New England

(proper noun)

Collectively, the six states of the United States colonized by the English in the 17th century, namely Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

Related Terms

Examples of New England in the following topics:

  • Mill Towns and Company Towns

    • In the early and mid-19th century, mills proliferated in New England.
    • Beginning with technological information smuggled out of England by Francis Cabot Lowell, large mills were established in New England in the early- to mid-19th century.
    • "In the nineteenth century, saws and axes made in New England cleared the forests of Ohio; New England ploughs broke the prairie sod, New England scales weighed wheat and meat in Texas; New England serge clothed businessmen in San Francisco; New England cutlery skinned hides to be tanned in Milwaukee and sliced apples to be dried in Missouri; New England whale oil lit lamps across the continent; New England blankets warmed children by night and New England textbooks preached at them by day; New England guns armed the troops; and New England dies, lathes, looms, forges, presses and screwdrivers outfitted factories far and wide. " - Jane Jacobs, The Economy of Cities, 1969
    • Finally, the Great Depression acted as a catalyst that sent several struggling New England firms into bankruptcy.

  • Early New England Society

    • Early New England Puritan society was characterized by yeoman farming communities and a growing merchant class.
    • The New England colonies were located near the ocean's abundance of whales, fish, and other marketable sea life.
    • Some merchants exploited the vast amounts of timber along the coasts and rivers of northern New England.
    • Hundreds of New England shipwrights built oceangoing ships, which they sold to British and American merchants.
    • There was a shipyard at the mouth of almost every river in New England.

  • Commerce in the New England Colonies

    • Within a century, New England colonies had become a key part of an Atlantic trade network.
    • The New England Colonies were located near the ocean's abundance of whales, fish, and other marketable sea life.
    • Some merchants exploited the vast amounts of timber along the coasts and rivers of northern New England.
    • By the mid-18th century in New England, shipbuilding was a staple.
    • There was a shipyard at the mouth of almost every river in New England .

  • A Growing Society

    • Several factors contributed to the growth of the New England economy during the eighteenth century.
    • New England's economy grew steadily over the entire colonial era despite the lack of a staple crop that could be exported.
    • The benefits of growth were widely distributed in New England, reaching from merchants to farmers to hired laborers.
    • New England was an early center of trade in the New World's growing society.
    • Describe the economic situation in New England over the course of the colonial period

  • Plymouth

    • The colonies known as New England included New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
    • Unwilling to conform to the Church of England, many Puritans sought refuge in the New World.
    • In their “New” England, they set out to create a model of reformed Protestantism—a new English Israel.
    • New England mariners sailing New England-made ships transported Virginian tobacco and West Indian sugar throughout the Atlantic World.
    • Describe the founding and expansion of Puritan colonies in New England

  • The Middle Classes

    • In New England, the Puritans created self-governing communities of religious congregations of farmers (yeomen) and their families.
    • Most New England parents tried to help their sons establish farms of their own.
    • Migration, agricultural innovation, and economic cooperation were creative measures that preserved New England's yeoman society until the 19th century.
    • Saltbox-style homes of the middle class became popular in New England after 1650.
    • Differentiate between the economic activities of the middle classes of the New England, mid-Atlantic, and Southern colonies

  • The Colonial Elite

    • Other New England merchants took advantage of the rich fishing areas along the Atlantic coast.
    • Some merchants exploited the vast amounts of timber along the coasts and rivers of northern New England.
    • Hundreds of New England shipwrights built oceangoing ships, which they sold to British and American merchants.
    • As in New England, the majority of the elite in the Middle Colonies were merchants.
    • Wealthy merchants in Philadelphia and New York, like their counterparts in New England, built elegant Georgian-style mansions.

  • The Glorious Revolution in America

    • The Glorious Revolution led to the dissolution of the Dominion of New England and the establishment of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
    • King Charles II of England began taking steps in the early 1680s to reorganize the New England colonies.
    • Andros was extremely unpopular in New England.
    • He also enforced the Navigation Acts, laws that restricted New England trade.
    • Nicholson was deposed as lieutenant governor of the Dominion of New England when news of the Glorious Revolution reached North America.

  • Colonies in Crisis

    • The events of the Glorious Revolution in England had tumultuous repercussions for British colonies in America.
    • They arrested dominion officials as a protest against the rule of Sir Edmund Andros, the governor of the Dominion of New England.
    • Andros, commissioned governor of New England in 1686, had earned the enmity of the local populace by enforcing the restrictive Navigation Acts, denying the validity of existing land titles, restricting town meetings, and appointing unpopular regular officers to lead colonial militia, among other actions that were part of an attempt to bring the colonies under the closer control of the crown.
    • Furthermore, he had infuriated Puritans in Boston by promoting the Church of England, which was disliked by many Nonconformist New England colonists.
    • Royal authority was not restored until 1691, when English troops and a new governor were sent to New York.

  • Puritanism

    • Particularly in the years after 1630, Puritans left for New England, supporting the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and other settlements.
    • The Puritan migration to New England was marked in its effects in the two decades from 1620 to 1640, after which it declined sharply for a while.
    • From 1630 through 1640 approximately 20,000 colonists came to New England.
    • The movement of colonists to New England was of families with some education, leading relatively prosperous lives.
    • The first Puritans of New England disapproved of Christmas celebrations, as did some other Protestant churches of the time.