Among other important monuments are a group by J.Q.A. Ward commemorating the first proof of the anaesthetic properties of ether, made in 1846 in the Massachusetts General Hospital by Dr W.T.G. Morton; an emancipation group of Thomas Ball with a portrait statue of Lincoln; a fine equestrian statue, by the same sculptor, of Washington, one of the best works in the country (1869); an army and navy monument in the Common by Martin Millmore, in memory of the Civil War; another (1888) recording the death of those who fell in the Boston Massacre of 1770; statues of Admiral D.G. Farragut (H.H. Kitson), Leif Ericson (Anne Whitney), and Alexander Hamilton (W. Rimmer); and a magnificent bronze bas-relief (1897) by Augustus St Gaudens commemorating the departure from Boston of Colonel Robert G. Shaw with the first regiment of negro soldiers enlisted in the Civil War. There is an art department of the city government, under unpaid commissioners, appointed by the mayor from candidates named by local art and literary institutions; and without their approval no work of art can now become the property of the city.
The public library, containing 922,348 volumes in January 1908, is the second library of the country in size, and is the largest free circulating library in the world (circulation 1907, 1,529,111 volumes). There was a public municipal library in Boston before 1674—probably in 1653; but it was burned in 1747 and was apparently never replaced. The present library (antedated by several circulating, social and professional collections) may justly be said to have had its origin in the efforts of the Parisian, Alexandre Vattemare (1796-1864), from 1830 on, to foster international exchanges. From 1847 to 1851 he arranged gifts from France to American libraries aggregating 30,655 volumes, and a gift of 50 volumes by the city of Paris in 1843 (reciprocated in 1849 with more than 1000 volumes contributed by private citizens) was the nucleus of the Boston public library. Its legal foundation dates from 1848. Among the special collections are the George Ticknor library of Spanish and Portuguese books (6393 vols.), very full sets of United States and British public documents, the Bowditch mathematical library (7090 vols.), the Galatea collection on the history of women (2193 vols.), the Barton library, including one of the finest existing collections of Shakespeariana (3309 vols., beside many in the general library), the A.A. Brown library of music (9886 vols.), a very full collection on the anthropology and ethnology of Europe, and more than 100,000 volumes on the history, biography, geography and literature of the United States. The library is supported almost entirely by municipal appropriations, though holding also considerable trust funds ($388,742 in 1905). The other notable book-collections of the city include those of the Athenaeum, founded in 1807 (about 230,000 vols. and pamphlets), the Massachusetts Historical Society (founded 1791; 50,300), the Boston medical library (founded 1874; about 80,000), the New England Historic-Genealogical Society (founded 1845; 33,750 volumes and 34,150 pamphlets), the state library (founded 1826; 140,000), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (founded 1780; 30,000), the Boston Society of Natural History (founded 1830; about 35,000 volumes and 27,000 pamphlets).
The leading educational institutions are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the largest purely scientific and technical school in the country, opened to students (including women) in 1865, four years after the granting of a charter to Prof. W.B. Rogers, the first president; Boston University (chartered in 1869; Methodist Episcopal; co-educational); the New England Conservatory of Music (co-educational; private; 1867, incorporated 1880), the largest in the United States, having 2400 students in 1905-1906; the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy (1852); the Massachusetts Normal Art School (1873); the School of Drawing and Painting (1876) of the Museum of Fine Arts; Boston College (1860), Roman Catholic, under the Society of Jesus; St John’s Theological Seminary (1880), Roman Catholic; Simmons College (1899) for women, and several departments of Harvard University. The Institute of Technology has an exceptional reputation for the wide range of its instruction and its high standards of scholarship. It was a pioneer in introducing as a feature of its original plans laboratory instruction in physics, mechanics and mining. The architects of the United States navy are sent here for instruction in their most advanced courses. Boston University was endowed by Isaac Rich (1801-1872), a Boston fish-merchant, Lee Claflin (1791-1871), a shoe manufacturer and a benefactor of Wesleyan University and of Wilbraham Seminary, and Jacob Sleeper. It has been co-educational from the beginning. Its faculties of theology—founded in 1841 at Newbury, Vt., as the Biblical Institute; in 1847-1867 in Concord, N.H.; and in 1867-1871 the Boston Theological Seminary—law, music, medicine, liberal arts and agriculture (at Amherst, in association with the Massachusetts Agricultural College), all antedate 1876. The funds for Simmons College were left by John Simmons in 1870, who wished to found a school to teach the professions and “branches of art, science and industry best calculated to enable the scholars to acquire an independent livelihood.” The Lowell Institute (q.v.), established in 1839 (by John Lowell, Jr., who bequeathed $237,000 for the purpose), provides yearly courses of free public lectures, and its lecturers have included many of the leading scholars of America and Europe. During each winter, also, a series of public lectures on American history is delivered in the Old South meeting house. The public schools, particularly the secondary schools, enjoy a very high reputation. The new English High and Latin school, founded in 1635, is the oldest school of the country. A girls’ Latin school, with the same standards as the boys’ school, was established in 1878 (an outcome of the same movement that founded Radcliffe College). There are large numbers of private schools, in art, music and academic studies.
