Commerce.—Already by 1660 New England products were an “important element in the commerce and industries of the mother country” (Weeden). Codfish was perhaps the truest basis of her commerce, which soon came to include the West Indies, Africa and southern Europe. Of fundamental importance was the trade with the French West Indies, licit and illicit, particularly after the Peace of Utrecht (1713). Provisions taken to Newfoundland, poor fish to the West Indies, molasses to New England, rum to Africa and good cod to France and Spain, were the commonest ventures of foreign trade. The English Navigation Acts were generally evaded, and were economically of little effect; politically they were of great importance in Massachusetts as a force that worked for independence. Privateering, piracy and slave-trading—which though of less extent than in Rhode Island became early of importance, and declined but little before the American War of Independence—give colour to the history of colonial trade.
Trade with China and India from Salem was begun in 1785 (first voyage from New York, 1784), and was first controlled there, and afterwards in Boston till the trade was lost to New York. The Boston trade to the Canadian north-west coast was begun in 1788. The first regular steamship line from Boston to other American Atlantic ports was established in 1824. In commercial relations the chief port of Massachusetts attained its greatest importance about 1840, when it was selected as the American terminus of the first steamship line (Cunard) connecting Great Britain with the United States; but Boston lost the commercial prestige then won by the failure of the state to promote railway communication with the west, so as to equal the development effected by other cities. The decline of commerce, however, had already begun, manufacturing supplanting it in importance; and this decline was rapid by 1850. From 1840 to 1860 Massachusetts-built ships competed successfully in the carrying trade of the world. Before 1840 a ship of 500 tons was a large ship, but after the discovery of gold in California the size of vessels increased rapidly and their lines were more and more adapted to speed. The limit of size was reached in an immense clipper of 4555 tons, and the greatest speed was attained in a passage from San Francisco to Boston in seventy-five days, and from San Francisco to Cork in ninety-three days. The development of steam navigation for the carrying of large cargoes has driven this fleet from the sea. Only a small part of the exports and imports of Massachusetts is now carried in American bottoms.[7] The first grain elevator built in Boston, and one of the first in the world, was erected in 1843, when Massachusetts sent Indian corn to Ireland. When the Civil War and steam navigation put an end to the supremacy of Massachusetts wooden sailing ships, much of the capital which had been employed in navigation was turned into developing railway facilities and coasting steamship lines. In 1872 the great fire in Boston made large drains upon the capital of the state, and several years of depression followed. But in 1907 Boston was the second port of the United States in the magnitude of its foreign commerce. In that year the value of imports at the Boston-Charlestown customs district was $123,411,168, and the value of exports was $104,610,908; for 1909 the corresponding figures were $127,025,654 and $72,936,869. Other ports of entry in the state in 1909 were Newburyport, Gloucester, Salem, Marblehead, Plymouth, Barnstable, Nantucket, Edgartown, New Bedford and Fall River. A protective tariff was imposed in early colonial times and protection was generally approved in the state until toward the close of the 19th century, when a strong demand became apparent for reciprocity with Canada and for tariff reductions on the raw materials (notably hides) of Massachusetts manufactures.
At the end of 1908 the length of railway lines within the state was 2,109.33 miles. The Hoosac Tunnel, 5¾ m. long, pierces the Hoosac Mountain in the north-west corner of the state, affording a communication with western lines. It cost about $20,000,000, the state lending its credit, and was built between 1855 and 1874. The inter-urban electric railways are of very great importance in the state; in 1908 the total mileage of street and inter-urban electric railways was 2841.59 m. (2233.85 m. being first main track). The Cape Cod canal, 12 m. long, from Sandwich on Barnstable Bay to Buzzard’s Bay, was begun in June 1909, with a view to shortening the distance by water from Boston to New York and eliminating the danger of the voyage round Cape Cod.
