Boston Brahmin
A Boston Brahmin is a member of Boston's traditional upper class.[1] Members of Boston's Brahmin class form an integral part of the historic core of the East Coast establishment, and are often associated with the distinctive Boston Brahmin accent, Harvard University, and traditional Anglo-American customs and clothing. Descendants of the earliest English colonists, such as those who came to America on the Mayflower or the Arbella, are often considered to be the most representative of the Boston Brahmins.[2]
The term was coined by the physician and writer Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., in an 1860 article in the Atlantic Monthly.[3] The term Brahmin refers to the highest ranking caste of people in the traditional Hindu system of castes. In the United States, it has been applied to the old, wealthy New England families of British Protestant origin which were influential in the development of American institutions and culture. The term effectively underscores the strong conviction of the New England gentry that they were a people set apart by destiny to guide the American experiment as their ancestors had played a leading role in founding it. The term also illustrates the erudite and exclusive nature of the New England gentry as perceived by outsiders, and may also refer to their interest in Eastern religions, fostered perhaps by the impact in the 19th century of the transcendentalist writings of New England literary icons such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, and the enlightened appeal of Universalist Unitarian movements of the same period.
Characteristics
The nature of the Brahmins is hinted at by the doggerel "Boston Toast" by Holy Cross alumnus John Collins Bossidy:
- And this is good old Boston,
- The home of the bean and the cod,
- Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,
- And the Cabots talk only to God.[4][5]
While some 19th-century Brahmin families of large fortune were of bourgeois origin, others were of 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 that were descended from landowners in England to elevate and cement their social standing. The Winthrops, Dudleys, Saltonstalls, Winslows, Lowells, 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 women and ladies. 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.[6][7] The ideal Brahmin was not only wealthy, but displayed what was considered suitable personal virtues and character traits. The Brahmin was expected to maintain the customary English reserve in his dress, manner, and deportment, cultivate the arts, support charities such as hospitals and colleges, and assume the role of community leader.[8]:14 Although the ideal called on him 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. The total system was buttressed by the strong extended family ties present in Boston society. Young men attended the same prep schools, colleges, and private clubs,[9] and heirs married heiresses. Family not only served as an economic asset, but also as a means of moral restraint. Most belong 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 once distinctive elocution, the Boston Brahmin accent, a version of the New England accent. Their distinctive Anglo-American manner of dress has been much imitated and is the foundation of the style now informally known as preppy.
Brahmin families
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 such as the Welds, Saltonstalls, Lymans, Sargents, Emersons, Winslows, Warrens and Winthrops. A few families are listed here.
Adams
- Samuel Adams (1722β1803): Founding Father
- John Adams (1735β1826): Founding Father and second President of the United States, husband of Abigail Smith Adams (1744β1818)
- John Quincy Adams (1767β1848): sixth President of the United States
- Charles Francis Adams, Sr. (1807β1886): Ambassador, U.S. congressman
- Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (1835β1915): Civil War general
- John Quincy Adams II (1833β1894): lawyer, politician
- Charles Francis Adams III (1866β1954): U.S. Secretary of the Navy
- Charles Francis Adams IV (1910β1999): industrialist, first president of Raytheon
- Charles Francis Adams III (1866β1954): U.S. Secretary of the Navy
- Henry Brooks Adams (1838β1918): author
- Brooks Adams (1848β1927): historian
- Ivers Whitney Adams (1838β1914): founder of the oldest continuously playing professional baseball team, the Boston Red Stockings
- Charles Francis Adams, Sr. (1807β1886): Ambassador, U.S. congressman
- John Quincy Adams (1767β1848): sixth President of the United States
Amory
