254 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, Massachusetts 012139-4285
U.S.A.
History of New England Confectionery Co.
New England Confectionery Co. is the oldest candy company in the United States. The company manufacturers such time-tested delights as Mary Janes, Canada Mints, Sky Bars, and its core product the venerable NECCO Wafer. Necco (as the company became popularly known for the word formed by its initials) expanded during the early and mid-1990s by acquiring confectioners Stark and Haviland, which more than tripled the organization's revenue base.
American Oliver B. Chase, with help from his brother, founded New England Confectionery Co. in 1847. Chase immigrated from England to the United States, where, among other pursuits, he invented a lozenge-cutting machine. Chase discovered that he could use the device to cut wafers of crunchy candy made with a relatively simple recipe of sugar, gelatin, and flavorings. His machine is now distinguished as the first American candy machine. Chase used his machine to set up a small factory in South Boston. He began manufacturing 'Chase Lozenges,' which were the forerunner to the renowned NECCO Wafers and other of Chase's lozenge-like candies. Two other local candy companies launched at the time were Daniel Fobes' Hayward and Company, founded in 1848, and Bird, Wright and Company (later called Wright and Moody), which was started in 1856. The three companies would join forces in 1901 under the New England Confectionery Company (Necco) banner.
The Chase brothers' first big hit was Necco Wafers, which were about the size of a quarter and came in rolls wrapped in glassine paper that resembled stiff wax paper. The wafers, the first candies ever to be sold in multipiece rolls, became hugely popular. Not only did they taste good, but they were surprisingly durable and had a long shelf life, which gave them an advantage over many other treats of the period. Even in warm weather the wafers could be manufactured and then transported over long distances without negatively affecting their flavor or texture.
Chase managed to build a successful company around his NECCO Wafers. Indeed, throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s Necco manufactured and shipped millions of wafers and the candies assumed their place in American history. The wafers, in fact, widely predated such other American candy icons as Hershey bars (1880s) and Tootsie Rolls (1890s). "[NECCO Wafers] were probably at least 30 years before any other American product that's still sold today in essentially unchanged form," noted Susan Strasser in the February 21, 1995 Wall Street Journal.
Fat-free and offered in eight flavors--the coveted chocolate NECCOs developed something of a cult following in the 1900s--NECCO Wafers held their own for 150 years in an often hyper-competitive candy industry. The treats were a favorite during economic depressions, for example, because a few pennies bought a roll of wafers that a frugal person could savor for days or dole out to children one or two at a time. In the 1930s Admiral Richard Byrd took two tons of NECCO wafers on a 1930s polar expedition, and, during World War II, the U.S. Government requisitioned Necco's entire output of the rugged NECCO Wafers for its soldiers. Still a favorite with many sweet tooths, the wafers proved versatile into the 1990s as well. Necco was selling wafers accidentally dropped on the floor for hog feed, for example, while another buyer used the discs on rifle range targets. Moreover, homemaking guru Martha Stewart trailblazed the use of wafers to build roofs for gingerbread houses. Other uses included poker chips, checkers, and toll-booth tokens.
NECCO Wafers remained the centerpiece of Necco's offerings throughout its long history and into the mid-1990s. Since the late 1800s, however, the company introduced a number of different candies, many of which achieved notable success. Necco is credited with the invention of Boston Baked Beans candy in 1875, for example, as well as with the introduction of the first rolled lozenges in 1866. Other successful inventions included Canada Mints, Mary Jane peanut-butter chew candies, and Sky Bars. Unveiled in 1938, the Sky Bar was the first multicenter candy bar. Necco introduced the candy with a sky-writing campaign to capitalize on the aviation craze of the time. Necco entries that didn't stand the test of time included Hoarhound Ovals, Jujube Monoplanes, Whangbees, Chocolate Need-Ums, Montevideos, and Climax Mint Patties.
Among the most successful and endearing Necco products during the 20th century was the renowned candy Valentines Day 'conversation hearts' that Oliver Chase's brother invented in the 1860s. It's probable that almost every American living in the mid-1990s had at least seen the tiny candy hearts. Inscribed with such short messages as 'Kiss Me,' 'Will You,' 'Buzz Off,' or 'Be Mine,' the hearts were a crunchy, chalky candy similar to NECCO Wafers and offered in an assortment of pastels. Necco introduced the hugely successful conversation hearts in 1902 and proceeded to sell billions of them. In the early 1990s, in fact, the company estimated that it was churning out a whopping eight billion hearts (including larger 'motto hearts') annually, accounting for roughly one-quarter of total sales. In the mid-1990s Necco was printing 32 different heart messages, many of which had been used since the early 1900s.
