The Boston Brahmins or New England Brahmin are members of Boston's historic upper class. From the late 19th century through the mid-20th century, they were often associated with a cultivated New England accent, Harvard University, Congregationalism and Unitarianism and to a lesser extent Episcopalianism, and traditional British-American customs and clothing. Descendants of the earliest English colonists who made their fortunes as merchants are typically considered to be the most representative of the Boston Brahmins. They are considered White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs).
Etymology
The phrase "Brahmin caste of New England" was coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., a physician and writer, in a January 1860 article in The Atlantic Monthly. It was part of a series of articles that eventually became his novel Elsie Venner, and the first chapter of the novel was about the Brahmin caste. The term is derived from brahmin, the chief priestly caste in the Hindu caste system. The appropriated term became shorthand to refer to the old, wealthy, and elite New England families of traditionally English Protestant origin that became influential in the development of American institutions and culture. The influence of the old American gentry has been reduced in modern times, but some vestiges remain, primarily in the institutions and the ideals that they championed in their heyday.
Characteristics
The nature of the Brahmins is described in the doggerel "Boston Toast" by Holy Cross alumnus John Collins Bossidy, first recited at a 1910 alumni dinner in the city:
Many 19th-century Brahmin families of large fortune were of common origin, having made their wealth as merchants and financiers; fewer were of an aristocratic origin. The new families were often the first to seek, in typically British fashion, suitable marriage alliances with those old aristocratic New England families descended from landowners in England to elevate and cement their social standing. The Winthrops, Dudleys, Saltonstalls, Winslows, and Lymans (descended from English magistrates, gentry, and aristocracy) were, by and large, happy with this arrangement. All of Boston's "Brahmin elite", therefore, maintained the received culture of the old English gentry, including cultivating the personal excellence that they imagined maintained the distinction between gentlemen and freemen, and between ladies and women. They saw it as their duty to maintain what they defined as high standards of excellence, duty, and restraint. Cultivated, urbane, and dignified, a Boston Brahmin was supposed to be the very essence of enlightened aristocracy. The ideal Brahmin was not only wealthy, but displayed what was considered suitable personal virtues and character traits.
The Brahmin were expected to maintain the customary English reserve in dress, manner, and deportment, cultivate the arts, support charities such as hospitals and colleges, and assume the role of community leaders. Although the ideal called on them to transcend commonplace business values, in practice, many found the thrill of economic success quite attractive. The Brahmins warned each other against avarice and insisted upon personal responsibility. Scandal and divorce were unacceptable. This culture was buttressed by the strong extended family ties present in Boston society. Young men attended the same prep schools, colleges, and private clubs, and heirs married heiresses. Family served both as an economic asset and a means of moral restraint.
Most belonged to the Unitarian or Episcopal churches, although some were Congregationalists or Methodists. Politically, they were successively Federalists, Whigs, and Republicans. They were marked by their manners and distinctive elocution. Their distinctive Anglo-American manner of dress has been much imitated and is the foundation of the style now informally known as preppy. Many of the Brahmin families trace their ancestry back to the original 17th- and 18th-century colonial ruling class consisting of Massachusetts governors and magistrates, Harvard presidents, distinguished clergy, and fellows of the Royal Society of London, a leading scientific body, while others entered New England aristocratic society during the 19th century with their profits from commerce and trade, often marrying into established Brahmin families.
List of Boston Brahmin families
Adams
Samuel Adams (1722–1803), Founding Father; second cousin of: John Adams (1735–1826), Founding Father and second President of the United States; husband of Abigail Smith Adams (1744–1818). John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), sixth President of the United States. Charles Francis Adams Sr. (1807–1886), Ambassador, U.S. congressman. Charles Francis Adams Jr. (1835–1915), Civil War general. John Quincy Adams II (1833–1894), lawyer, politician. Charles Francis Adams III (1866–1954), U.S. Secretary of the Navy. Charles Francis Adams IV (1910–1999), industrialist, first president of Raytheon. Timothy Adams, son of Charles Francis Adams IV. Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918), author. Brooks Adams (1848–1927), historian. Ivers Whitney Adams (1838–1914), founder of the oldest continuously playing professional baseball team, the Boston Red Stockings.
Amory
John Amory Lowell (1798–1881), merchant. Thomas Coffin Amory (1812–1889), lawyer, author. Thomas Jonathan Coffin Amory (1828–1864), Civil War general. Ernest Amory Codman (1869–1940), surgeon. Cleveland Amory (1917–1998), author.
Appleton
Patrilineal line: Daniel Appleton (1785–1849), publisher. Frances Appleton (died 1861), wife of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. George Swett Appleton (1821–1878), publisher. Jane Means Appleton Pierce (1806–1863), wife of U.S. President Franklin Pierce, was First Lady of the United States from 1853 to 1857. Jesse Appleton (1772–1819), second president of Bowdoin College John Appleton (1816–1864), assistant Secretary of State, diplomat, U.S. congressman. John Appleton (judge) (1804–1891), Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. John F. Appleton (1838–1870), lawyer and Union colonel in the American Civil War. John James Appleton (1789–1864), ambassador. Nathan Appleton (1771–1861), U.S. congressman and merchant. Nathaniel Appleton (1693–1784), Congregational minister. Samuel Appleton (1625–1696), military and government leader in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay. Samuel Appleton (1766–1853), merchant and philanthropist. Thomas Gold Appleton (1812–1884), writer and art patron. William Appleton (1786–1862), U.S. congressman. William Henry Appleton (1814–1899), publisher. William Sumner Appleton (1874–1947), philanthropist.