- John Amory Lowell (1798β1881): merchant
- Thomas Coffin Amory (1812β1889): lawyer, author
- Thomas Jonathan Coffin Amory (1828β1864): Civil War general
- Ernest Amory Codman (1869β1940): surgeon
- Cleveland Amory (1917β1998): author
Appleton
Patrilineal line:
- Daniel Appleton (1785β1849): publisher
- Frances Appleton (died 1861): wife of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- George Swett Appleton (1821β1878): publisher
- Jane Means Appleton Pierce (1806β1863): wife of U.S. President Franklin Pierce, was First Lady of the United States from 1853 to 1857
- Jesse Appleton (1772β1819): second president of Bowdoin College
- John Appleton (1816β1864): assistant Secretary of State, diplomat, U.S. congressman
- John Appleton: Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court
- John F. Appleton: lawyer and Union colonel in the American Civil War
- John James Appleton (1789β1864): ambassador
- Nathan Appleton (1771β1861): U.S. congressman and merchant
- Nathaniel Appleton (1693β1784): Congregational minister
- Samuel Appleton (1625β1696): military and government leader in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay
- Samuel Appleton (1766β1853): merchant and philanthropist
- Thomas Gold Appleton (1812β1884): writer and art patron
- William Appleton (1786β1862): U.S. congressman
- William Henry Appleton (1814β1899): publisher
- William Sumner Appleton (1874β1947): philanthropist
Other notable relatives
- Thomas Storrow Brown (1803β1888): journalist, writer, orator, and revolutionary in Lower Canada (present-day Quebec)
- Edward Augustus Holyoke (1728β1829): educator and physician
- Alice Mary Longfellow (1850β1928): philanthropist and preservationist
- Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow (1845β1921): artist
- Alpheus Spring Packard (1839β1905): entomologist and palaeontologist
- William Alfred Packard (1830β1909): classical scholar
- Charles Storrow Williams (1827β?): Director of Railroad Transportation for the Confederate States of America
- Edward H. Williams (1824β1899): physician and railroad executive
Bacon
- Robert Bacon (1860β1919): U.S. Secretary of State
- Robert L. Bacon (1884β1938): U.S. congressman
- Gaspar G. Bacon (1886β1947): politician
- Gaspar G. Bacon, Jr. (1914β1943): actor
Boylston
Boylston family
- Thomas Boylston (b. 1644): doctor, family patriarch
- Zabdiel Boylston (1679β1766): physician
- Ward Nicholas Boylston (1747β1828): benefactor, Harvard University
Bradlee
- 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 Crowninsheld
- 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. Chevalier Josephine de Gersdorff
- Frederick Josiah Bradlee III: Broadway actor, author
- Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (1921β2014) (Harvard-1942): Chief Executive Editor of The Washington Post
- Frederick Josiah Bradlee, Jr. (Harvard-1915): on the first All-American football team at Harvard; m. Chevalier Josephine de Gersdorff
- 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"
Cabot
Chaffee/Chafee
Chaffee family, originally of Hingham, Massachusetts[17]
- Thomas Chaffee (1610β1683), businessman and landowner
- Jonathon Chaffee (1678β1766), businessman and landowner
- Matthew Chaffee (1657β1723), Boston landowner
- Adna Romanza Chaffee (1842β1914): U.S. general
- Adna R. Chaffee, Jr. (1884β1941): U.S. general
- Zechariah Chafee (1885β1957): philosopher, civil libertarian
- John Chafee (1922β1999): U.S. senator
- Lincoln Chafee (b. 1953): former U.S. senator, former Rhode Island governor, 2016 U.S. presidential candidate for the Democratic party
Choate
- Rufus Choate (1799β1859): U.S. senator
- George C. S. Choate (1827β1896): founder of Choate Sanitarium, Pleasantville, New York
- Joseph Hodges Choate (1832β1917): lawyer, diplomat
- William Gardner Choate (1830β1920): U.S. federal judge, founder of Choate Rosemary Hall
- Sarah Choate Sears (1858β1935): art patron
- Robert B. Choate, Jr. (1924β2009): businessman
- Elizabeth Choate Spykman (1896β1965): writer
Codman
- Ogden Codman, Jr. (1863β1951): architect
Coffin
Coffin family, originally of Newbury and Nantucket
- Tristram Coffin (1604β1681): colonist, original owner of Nantucket
- William Coffin (1699β1775): merchant, co-founder of Trinity Church
- Sir Isaac Coffin (1759β1839): naval officer
- Charles E. Coffin (1841β1912): industrialist, U.S. congressman
- Charles A. Coffin (1844β1926): industrialist, co-founder of General Electric
- Henry Coffin Nevins (1843β1892): industrialist
- John Coffin Jones, Sr. (1750β1820): Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
- John Coffin Jones, Jr. (1796β1861): U.S. Minister to Hawaii