Necco profited for about 100 years with its mainstay wafers and variety of candy innovations. But by the mid-1900s the confectionery industry was beginning to change, and Necco was failing to keep pace. One trend was increasing consolidation in the industry. Necco itself had merged with two other Boston confectioners in 1901, as described above, and in 1933 the company had acquired Lovell & Covel Co., a small manufacturer of packaged chocolate goods. In 1961, moreover, Necco bought out Daggett Chocolate Company, a well-known candy maker that was started in 1888. But major candy companies in the mid-1900s were gobbling up their competitors and amassing huge manufacturing and distribution operations that allowed them to benefit from economies of scale. At the same time, the Necco organization had become somewhat stagnant, relying on existing products and paying little attention to the need to improve or update its aging production facilities. Necco even phased out production of its candy hearts during the 1950s and 1960s.
By the early 1960s Necco was losing money and careening toward bankruptcy. Recognizing the potential of some of Necco's brands was UIS Co., a New York holding company. UIS was founded by Harry Lebensfeld, who liked to purchase poorly performing companies and turn them around. He had started in 1945 by acquiring a desk manufacturer and had purchased some other companies--UIS would eventually become focused on the auto parts industry--before snagging Necco in 1963. Immediately after purchasing Necco, Lebensfeld eliminated unprofitable brands and raised prices. Then, in 1968 he installed a new management team headed by former auto industry engineer Domenic Antonellis. Antonellis spearheaded a turnaround that had Necco generating profits by the early 1970s and would keep the company healthy for the next three decades.
Antonellis achieved the renewal at Necco by upgrading production and investing heavily in what he viewed as high-potential brands and divisions. At the same time, he initiated an aggressive drive to control costs. Toward that end, Antonellis upgraded Necco's operations by spending as little money as necessary to maximize profits. Indeed, much of the company's equipment had been built early in the century and some furnishings even dated back to the 1800s. Antonellis jettisoned antique leather conveyor systems and old wooden troughs in favor of more current gear. But he kept much of the equipment that had been installed after the turn of the century, such as the giant cooking kettles and cast iron wafer-stamping equipment. Necco updated those old machines with electronic controls and other modern accessories.
Necco's old-fashioned offices and production operations make for an interesting sidebar to the Necco story. Its facilities in 1995 were somewhat of a candy-making museum. To make its wafers, Necco used four giant wafer-cutting machines estimated to have been made around the turn of the century, although nobody really knew for sure. The wafers were wrapped by hand and placed on old, dependable conveyor belts. Other Necco candies were made similarly, with decades-old equipment that the company updated with electronic controls under Antonellis' direction. Some of the company's historic fixtures were employees, such as 55-year Necco veteran Joe Wicks, also known as 'Mr. Candy Cupboard.' "We built this building in 1927, and it's a mausoleum. Look at those century-old walnut filing cabinets. Look at that doorknob," said Walter J. Marshall, Necco manager, in the Fall 1995 Invention & Technology. "We make four and a half billion Necco Wafers a year, and we make them on the equipment we brought with us when we moved here in 1927," Wicks observed.
Although Necco retained its old-fashioned appeal under Antonellis, it also made important changes. Evidencing Necco's new management strategy, for example, was its resurrection of the conversation hearts that Oliver Chase's brother had invented in the 1860s and Necco had discontinued in the 1950s. Necco started making the hearts in the 1970s under Antonellis' direction. When they decided to resume production, managers were able to find the old hand-forged brass cutters used to shape the hearts, but they couldn't locate the printing attachments. Necco managers, including Antonellis himself, worked on weekends for four years to get the line up-and-running. The effort paid off when the little hearts became a major source of revenue for Necco. Managers achieved similar savings by purchasing machines that other companies sold or discarded. A chocolate enrobing machine and metal detectors (to detect metal objects that fell into the candy) used in the 1990s, for instance, were bought from competing candy manufacturers.