Other notable relatives: Thomas Storrow Brown (1803–1888), journalist, writer, orator, and revolutionary in Lower Canada (present-day Quebec). Edward Augustus Holyoke (1728–1829), educator and physician. Alice Mary Longfellow (1850–1928), philanthropist and preservationist. Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow (1845–1921), artist. Alpheus Spring Packard (1839–1905), entomologist and paleontologist. William Alfred Packard (1830–1909), classical scholar. Charles Storrow Williams (1827–1890), railroad executive. Edward H. Williams (1824–1899), physician and railroad executive.
Bacon
Robert Bacon (1860–1919), U.S. Secretary of State; father of Robert L. Bacon (1884–1938), member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York. Gaspar G. Bacon (1886–1947), politician; father of Gaspar G. Bacon Jr. (1914–1943), actor.
Bates
Originally from Boston and Britain: Benjamin Bates I (–1710), merchant banker, family patriarch. Benjamin Bates II (1716 – ), member of the Hell Fire Club. Frederick Bates (1777–1825), politician. James Woodson Bates (1788–1846), judge. Joshua Bates (financier), Barings Bank partner, managed many Brahmin family fortunes, advised Adams family on Court protocol. Edward Bates (1793–1869), U.S. Attorney General. Benjamin Bates IV (1808–1878), philanthropist, namesake and benefactor of Bates College.
Boylston Boylston Family Thomas Boylston (1644–1695), doctor, family patriarch. Zabdiel Boylston (1679–1766), physician. Ward Nicholas Boylston (1747–1828), benefactor, Harvard University.
Bradlee Bradlee Family Direct line:Sarah Bradlee Fulton Nathan Bradley I, earliest known member born in America, in Dorchester, Boston, Massachusetts, in 1631. Samuel Bradlee, constable of Dorchester, Massachusetts. Nathaniel Bradlee, Boston Tea Party participant, member of Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association. Josiah Bradlee I, Boston Tea Party participant; m. Hannah Putnam. Josiah Bradlee III (Harvard), m. Alice Crowninshield. Frederick Josiah Bradlee I (Harvard), Director of the Boston Bank. Frederick Josiah Bradlee Jr. (Harvard, 1915), on the first All-American football team at Harvard; m. Josephine de Gersdorff. Frederick Josiah Bradlee III, Broadway actor, author. Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (1921–2014) (Harvard, 1942), Chief Executive Editor of The Washington Post. Ben Bradlee Jr. (born 1948), journalist and writer. Joseph Putnam Bradlee (1783–1838), Commander of the New England Guards, chairman of the State Central Committee, Director and then President of the Boston City Council. Samuel Bradlee Jr., lieutenant colonel during the American Revolutionary War. Thomas Bradlee, Boston Tea Party participant; member of Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association; Member of the St. Andrews Lodge of Freemasons. David Bradlee, Boston Tea Party participant; Captain in the Continental Army, member of the St. Andrews Lodge of Freemasons. Sarah Bradlee, "Mother of the Boston Tea Party".
Brinley Brinley Family of Boston, Newport, Rhode Island, and Shelter Island, New York: Francis Brinley, Esq. (1632–1719), arrived from England in 1651 after the English Civil War, with his two sisters, children of Thomas Brinley, auditor to King Charles I&II, his original home became Newport's White Horse Tavern, Judge, book collector, land-owner (RI, MA, NJ), Governor's assistant, m: Hannah Carr (niece of RI Gov. Caleb Carr). Boston estate at Hanover and Elm, current site of Government Center. William Brinley, Esq. (1656–1704), first son of Francis, Judge in Newport, co-founder of Trinity Church, Newport, first Anglican church in RI, disinherited by father after marriage. William Brinley, Esq. (1677–1753), only child of Wm. Brinley, Judge in Monmouth, NJ, passed over for younger cousin Francis Brinley. John Brinley (1713–1775), Brinley grist mill owner in Oakhurst, NJ. William Brinley (1754–1840), Major in Revolutionary War. Sylvester C. Brinley (1816–1905), founded Brinley, Ohio (a.k.a. Brinley Station) in 1855. Thomas Brinley (1661–1693), second son of Francis, Boston/London merchant, co-founder of King's Chapel, Boston, first Anglican church in colonial New England. Eliakim Hutchinson (1711–1775), Judge, Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Suffolk County, and one of Boston's richest men, owner of Shirley Place (now Shirley-Eustis House) m:Elizabeth Shirley (daughter of MA Gov William Shirley). Colonel Francis Brinley (1690–1765): Colonel in Ancient & Honorable Artillery Company, merchant, land-owner (Datchet House/Brinley Place-Roxbury, Brinley Place-Framingham), one of the richest Bostonians of the 18th century, grandfather's heir, m: Deborah Lyde, granddaughter of Judge Nathaniel Byfield. Francis Brinley Fogg Sr. Esq. (1795–1880), m. Mary Middleton Rutledge of Middleton Place, TN state senator, started Nashville public schools, school board president, namesake Fogg School opened in 1875, a founder of Sewanee University of the South. and Christ Church Cathedral Nashville. Catherine Grace Frances Moody Nevinson Gore (1798–1861), English writer. Francis William Brinley (1796–1859), merchant, mayor of Perth Amboy, NJ, Surveyor of NJ state.