- Thomas Coffin Amory (1812β1889): lawyer, author
- Thomas Jonathan Coffin Amory (1828β1864): Civil War general
Coolidge
- Calvin Coolidge (1872β1933): President of the United States
- John Coolidge (1906β2000): businessman
- Archibald Cary Coolidge (1866β1928): educator
- John Coolidge Adams (b. 1947): composer
- John Gardner Coolidge (1863β1936): U.S. ambassador
- Charles A. Coolidge (1844β1926): U.S. Army general
Cooper
- John Cooper (1609β1669): colonist
- Samuel Cooper (1725β1783): clergyman
- Samuel D. Cooper, Jr. (1750β1824): revolutionary
- Samuel D. Cooper III (1778β1853): trade merchant
- Priscilla Cooper Tyler (1816β1889): First Lady of the United States
- Theodore Cooper (1839β1919): civil engineer
- Frederic Taber Cooper (1864β1937): writer
Crowninshield
- Johann Casper Richter von Kronenscheldt: colonist
- Jacob Crowninshield (1770β1808): U.S. congressman
- Arent S. Crowninshield (1843β1908): U.S. Navy admiral
- Caspar Crowninshield (1837β1897): Union Army general
- Benjamin William Crowninshield (1837β1892): Union Army colonel
- Frederic Crowninshield (1845β1918): first president of the National Society of Mural Painters
- Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (1772β1851): 5th U.S. Secretary of Navy
- Frank Crowninshield (1872β1947): creator and editor of Vanity Fair
- Bowdin Bradlee Crowninshield (1867β1948): American naval architect
Descendants by marriage:
- William Crowninshield Endicott (1826β1900): 5th U.S. Secretary of War
- Frederick Josiah Bradlee, Jr. (1892β1970): on the first All-American football team (from Harvard)
- Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (1921β2014): Editor-in-chief of The Washington Post
- Quinn Crowninshield Bradlee (b. 1982): founder and CEO of FriendsOfQuinn.com
Cushing
Cushing family, originally of Hingham, Massachusetts[18]
- Caleb Cushing (1800β1879): U.S. congressman and Attorney General
- John Perkins Cushing (1787β1862): China trade merchant, investor
- Thomas Cushing (1725β1788): statesman, revolutionary
- William Cushing (1732β1810): U.S. Supreme Court justice
- Harvey Cushing (1869β1939): neurosurgeon
Descendant by marriage:
- Albert Cushing Read (1887β1967): naval officer
Dana
- Richard Dana (1699β1772): colonial Boston politician
- Francis Dana (1743β1811): revolutionary
- Richard Henry Dana, Sr. (1787β1879): lawyer, author
- Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815β1882): lawyer, author (Two Years Before the Mast)
Delano
- Columbus Delano (1809β1896): U.S. Secretary of the Interior
- Jane Delano (1862β1919): founder of the American Red Cross Nursing Service
- Paul Delano (1745β1842): naval officer
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882β1945): President of the United States
Dudley
- Thomas Dudley (1576β1653): Governor of Massachusetts, a founder of Harvard College
- Anne Dudley Bradstreet (1612β1672): first American poet, wife of Royal Governor Simon Bradstreet
- Joseph Dudley (1647β1720): Royal Governor of Massachusetts, President of the Dominion of New England, Chief Justice of New York, Member of Parliament, Lt. Governor of the Isle of Wight
- Paul Dudley (1675β1751): Chief Justice of Massachusetts, member of the Royal Society, founder of the Dudleian lectures at Harvard
- Paul Dudley Sargent (1745β1828): Army colonel and Revolutionary War hero
- Dudley Saltonstall (1738β1796): Naval commodore during the Revolution and successful privateer
Dwight
- Timothy Dwight IV (1752β1817): president of Yale University
- Joseph Dwight (1703β1765): lawyer, French and Indian War veteran
- James Dwight Dana (1813β1895): geologist
Eliot
- Charles William Eliot (1834β1926): president of Harvard University
- Charles Eliot (1859β1897): landscape architect
- Samuel A. Eliot II (1862β1950): president of the American Unitarian Association
- William Greenleaf Eliot (1811β1887): educator, Unitarian minister, and civic leader
- Henry Ware Eliot (1843β1919) industrialist and philanthropist, co-founder of Washington University
- T. S. Eliot (1888β1965): poet
- Henry Ware Eliot (1843β1919) industrialist and philanthropist, co-founder of Washington University
- Samuel Eliot Morison (1887β1976): maritime author
Descendant by marriage:
- Charles Eliot Norton (1827β1908): author
Emerson
- Rev. William Emerson (1769β1811): clergyman; m. Ruth Haskins Emerson
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803β1882): poet; m. Lydia Jackson Emerson
Endicott
- William Crowninshield Endicott (1826β1900): U.S. Secretary of War
- Augustus Bradford Endicott (1818β1910): politician
- Philip Endicott Young (1885β1955): industrialist