Even Necco's corporate offices and facilities reflected the low-cost approach. Necco's offices and plant in Cambridge were still served by an old elevator system that opened out onto several floors filled with old copper and brass candymaking machines. Most of the executive offices sported bare concrete floors, although Antonellis enjoyed vintage linoleum in his suite. The company was also known for discarding very little, a policy that was demonstrated to have value in an amusing incident involving Massachusetts' then-governor Michael Dukakis. Olympia Dukakis, the Governor's cousin, claimed in a speech that she had worked for Necco for six months in 1959 and had been exposed to "awful" working conditions. An outraged Necco manager pulled her work file and sent it to the Governor. The file showed that Olympia had only worked at Necco for two weeks. "The company may not be in the fast lane," the manager wrote, as quoted in a Wall Street Journal article, "but we do provide jobs and benefits.... Please do not belittle [it]."
Necco profited during the 1970s and 1980s with its savvy manufacturing and operating strategy and proven line of traditional candies. By the end of the 1980s the company, which was still operating as a subsidiary of UIS Co., was generating about $25 million annually. After years of relatively stable gains, however, Necco surged during the early and mid-1990s. Importantly, in 1990 Necco acquired the Howard B. Stark Candy Co. for $11 million. Stark was a family-owned candy manufacturer founded in 1939. It produced the well-known Sweetheart Valentine hearts, 'Gummi' candies, caramel goods, and other confectionery products.
Stark was generating sales of about $22 million annually going into the 1990s, but a management switch in 1988 had failed to bring profits. Antonellis had been familiar with the company for years and had watched from the sidelines as it tailspinned into financial decay. Stark brought three factories--in Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Milwaukee&mdashø Necco, as well as about 140 employees. During the early 1990s Necco worked to whip Stark's operations into shape. It updated some of its production facilities and tweaked its product lines. At the same time, Necco invested to modernize some of its own operations. In 1993, for example, Necco installed an advanced new packaging system designed to speed up production and provide faster changeover to meet different packaging demands.
Necco posted sales of about $60 million in 1994. Revenue for 1995, though, was expected to surge toward the $100 million mark. That gain was primarily the result of a second major acquisition that Necco conducted late in 1994. In June of that year, creditors forced the shutdown of the Great American Brands candy factory in East Cambridge, not far from Necco's main plant. Three months later New England Confectionery Co. purchased the plant and reopened it as the Haviland Candy Co., which traced its origins to the 1929 formation of the Deran Confectionery Co. Antonellis rehired about 150 of the original 200-plus employees. "I hired no one outside of the people who were part of that (shut down) organization," he said in the July 10, 1995, Boston Herald. "They were an excellent group of people. It was a case of making them believe that they had a viable candy company and they had jobs," he added. Besides boosting Necco's revenue base, Haviland's boxed chocolates line diversified Necco's offerings.
Going into 1996, Necco was working to consolidate its recent acquisitions and streamline the overall company into an efficient, diversified candy manufacturer. 1997 would mark the 150th anniversary of one of the oldest companies in the United States. As they had been for nearly 150 years, Necco Wafers continued to be the company's centerpiece product.
Principal Subsidiaries: DMA Acquisition Corp.
Principal Operating Units: Necco; Stark Candy Co.; Haviland Candy Co.
Related information about New England
A region of NE USA, comprising the states of Maine, New
Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
The main area of English settlement in the 17th-c, several of the
colonies initially formed themselves into a New England
Confederation. A century later, the region was the centre of the
independence movement in the years before the American Revolution,
and at other times has been a leader in educational and
intellectual movements.
For other uses of this name, see New England
(disambiguation).
New England is a region of the United States located in
the northeastern corner of the country. It comprises the states of
Connecticut,
Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The region's most
populous city, as well as its business and cultural center, is
Boston.
The region was inhabited by indigenous peoples when English Pilgrims, fleeing religious persecution in
Europe, arrived nearly
four hundred years ago, at
the beginning of the 17th century. In the 18th century, New England
was one of the first North American British colonies to demonstrate ambitions of independence from
the British Crown,
although it would later oppose the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain. In the 19th
century, it played a prominent role in the movement to abolish slavery in the United States,
became a source of some of the first examples of American literature
and philosophy, and
showed the first signs of the effects of the Industrial
Revolution in North America."New England," Microsoft速 Encarta速
Online Encyclopedia 2006 encarta.msn.com 息
1997-2006 Microsoft Corporation. Together, the Mid-Atlantic and New
England regions are referred to as the Northeastern region of
the United States. New England is also a part of the greater
U.S.-Canada Atlantic Northeast
region.