Population.—The population of the state in 1910 was 3,366,416, the increases in successive decades after 1790 being respectively 11.6, 11.6, 11.9, 16.6, 20.9, 34.8, 23.8, 18.4, 22.4, 25.6, 25.3 and 20%.[8] With the exception of Rhode Island, it is the most densely populated state in the Union, the average number to the square mile in 1900 being 349 (in 1910, 418.8), and the urban population, i.e. the population of places having above 8000 or more inhabitants, being 69.9% in 1890 and in 1900 76.0% of the total population (in places above 2500, 91.5%; in places above 25,000, 58.3%). The female population is greater (and has been since 1765, at least) than the male, the percentage being in 1900 greater than in any other state of the Union (51.3%; District of Columbia, owing to clerks in government service 52.6%). In 1900 less than 1.3% of the population was coloured; 30.2% were foreign-born (this element having almost continuously risen from 16.49% in 1855), and 62.3% of all inhabitants and 46.5% of those native-born had one or both parents of foreign birth. Ireland contributed the largest proportion of the foreign-born (29.5%), although since 1875 the proportion of Irish in the total population has considerably fallen. After the Irish the leading foreign elements are Canadian English (18.7%), Canadian French (15.8%) and English (9.7%), these four constituting three-fourths of the foreign population. Since 1885 the natives of southern Italy have greatly increased in number. Of the increase in total population from 1856-1895 only a third could be attributed to the excess of births over deaths; two-thirds being due to immigration from other states or from abroad. Boston is the second immigrant port of the country. A large part of the transatlantic immigrants pass speedily to permanent homes in the west, but by far the greater part of the Canadian influx remains.
According to the census of 1910 there were 32 incorporated cities[9] in Massachusetts, of which 6 had between 12,000 and 20,000 inhabitants; 3 between 20,000 and 25,000 (Gloucester, Medford and North Adams); 11 between 25,000 and 50,000 (Maiden, Haverhill, Salem, Newton, Fitchburg, Taunton, Everett, Quincy, Pittsfield, Waltham, Chicopee); 7 between 50,000 and 100,000 (New Bedford, Lynn, Springfield, Lawrence, Somerville, Holyoke, Brockton); and 5 more than 100,000 (Boston, 670,585; Worcester, 145,986; Fall River, 119,295; Lowell, 106,294; Cambridge, 104,839).
Taking quinquennial periods from 1856-1905 the birth-rates were 29.5, 25.3, 26.0, 27.6, 24.2, 25.0, 25.8, 27.6, 27.0 and 24.2 per 1,000; and the death-rates 17.7, 20.7, 18.2, 20.8, 18.8, 19.8, 19.4, 19.8, 18.0 and 16.4.[10] Pneumonia and consumption, approximately of equal fatality (15 to 18 per 10,000 each), exceed more than twofold the diseases of next lower fatality, cancer and cholera infantum.
Of males (1,097,581) engaged in 1900 in gainful occupations 47.1% were engaged in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits (77.9 in every 100 in 1870 and 73 in 1900), 27.1 in trade and transportation, 14.2 in domestic and personal service, 7.4 in agricultural pursuits and 4.2 in professional service. The corresponding percentages for females (1,169,467) were 46.4 in manufacturing (in 1890, 52%), 32.3 in domestic and personal service, 13.6 in trade and transportation, 7.1 in professional service and 0.6 in agriculture. Formerly farmers’ daughters of native stock were much employed in factories; but since operatives of foreign birth or parentage have in great part taken their places, they have sought other occupations, largely in the manufacture of small wares in the cities, and particularly in departments of trade where skilled labour is essential. Household service is seldom now done, as it formerly was, by women of native stock. The federal census of 1900 showed that of every 100 persons employed for gain only 37.5% were of native descent (that is, had a native-born father). Natives heavily predominated in agriculture and the professions, slightly in trade, and held barely more than half of all governmental positions; but in transportation, personal service, manufactures, labour and domestic service, the predominance of the foreign element warranted the assertion of the state Bureau of Statistics of Labour that “the strong industrial condition of Massachusetts has been secured and is held not by the labour of what is called the ‘native stock,’ but by that of the immigrants.” After the original and exclusively English immigration from 1620 to 1640 there was nothing like regular foreign immigration until the 19th century; and it was a favourite assertion of Dr Palfrey that the blood of the fishing folk on Cape Cod was more purely English through two centuries than that of the inhabitants of any English county.