- Henry Bradford Endicott (1853β1920): industrialist
- Henry Wendell Endicott (1880β1954)
Forbes
- John Murray Forbes (1813β1898): industrialist
- John Forbes Kerry (b. 1943): United States Secretary of State, senator from Massachusetts (1985β2013)
- Elliot Forbes (1917β2006): conductor and musicologist
- Robert Bennet Forbes (1804β1889): sea captain, China merchant, ship owner, writer
Gardner
Gardner family, originally of Essex county
- Samuel Pickering Gardner (1767β1843):[19] merchant
- John Lowell Gardner (1808β1884): merchant
- John Lowell Gardner II (1837β1898): merchant
- Augustus P. Gardner (1865β1918): U.S. congressman
Gillett
- Jonathan Gillett (1609-1677): colonist
- Edward Bates Gillett (1817-1899): Attorney
- Frederick Huntington Gillett (1851-1935): 37th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
- Arthur Lincoln Gillett (1859-1938): clergyman
Healey / Dall
- Mark Healey (1791β1872): originally of New Hampshire, merchant and first president of the Merchant's Bank[20]
- Caroline Wells Healey (1822β1912), writer, feminist, and abolitionist
- Charles Henry Appleton Dall (1816β1886), first Unitarian minister to India
- William Healey Dall (1845β1912), malacologist, paleontologist, and explorer of Alaska
Holmes
- Abiel Holmes (1763β1837): clergyman
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809β1894): doctor, author
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841β1935): U.S. Supreme Court justice
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809β1894): doctor, author
Jackson
- Edward Jackson (1708β1757): colonist; m. Dorothy Quincy Jackson
- Jonathan Jackson (1743β1810): merchant, revolutionary; m. Hannah Tracy Jackson
- Charles Jackson (1775β1855): Massachusetts Supreme Court justice
- Amelia Lee Jackson, who married Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. above
- Patrick Tracy Jackson (1780β1847): co-founder of the Boston Manufacturing Company
- Hannah Jackson: wife of Francis Cabot Lowell
- Charles Jackson (1775β1855): Massachusetts Supreme Court justice
- Jonathan Jackson (1743β1810): merchant, revolutionary; m. Hannah Tracy Jackson
- Lydia Jackson: wife of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Lawrence
Lawrence family of Mass, original settlers of Watertown, Mass John Lawrence 1609-1667
- Samuel Lawrence (d. 1827): revolutionary
- Amos Lawrence (1786β1852): merchant
- Amos Adams Lawrence (1814β1886): abolitionist
- William Lawrence (1850β1941): Episcopal bishop
- William Appleton Lawrence (1889β1963): Episcopal bishop
- Frederic C. Lawrence (1899β1989): Episcopal bishop
- William Lawrence (1850β1941): Episcopal bishop
- Amos Adams Lawrence (1814β1886): abolitionist
- Abbott Lawrence (1792β1855): U.S. congressman, founder of Lawrence, Massachusetts
- Luther Lawrence (d. 1839): politician
- Amos Lawrence (1786β1852): merchant
Descendant by marriage: Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1856β1943): president of Harvard University
Lodge
- John Ellerton Lodge, married Anna Cabot
- Henry Cabot Lodge (1850β1924): U.S. senator
- George Cabot Lodge (1873β1909): poet
- Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (1902β1985): U.S. senator, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
- George Cabot Lodge II (b. 1927): Harvard Business School professor, 1962 U.S. Senate candidate from Massachusetts against Edward M. Kennedy
- Henry Sears Lodge (b. 1930)
- John Davis Lodge (1903β1985): 79th governor of Connecticut, U.S. ambassador
- Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (1902β1985): U.S. senator, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
- George Cabot Lodge (1873β1909): poet
- Henry Cabot Lodge (1850β1924): U.S. senator
Lowell
Lyman
- Richard Lyman (1580β1640): a founder of Hartford, Connecticut; cousin of Lord Mayor of London Sir John Lyman of the Lyman Baronets of England
- Roswell Lyman: China trade merchant, had an interest in The Ann & Hope
- Theodore Lyman (1753β1839): China trade merchant, commissioned Samuel McIntire to build one of New England's finest country houses, The Vale
- Theodore Lyman II (1792β1849): brigadier general of militia, Massachusetts state representative, mayor of Boston
- Theodore Lyman III (1833β1897): natural scientist, aide-de-camp to Major General Meade during the American Civil War, and United States congressman from Massachusetts
- Theodore Lyman IV (1874β1954): director of Jefferson Physics Lab, Harvard; eponym of the Lyman series of spectral lines. The crater Lyman on the far side of the Moon is named after him, as is the Lyman Physics Building at Harvard.