History
New England has long been inhabited by Algonquian-speaking native
peoples, including the Abenaki, the Penobscot, the Wampanoag, and others. The Wampanoag occupied southeastern Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, and the islands of Martha's Vineyard
and Nantucket.
On April 10, 1606, James I of England
chartered the Virginia Companies of London and Plymouth. www.nps.gov/colo/Jthanout/TobaccoHistory.html Captain John Smith,
exploring the shores of the region in 1614, named the region "New
England"New England. Retrieved June 20, 2006, from Encyclop脱dia
Britannica Premium Service: www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9055457 in his
account of two voyages there, published as A Description of New England.
This 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."...joint stock company organized in 1620 by a charter
from the British crown with authority to colonize and govern the
area now known as New England." Retrieved July 13, 2006, from
Encyclop脱dia Britannica Premium Service: www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9055458 Shortly
afterwards, in December 1620, a permanent settlement was
established at present-day Plymouth,
Massachusetts by the Pilgrims, English religious separatists arriving via
Holland. Banished from
Massachusetts, Roger
Williams led a group south, and founded Providence, Rhode
Island in 1636. At this time, Vermont was yet unsettled, and
the territories of New
Hampshire and Maine
were governed by Massachusetts.
In these early years, relationships between colonists and Native
Americans alternated between peace and armed skirmishes. Six years
after the bloodiest of these, the Pequot War, in 1643 the colonies of Massachusetts
Bay, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut joined together 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 against possible wars with Native
Americans, the Dutch in the New Netherland colony to the west, the Spanish in the south, and the
French in New France to the north, as
well as to assist in the return of runaway slaves. Available at: www.coin-collecting.info/American/early.html (Accessed
14 August 2006). In 1686, King James II, concerned about the increasingly
independent ways of the colonies, including their self-governing
charters, open flouting of the Navigation Acts, and increasing military power,
established the Dominion of New England, an administrative union
comprising all of the New England colonies. Two years later, the
provinces of New York (New Amsterdam) and the New Jersey,
seized from the Dutch, were added. This tension culminated itself
in the American
Revolution, boiling over with the breakout of the American War of
Independence in 1776. copyright expired).
Aside from the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, or "New Scotland," New England is the only North American region to
inherit the name of a kingdom in the British Isles. Today, the
region is more ethnically diverse, having seen waves of immigration from Ireland, Qu辿bec, Italy, Asia, Latin America, Africa, other parts of the United States, and elsewhere.
The enduring European influence can be seen in the region, from
Massachusetts' use of traffic rotaries to the bilingual French and English towns of
northern Vermont and New Hampshire, as innocuous as the sprinkled
use of British spelling, and as obvious as the region's unique
dialect.
Geography and climate
New England's geography is the result of retreating ice sheets
that shaped the landscape thousands of years ago, leaving behind
rolling hills, mountains, and a jagged coastline. Mount
Washington, at 1,917 m (6,288 ft), in New Hampshire's White
Mountains, is the highest peak in New England. Vermont's
Green Mountains,
which become the Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts, are smaller
than the White Mountains. Valleys in the region include the
Connecticut
River Valley and the Merrimack Valley.
The region has many rivers and streams. The longest is the Connecticut River,
which flows from northeastern New Hampshire for 655 km (407 mi)
until it empties into the Long Island Sound. Lake Champlain, between
Vermont and New York, is the largest lake in the region.
The climate in New England is known for its unpredictability, and
it varies throughout the region. As of 2000, the total population
of New England was 13,922,517.www.planning.state.ri.us/census/pdf%20files/pdf/NE1800-2000.PDF
If New England were one state, its population would rank 5th in the
nation, behind Florida.
Western
Massachusetts is less densely populated than eastern
Massachusetts.