With foreign immigration the strength of the Roman Catholic Church has greatly increased: in 1906 of every 1000 of estimated population 355 were members of the Roman Catholic Church (a proportion exceeded only in New Mexico and in Rhode Island; 310 was the number per 1000 in Louisiana), and only 148 were communicants of Protestant bodies; in 1906 there were 1,080,706 Roman Catholics (out of a total of 1,562,621 communicants of all denominations), 119,196 Congregationalists, 80,894 Baptists, 65,498 Methodists and 51,636 Protestant Episcopalians.
Reference has been made to “abandoned farms” in Massachusetts. The desertion of farms was an inevitable result of the opening of the great cereal regions of the west, but it is by no means characteristic of Massachusetts alone. The Berkshire district affords an excellent example of the interrelations of topography, soil and population. Many hill towns once thriving have long since become abandoned, desolate and comparatively inaccessible; though with the development of the summer resident’s interests many will probably eventually regain prosperity. Almost half of the highland towns reached their maximum population before the opening of the 19th century, although Berkshire was scarcely settled till after 1760, and three-fourths of them before 1850. On the other hand three-fourths of the lowland towns reached their maximum since that date, and half of them since 1880. The lowland population increased six and a half times in the century, the upland diminished by an eighth. Socially and educationally the upland has furnished an interesting example of decadence. Since 1865 (at least) various parts of Cape Cod have shrunk greatly in population, agriculture and manufactures, and even in fishing interests; this reconstruction of industrial and social interests being, apparently, simply part of the general urban movement—a movement toward better opportunities. What prosperity or stability remains in various Cape Cod communities is largely due to foreign immigrants—especially British-Americans and Portuguese from the Azores; although the population remains, to a degree exceptional in northern states, of native stock.
Government.—Representative government goes back to 1634, and the bicameral legislature to 1644. The constitution of 1780, which still endures (the only remaining state constitution of the 18th century), was framed in the main by Samuel Adams, and as an embodiment of colonial experience and revolutionary principles, and as a model of constitution-making in the early years of independence, is of very great historical interest. It has been amended with considerable freedom (37 amendments up to 1907), but with more conservatism than has often prevailed in the constitutional reform of other states; so that the constitution of Massachusetts is not so completely in harmony with modern democratic sentiment as are the public opinion and statute law of the state. The commonwealth, for example, is still denominated “sovereign,” and education is not declared a constitutional duty of the commonwealth. One unique feature is the duty of the supreme court to give legal advice, on request, to the governor and council. Another almost equally exceptional feature is the persistence of the colonial executive council, consisting of members chosen to represent divisions of the state, who assist the governor in his executive functions. Massachusetts is also one of the few states in which the legislature meets in annual session.[11] Townships were represented as such in this body (called the General Court) until 1856. Religious qualifications for suffrage and office-holding were somewhat relaxed, except in the case of Roman Catholics, after 1691.[12] Real toleration in public opinion grew slowly through the 18th century, removing the religious tests of voters; and a constitutional amendment in 1821 explicitly forbade such tests in the case of office-holders. Property qualifications for the suffrage and for office-holding—universal through colonial times—were abolished in the main in 1780. From 1821 to 1891 the payment of at least a poll-tax was a condition precedent to the exercise of the suffrage. An educational test (dating from 1857) is exacted for the privilege of voting, every voter being required to be able to read the constitution of the commonwealth in the English language, and to write his name. The property qualification of the governor was not abolished until 1892. In the presidential election of 1896, when an unprecedentedly large vote was cast, the number of voters registered was nearly 20% of the population, and of these nearly 82% actually voted. Massachusetts is one of the only two states in the Union in which elections for state officers are held annually. In 1888 an act was passed providing for the use in state elections of a blanket ballot, on which the names of all candidates for each office are arranged alphabetically under the heading of that office, and there is no arrangement in party columns. This was the first state law of the kind in the country. The same method of voting has been adopted in about two-thirds of the townships of the state. A limited suffrage was conferred upon women in 1879. Every female citizen having the qualifications of a male voter may vote in the city and town elections for members of the school committee.