In theatrical matters Boston is now one of the chief American centres. The Federal Street theatre—the first regular theatre—was established in 1794, the old Puritan feeling having had its natural influence in keeping Boston behind New York and Philadelphia in this respect. The dramatic history of the city is largely associated with the Boston Museum, built in 1841 by Moses Kimball on Tremont Street, and rebuilt in 1846 and 1880; here for half a century the principal theatrical performances were given (see an interesting article in the New England Magazine, June 1903), in later years under the management of R. Montgomery Field, until in 1903 the famous Boston Museum was swept away, as other interesting old places of entertainment (the old Federal Street theatre, the Tremont theatre, &c.) had been, in the course of further building changes. The Boston theatre dates from 1854, and there were seventeen theatres altogether in 1900.
As a musical centre Boston rivals New York. Among musical organizations may be mentioned the Handel and Haydn Society (1815), the Harvard Musical Association (1837), the Philharmonic (1880) and the Symphony Orchestra, organized in 1881 by the generosity of Henry Lee Higginson. This orchestra has done much for music not only in Boston but in the United States generally. In 1908 the Boston Opera Company was incorporated, and an opera house has been erected on the north side of Huntington Avenue.
Boston was the undisputed literary centre of America until the later decades of the 19th century, and still retains a considerable and important colony of writers and artists. Its ascendancy was identical with the long predominance of the New England literary school, who lived in Boston or in the country round about. Two Boston periodicals (one no longer so) that still hold an exceptional position in periodical literature, the North American Review (1815) and the Atlantic Monthly (1857), date from this period. The great majority of names in the long list of worthies of the commonwealth—writers, statesmen, orators, artists, philanthropists, reformers and scholars, are intimately connected with Boston. Among the city’s daily newspapers the Boston Herald (1846), the Boston Globe, the Evening Transcript (1830), the Advertiser (1813) and the Post (1831) are the most important.
Industry and Commerce.—Boston is fringed with wharves. Commercial interests are largely concentrated in East Boston. Railway connexion with Worcester, Lowell and Providence was opened in 1835; with Albany, N.Y., and thereby with various lines of interior communication, in 1841 (double track, 1868); with Fitchburg, in 1845; and in 1851 connexion was completed with the Great Lakes and Canada. In 1840 Boston was selected as the American terminus of the Cunard Line, the first regular line of trans-Atlantic steamers. The following decade was the most active of the city’s history as regards the ocean carrying trade. Boston ships went to all parts of the globe. The Cunard arrangement was the first of various measures that worked for a commercial rapprochement between the New England states and Canada, culminating in the reciprocity treaty of 1854, and Boston’s interests are foremost to-day in demanding a return to relations of reciprocity. Beginning about 1855 the commerce of the port greatly declined. The Cunard service has not been continuous. In 1869 there was not one vessel steaming directly for Europe; in 1900 there were 973 for foreign ports. Great improvements of the harbour were undertaken in 1902 by the United States government, looking to the creation of two broad channels 35 ft. deep. Railway rates have also been a matter of vital importance in recent years; Boston, like New York, complaining of discriminations in favour of Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans and Galveston. Boston also feels the competition of Montreal and Portland; the Canadian roads being untrammelled in the matter of freight differentials. Boston is the second import port of the United States, but its exports in 1907 were less than those of Philadelphia, of Galveston, or of New Orleans. The total tonnage in foreign trade entering and leaving in 1907 was 5,148,429 tons; and in the same year 9616 coasting vessels (tonnage, 10,261,474) arrived in Boston. The value of imports and exports for 1907 were respectively $123,414,168 and $104,610,908. Fibres and vegetable grasses, wool, hides and skins, cotton, sugar, iron and steel and their manufactures, chemicals, coal, and leather and its manufactures are the leading imports; provisions, leather and its manufactures, cotton and its manufactures, breadstuffs, iron and steel and their manufactures are the leading exports. In the exportation of cattle, and of the various meat and dairy products classed as provisions, Boston is easily second to New York. It is the largest wool and the largest fish market of the United States, being in each second in the world to London only.