Southwestern Connecticut has grown rapidly in population since
1970, as many corporations formerly headquartered in Manhattan moved to nearby
Fairfield County to take advantage of lower taxes while
still staying within the general region, bringing jobs and "New
York transplants." After nearly 400 years, the region still
maintains, for the most part, its historical population
layout.
New England's coast is dotted with urban centers, such as Portland, Portsmouth,
Boston,
New
Bedford, Fall River, Newport, Providence,
New
Haven, and Bridgeport, as well as smaller cities, like Newburyport, Gloucester,
Biddeford,
Bath, Rockland, and New London.
The smaller fishing towns, like Gloucester, are popular tourist
attractions, as they tend to retain their historical character, and
often have colorful pasts.
Cape Cod, the signature
hook-shaped peninsula of Massachusetts, also a popular tourist
attraction, is lined with sandy beaches and dotted with bed and breakfast
tourist lodgings. Indeed, southern New England forms an integral
part of the BosWash
megalopolis, a
conglomeration of urban centers that spans from Boston to
- Providence, Rhode Island: 173,618
- Worcester, Massachusetts: 172,648
- Springfield, Massachusetts: 152,082
- Bridgeport, Connecticut: 139,529
- Hartford, Connecticut: 124,558
- New Haven,
Connecticut: 123,626
- Stamford, Connecticut: 117,083
- Waterbury, Connecticut: 107,271
- Manchester, New Hampshire: 107,006
- Lowell, Massachusetts: 105,167
During the 20th century, urban expansion has made the New York
metropolitan area an important economic influence on Fairfield
County and New
Haven in southwestern Connecticut.
Economy
Several factors contribute to the uniqueness of the New England
economy. Exports consist mostly of
industrial products, including specialized machines and weaponry, built by the region's
educated workforce.
New England also exports food products, ranging from fish to maple syrup. The U.S. Department
of Commerce has called the New England economy a microcosm for
the entire United States economy."Background on the New England
Economy." The metropolitan statistical area (MSA) with the
lowest rate, 2.5%, was Burlington-South Burlington, in Vermont; the MSA
with the highest rate, 7.9%, was Lawrence-Methuen-Salem MA NH, in Massachusetts and
southern New Hampshire.www.bls.gov/xg_shells/ro1xg02.htm#lf
New England is home to two of the ten poorest cities in the United
States: Providence, RI and Hartford, CT www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-19.pdf. Available at:
www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/Ag_Overview/AgOverview_VT.pdf
and Connecticut and Massachusetts seventh and eleventh for tobacco, respectively.U.S.
Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics
Service. Available at: www.bea.gov/bea/newsrel/gspnewsrelease.htm (Accessed 19
July 2005).
Politics
The early European settlers of New England were English Protestants fleeing
religious persecution. This is the strongest example of direct democracy in the
United States today, and the form of dialogue has been adopted
under certain circumstances elsewhere, most strongly in the states
closest to the region, such as New York, New
Jersey and Pennsylvania. Rotberg review REAL DEMOCRACY: THE NEW
ENGLAND TOWN MEETING AND HOW IT WORKS at democraciaparticipativa.net/libros/RealDemocracyNewEnglandTownMeeting.htm
(Accessed 19 July 2006).
New England and political thought
During the colonial period and the early years of the American
republic, New England leaders like John Hancock, John Adams, and Samuel Adams joined those in Philadelphia and Virginia
to assist and lead the newly-forming country. At the time of the
American Civil
War, New England, the mid-Atlantic, and the Midwest, which had
long since abolished slavery, united against the Confederate
States of America, ending the practice in the United States.
Henry David
Thoreau, iconic New England writer and philosopher, made the
case for civil
disobedience and libertarianism, and has been adopted by the anarchist tradition. A modern
example of this spirit is the Free State Project in New Hampshire.
While modern New England is known for its liberal tendencies,
Puritan New England was highly intolerant of any deviation from
strict social norms. Available at: www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/school-integration/boston/index.html
(Accessed 19 July 2006)
Contemporary politics
Today, the dominant party in New England is the Democratic Party, sending six Democrats to the U.S. Senate and sixteen
Democrats to the U.S. House of Representatives, compared to five
Republican senators and five Republican representatives,
respectively. In the 2000
presidential election, Democratic candidate Al Gore carried all of the New
England states except for New Hampshire, and in 2004,
John Kerry, a New
Englander himself, won all six New England states."2006 Political
Party Breakdown by State." Available at: www.thegreenpapers.com/G06/PPBDTraditional.phtml
(Accessed 19 July 2006). Additionally, in both the 2000 and 2004
presidential elections, every congressional district with the
exception of New Hampshire's 1st district were won by Gore and Kerry
respectively.
