much more urban than Western Massachusetts, which is very rural, save for the cities of Springfield and Worcester.
Race and Ancestry
The racial makeup of Massachusetts:
- 81.9% White
- 6.8% Hispanic
- 5.4% Black
- 3.8% Asian
- 0.2% Native American
- 2.3% Mixed race
The five largest reported ancestries in Massachusetts are: Irish (22.5%), Italian (13.5%), English (11.4%), French (8%), German (5.9%).
Massachusetts is the most Irish state in the nation and the only state in which people of Irish ancestry (especially in the Boston suburbs) are a plurality. Massachusetts Yankees of English ancestry still have strong presence in the state, including in Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard. Franco-Bay Staters are the largest group in much of western and central Massachusetts. Boston has a large African-American population and its largest immigrant group is Haitians. Fall River and New Bedford on the south coast have large populations of people with Portuguese and Brazilian heritages, with a growing Brazilian population in the Boston area. Census figures become less reliable due to the large, partly undocumented Brazilian population, estimated by some studies to approach 250,000 in Massachusetts. Census data does not account for this significant segment of the community because of confusing terminology, as Brazilians speak Portuguese and often do not consider themselves specifically Hispanic, Latino, White or African American. Lowell, in the northeast of the state, is home to the second largest Cambodian (Khmer) community in the country, outside of Long Beach, California. Although most of the Native Americans were decimated by disease and warfare, the Wampanoag tribe maintains a reservation at Aquinnah, on Martha's Vineyard and a non-recognized reservation at Mashpee. The Nipmuc maintain two state-recognized reservations in the central part of the state.
Religion
Although Massachusetts was initially founded and settled by staunch Protestants (Puritan separatists) in the 17th Century and remained a majority-White Anglo Saxon Protestant state for most of its history, it has since become the second most Catholic state in the Union (second only to next-door Rhode Island in its percentage of Catholic population) due to massive Catholic immigration (especially from Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Quebec, Puerto Rico) over the years. Christian Science began in Massachusetts. Today nearly half of the residents of Massachusetts are Roman Catholics and Protestants make up less than one-third of the state's population. The descendants of the Puritans are the Congregational/United Church of Christ members, who remain prominent in the state. Massachusetts also has one of the nation's largest Unitarian Universalist populations. Both of these denominations are noted for their strong support of social justice, civil rights, and moral issues, including strong and early advocacy of abolition of slavery, women's liberation, and legal recognition of gay marriage, though this may differ from their historical practices.
The religious affiliations of the people of Massachusetts (as of 2001) are shown in the table below:
- Christian – 79%
- Catholic – 47%
- Protestant – 31%
- Congregational/United Church of Christ – 4%
- Baptist – 4%
- Episcopal – 3%
- Methodist – 2%
- Pentecostal – 2%
- Other Protestant or general Protestant – 16%
- Other Christian – 1%
- Jewish – 2%
- Unitarian – 1%
- Other Religions – 1%
- Non-Religious – 17%
Government
Unitarian
The capital of Massachusetts is Boston and the current governor is His Excellency | | |