Manufacturing is to-day the most distinctive industry, as was commerce in colonial times. The value of all manufactured products from establishments under the “factory system” in 1900 was $162,764,523; in 1905 it was $184,351,163. Among the leading and more distinctive items were printing and publishing ($21,023,855 in 1905); sugar and molasses refining ($15,746,547 in 1900; figures not published in 1905 because of the industry being in the hands of a single owner); men’s clothing (in 1900, $8,609,475, in 1905, $11,246,004); women’s clothing (in 1900, $3,258,483, in 1905, $5,705,470); boots and shoes (in 1900, $3,882,655, in 1905, $5,575,927); boot and shoe cut stock (in 1905, $5,211,445); malt liquors (in 1900, $7,518,668, in 1905, $6,715,215); confectionery (in 1900, $4,455,184, in 1905, $6,210,023); tobacco products (in 1900, $3,504,603, in 1905, $4,592,698); pianos and organs ($3,670,771 in 1905); other musical instruments and materials (in 1905, $231,780); rubber and elastic goods (in 1900, $3,139,783, in 1905, $2,887,323); steam fittings and heating apparatus (in 1900, $2,876,327, in 1905, $3,354,020); bottling, furniture, &c. Art tiles and pottery are manufactured in Chelsea. Shipbuilding and allied industries early became of great importance. The Waltham watch and the Singer sewing-machine had their beginning in Boston in 1850. The making of the Chickering pianos goes back to 1823, and of Mason & Hamlin reed organs to 1854; these are to-day very important and distinctive manufactures of the city. The ready-made clothing industry began about 1830.
Government.—Beyond a recognition of its existence in 1630, when it was renamed, Boston can show no legal incorporation before 1822; although the uncertain boundaries between the powers of colony and township prompted repeated petitions to the legislature for incorporation, beginning as early as 1650. In 1822 Boston became a city. Thus for nearly two centuries it preserved intact its old “town” government, disposing of all its affairs in the “town-meeting” of its citizens. Excellent political training such a government unquestionably offered; but it became unworkable as disparities of social condition increased, as the number of legal voters (above 7000 in 1822) became greater, and as the population ceased to be homogeneous in blood. All the citizens did not assemble; on the contrary ordinary business seldom drew out more than a hundred voters, and often a mere handful. From very early days executive officers known as “select-men,” constables, clerks of markets, hog reeves, packers of meat and fish, &c., were chosen; and the select-men, particularly, gained power as the attendance of the freemen on meetings grew onerous. Interested cliques could control the business of the town-meeting in ordinary times, and boisterousness marred its democractic excellence in exciting times. Large sums were voted loosely, and expended by executive boards without any budgetary control. The whole system was full of looseness, complexity and makeshifts. But the tenacity with which it was clung to, proved that it was suited to the community; and whether helpful or harmful to, it was not inconsistent with, the continuance of growth and prosperity. Various other Massachusetts townships, as they have grown older, have been similarly compelled to abandon their old form of government. The powers of the old township were much more extensive than those of the present city of Boston, including as they did the determination of the residence of strangers, the allotment of land, the grant of citizenship, the fixing of wages and prices, of the conditions of lawsuits and even a voice in matters of peace and war. The city charter was revised in 1854, and again reconstructed in important particulars by laws of 1885 separating the executive and legislative powers, and by subsequent acts. A complete alteration of the government has indeed been effected since 1885. Boston proper is only the centre of a large metropolitan area, closely settled, with interests in large part common. This metropolitan area, within a radius of approximately 10 m. about the state house, contained in 1900 about 40% of the population of the state. In the last two decades of the 19th century the question of giving to this greater city some general government, fully consolidated or of limited powers, was a standing question of expediency. The commonwealth has four times recognized a community of metropolitan interests in creating state commissions since 1882 for the union of such interests, beginning with a metropolitan health district in that year. The metropolitan water district (1895) included in 1908 Boston and seventeen cities or townships in its environs; the metropolitan sewerage district (1889) twenty four; the park service (1893) thirty-nine. Local sentiment was firmly against complete consolidation. The creation of the state commissions, independent of the city’s control, but able to commit the city indefinitely by undertaking expensive works and new debt, was resented. Independence is further curtailed by other state boards semi-independent of the city—the police commission of three members from 1885 to 1906, and in 1906 a single police commissioner, appointed by the governor, a licensing board of three members, appointed by the governor; the transit commission, &c. There are, further, county offices (Suffolk county comprises only Boston, Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop), generally independent of the city, though the latter pays practically all the bills.
A new charter went into effect in 1910. It provided for municipal elections in January; for the election of a mayor for four years; for his recall at the end of two years if a majority of the registered voters so vote in the state election in November in the second year of his term; for the summary removal for cause by the mayor of any department head or other of his appointees, for a city council of one chamber of nine members, elected at large each for three years; for nomination by petition; for a permanent finance commission appointed by the governor; for the confirmation of the mayor’s appointments by the state civil service commission; for the mayor’s preparation of the annual budget (in which items may be reduced but not increased by the council), and for his absolute veto of appropriations except for school use. The school committee (who serve gratuitously) appoint the superintendent and supervisors of schools. The number of members of the school-board was in 1905 reduced from twenty-four to five, elected by the city at large, and serving for one, two or three years; at the same time power was centralized in the hands of the superintendent of schools. Civil service reform principles cover the entire municipal administration. The city’s work is done under an eight-hour law.