New England abolished the death penalty for crimes like robbery and burglary in
the 19th century, before much of the rest of the United States did.
Available at: www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/state/ (Accessed 19 July 2006).
although New Hampshire currently has no death row inmates and has not held an execution
since 1939. Available at: www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,145681,00.html (Accessed 19
July 2006).
Vermont was the first state to allow civil unions between same sex couples, and
Massachusetts was the first state to allow same-sex marriage
between same sex couples. In 2005, Connecticut also began to allow civil
unions.
As of 2006,
Massachusetts is the only state with a plan to adopt a system of
universal
health care for its citizens.www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/04/AR2006040401937.html
In 2006, Deval
Patrick, an African American, won the Democratic party's
nomination for Governor of Massachusetts. The southwestern part of
the state is largely suburban, and as part of the New York
metropolitan area, is culturally tied more with New York City than the
rest of the New England region. The remainder of the state,
however, is culturally similar to neighboring Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Cultural roots
The first European colonists of New England were focused on
maritime affairs such as
whaling and fishing, rather than more
continental
inclinations such as surplus farming. One of the older American regions, New England
has developed a distinct cuisine, dialect,
architecture, and government. clam chowder, lobster, and other products of the sea are
among some of the region's most popular foods.
Accents
The often-parodied
Boston accent (see
Mayor Quimby of
The
Simpsons) is native to the region. Many of its most
stereotypical features (such as r-dropping
and the so-called broad
A) are the result of influence of high-prestige English accents
on Boston's upper
class. The Boston accent and accents closely related to it
cover eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, though there
is of course significant dialect variation within this area.
Also found in New England is the distinctively conservative
dialect of Rhode Island
(parodied by Peter
Griffin and Lois
Griffin of Family
Guy). The accent family of western New England (most of
Connecticut, western Massachusetts, and Vermont) differs sharply
from the Boston accent to its east and the New York
accent to its southwest, but is thought to be closely related
to the so-called Inland North accent of the Great Lakes region due west
of it, to which western New England contributed many early
settlers.
Social activities and music
Bars
and pubs, especially those
with Irish themes, are popular social venues. Closer to Boston,
musicians from Ireland often tour pubs, playing
traditional Irish
folk music, usually
with a singer, a fiddler, and a guitarist. This area also has thriving hardcore, punk, and indie rock music scenes.
Surf rock was
pioneered by Dick Dale
of Quincy,
Massachusetts, and the Pixies, of Boston, influenced the grunge movement of
the 1990s. Dropkick
Murphys, from South
Boston, mix hardcore and punk music with Irish music in a style
known as Celtic
Punk.
In much of rural New England, particularly Maine, Acadian and
Quebecois culture also dominate the region's music and dance.
Contra dancing
and country square
dancing are popular throughout New England, usually backed by
live Irish, Acadian, or other folk music.
Traditional knitting,
quilting and rug hooking
circles in rural New England have become less common; church, sports, and town government are more typical social activities.
Media
New England has several regional broadcasting companies,
including New
England Cable News (NECN) and the New England
Sports Network (NESN) as well as the national cable sports
broadcaster ESPN in Bristol Connecticut. Its studios are located in
Newton,
Massachusetts, outside of Boston, although it maintains bureaus
in Manchester, New Hampshire; Available at: www.boston.com/news/necn/About/
(Accessed 19 July 2006).
The New England Sports Network covers New England sports teams
throughout the region, save for Fairfield County, Connecticut.New
England Sports Network. The first such institution, Harvard, was founded at Cambridge,
Massachusetts, to train preachers, in 1636. Yale University, in
New Haven was founded
in 1701 and awarded the first Ph.D. According to US News and World
Report, 8 of the nation's top-50 universities and 13 of its top-50 liberal arts
colleges are located in New England. These include four out of
the eight universities in the Ivy League (Harvard University, Yale University, Brown University, and
Dartmouth
College), Tufts
University, Boston College, Colby College, Bates College, Bowdoin College,the College of the
Holy Cross, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Middlebury College,
Williams
College, Amherst
College, Wellesley College, Wesleyan University, Trinity
College, Rhode Island School of Design, and others.
At the pre-college level, New England is home to a majority of the
most prominent American independent schools (also known as private schools), such as
Phillips
Academy in Massachusetts, St. Paul's School and Phillips Exeter
Academy in New Hampshire, the prestigious Choate Rosemary
Hall, Hotchkiss
School, Cheshire Academy, Hopkins Grammar
School, Avon Old
Farms and Loomis
Chaffee in Connecticut, and the schools of the prestigious
Independent School League. The concept of the
elite "New England prep school" and the "preppy" lifestyle is an iconic part of the
region's image.
New England states also fund their public schools well, with high
spending rates per student and teacher salaries higher than
elsewhere. Taken from the New York Post, available at:
www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/64304.htm (Accessed 19
July 2006).
New England is home to several prominent academic journals and
publishing companies, including The New
England Journal of Medicine, Harvard University
Press, and Yale University Press. Also, many of its institutions
lead the open access
alternative to conventional academic publication, including
MIT, the University of
Connecticut, and the University of Maine. Ralph Waldo Emerson
was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Henry David Thoreau
was born in Concord, Massachusetts, where he famously lived, for
some time, by Walden
Pond, on Emerson's land. Nathaniel Hawthorne, romantic era writer, was
born in historical Salem; Robert Lowell, Confessionalist poet and teacher of Sylvia Plath, was also a
New England native. Current U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall continues the line of renowned New England
poets. New England is also the setting for most of the gothic horror stories of
H.P. Real New England
towns such as Ipswich, Newburyport, Rowley, and
Marblehead are given fictional names such as Dunwich,
Arkham, Innsmouth, Kingsport, and Miskatonic and then featured
quite often in his stories.
The region has also drawn the attention of authors and poets from
other parts of the United States. John Updike, originally from Pennsylvania, eventually
moved to Ipswich, Massachusetts, which served as the model for
the fictional New England town of Tarbox in his 1968 novel Couples. Robert Frost was born in
California, but moved
to Massachusetts during his teen years and published his first poem
in Lawrence; Arthur Miller, a New York City native, used New England as the setting
for some of his works, most notably The Crucible.
More recently, Stephen
King, born in Portland, Maine, has used the small towns of his home
state as the setting for much of his horror fiction, with several
of his stories taking place in or near the fictional town of Castle
Rock. Just to the south, Exeter, New Hampshire was the birthplace of
best-selling novelist John Irving and Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code.
Rick Moody has set
many of his works in southern New England, focusing on wealthy
families of suburban Connecticut's Gold Coast and
their battles with addiction and anomie.
Largely on the strength of its local writers, Boston was for some years the
center of the U.S. publishing industry, before being overtaken by
New York in
the middle of the nineteenth century. Boston remains the home of
publishers Houghton
Mifflin and Pearson Education, and was the longtime home of literary
magazine The
Atlantic Monthly. Merriam-Webster is based in Springfield,
Massachusetts. Basketball was invented by James Naismith in
Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891.inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbasketball.htm
Volleyball was
invented by William G. Morgan in Holyoke,
Massachusetts, in 1895.www.volleyball.org/history.html The
earliest known written reference to the sport of baseball is a 1791
Pittsfield, Massachusetts by-law banning the playing of
the game within 80 yards of the town's new meeting house.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3710967.stm
Professional and Semi Professional Sports Teams in New
England
-
Baseball:
-
Major League Baseball
- Boston
Red Sox (Boston, Massachusetts)
-
International League (AAA)
- Pawtucket Red Sox (Pawtucket, Rhode Island)
-
Eastern League (AA)
- New Hampshire Fisher Cats (Manchester, New Hampshire)
- Portland Sea Dogs (Portland,
Maine)
- Connecticut Defenders (Norwich,
Connecticut)
- New Britain Rock Cats (New
Britain, Connecticut)
-
New York - Penn League (A)
- Lowell
Spinners (Lowell, Massachusetts)
- Vermont Lake Monsters (Burlington,
Vermont)
-
Atlantic
League (Independent)
- Bridgeport Bluefish (Bridgeport, Connecticut)
-
Canadian-American Association of Professional
Baseball (Independent)
- Brockton
Rox (Brockton, Massachusetts)
- Nashua
Pride (Nashua, New Hampshire)
- New Haven County Cutters (New
Haven, Connecticut)
- North Shore Spirit (Lynn,
Massachusetts)
- Worcester Tornadoes (Worcester, Massachusetts)
-
Football:
-
National Football League
- New England Patriots (Foxboro,
Massachusetts)
-
Af2(Minor League
Arena
Football)
- Manchester Wolves (Manchester, New Hampshire)
-
Basketball:
-
National Basketball Association
- Boston
Celtics (Boston, Massachusetts)
-
Women's National Basketball
Association
- Connecticut Sun (Uncasville, Connecticut)
-
American Basketball
Association(Independent Minor League)
- Cape
Cod Frenzy (Sandwich, Massachusetts)
- Vermont Frost Heaves (Burlington,
Vermont and Barre, Vermont)
-
Hockey:
-
National Hockey League
-
American Hockey League(AAA)
- Lowell
Devils (Lowell, Massachusetts)
- Bridgeport Sound Tigers (Bridgeport, Connecticut)
- Hartford Wolf Pack (Hartford,
Connecticut)
- Manchester Monarchs (Manchester, New Hampshire)
- Portland Pirates (Portland,
Maine)
- Springfield Falcons (Springfield, Massachusetts)
- Worcester Sharks (Worcester, Massachusetts)
- Providence Bruins (Providence, Rhode Island)
-
Soccer:
-
Major
League Soccer
- New England Revolution (Foxboro,
Massachusetts)
-
United Soccer Leagues
- New Hampshire Phantoms (Hampstead, New Hampshire)
-
USL Premier Development League
- Cape Cod Crusaders (Hyannis,
Massachusetts)
- Rhode Island Stingrays (Providence, Rhode Island)
- Vermont Voltage (St. Albans,
Vermont)
-
Lacrosse:
-
Major League Lacrosse
- Boston
Cannons (Boston, Massachusetts)
New Hampshire International Speedway (Loudon, New
Hampshire)
In the southwestern part of the state, many Connecticut
residents support the New York Yankees and other New York pro teams.
The region also has a rich heritage in high school and college
athletics. The Boston Marathon, run on Patriot's Day every
year, is a New England cultural institution. The following places
are replete with historic buildings, parks, and
streetscapes:
- Boston and its
surrounding
area
- Plymouth, Massachusetts
- Providence, Rhode Island
- Portsmouth, New Hampshire
- Newport, Rhode Island
- New
Haven, Connecticut
- Newburyport, Massachusetts
- Gloucester, Massachusetts
Educational
New England features four out of the eight historic Ivy League schools:
- Harvard
University in Cambridge
- Yale
University in New Haven
- Dartmouth
College in Hanover, New Hampshire
- Brown
University in Providence
The Five
Colleges are a consortium of five affiliated colleges in the
Pioneer Valley of
western
Massachusetts:
- Amherst
College in Amherst
- Hampshire
College in Amherst
- Mount
Holyoke College in South
Hadley
- Smith
College in Northampton
- University of Massachusetts Amherst in
Amherst
Recreational
The Appalachian Mountains run through northern New England
which make for excellent skiing. Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine
are home to various ski resorts.
Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard in
Massachusetts are popular tourist destinations for their small town
charm and beaches. All have very restrictive zoning laws to prevent
rampant sprawl and overdevelopment.
Acadia National
Park, off the coast of Maine, preserves most of Mount Desert Island
and includes mountains, an ocean shoreline, woodlands, and lakes.
In Connecticut, Fairfield was ranked ninth, while Stamford was
ranked forty-sixth. In Rhode Island, Cranston was
ranked seventy-eighth, while Warwick was
ranked eighty-third.money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2006/top100/
See also
- Extreme points of New England
- Amusement parks in New England
- Beaches
of New England
- Boston
accent
- Boston
slang
These were other colonial dominions of the same scale and
influence in the U.S.
Northeast:
- New
Netherland and New
Sweden before New England and Pennsylvania ascended.
References
- Adams, James Truslow. Retrieved May 11, 2005
-
The Washington Post, Mass.
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