- George Williams Lyman (1786β1880): developed textile mills, director of the Boston and Lowell Railroad and the Columbian Bank, president of the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company. His first wife was Elizabeth Gray Otis, the daughter of Harrison Gray Otis (U.S. senator and mayor of Boston) and Sally Foster Otis, prominent Bostonians who built a noted Federal-style mansion still standing.
- Arthur T. Lyman (1832β1915), and his sisters Sarah (Mrs. Philip H. Sears) and Lydia (Mrs. Robert Treat Paine)
- Arthur T. Lyman, Jr. (1861β1933): married Susan Cabot. Director and officer of textile manufacturing companies and the Massachusetts Life Insurance Company. Board member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Waltham Hospital. He was active in politics as president of the Democratic Club of Massachusetts, chairman of the State Democratic Committee.
- Arthur T. Lyman (1832β1915), and his sisters Sarah (Mrs. Philip H. Sears) and Lydia (Mrs. Robert Treat Paine)
Minot
- Charles Sedgwick Minot (1852β1914): anatomist
- George Richards Minot (1885β1950): winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine
- Henry Davis Minot (1859β1890): ornithologist
- Susan Minot (b. 1956): author
Norcross
Norcross family, original settlers of Watertown, Massachusetts
- Otis Norcross (1811β1882): mayor of Boston
- Eleanor Norcross (1854β1923): artist
Otis
- James Otis, Jr. (1725β1783): revolutionary
- Mercy Otis Warren (1728β1814): playwright, revolutionary
- Samuel Allyne Otis (1740β1814): politician
- Harrison Gray Otis (1765β1848): U.S. senator, mayor of Boston
Parkman
Parkman family
- Samuel Parkman (1751β1824): investor
- George Parkman (1790β1849): philanthropist, victim of a highly publicized murder
- Francis Parkman, Jr. (1823β1893): historian
Peabody
- Catherine Endicott Peabody (1808β1833)
- Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1804β1894): American educator who opened the first English-language kindergarten in the United States
- Endicott Peabody (1857β1944): Episcopal priest and founder of the Groton School for Boys
- Endicott "Chubb" Peabody (1920β1997): governor of Massachusetts
- George Peabody (1795β1869): entrepreneur and philanthropist who founded the House of Morgan[23] and the Peabody Institute
- Joseph Peabody (1757β1844): merchant, shipowner, and philanthropist whose company sailed clipper ships in the Old China Trade from its base in Salem, Massachusetts
- Mary Tyler Peabody Mann (1806β1887): American author
- Nathaniel Peabody (1774β1855)
- Richard R. Peabody (1892β1936): author of The Common Sense of Drinking, a major influence on Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill Wilson
- Sophia Amelia Peabody Hawthorne (1809β1871): painter, illustrator, and wife of American author Nathaniel Hawthorne
Perkins
- James Perkins (1761β1822): founder of the Boston Athenaeum, pioneer of the China trade, merchant, philanthropist
- Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1764β1854): merchant, philanthropist
- Charles Perkins (1823β1886): art historian, philanthropist, founder of the Museum of Fine Arts
- Edward Perkins (1856β1905): constitutional lawyer
- Maxwell Perkins (1884β1947): literary editor of Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald
Phillips
- Samuel Phillips, Jr. (1752β1802): politician, founder of Phillips Academy
- John Phillips (1719β1795): educator, founder of Phillips Exeter Academy
- Wendell Phillips (1811β1884): abolitionist
Putnam
- James Putnam (1725β1789): last attorney general in Massachusetts before American Revolution; judge and politician in New Brunswick
- James Putnam (1756β1838): Canadian politician
- Israel Putnam (1718β1790): American army general during the Revolutionary War
- William Lowell Putnam (1861β1924) and Elizabeth Lowell Putnam
- George P. Putnam (1887β1950): publisher, explorer, husband of Amelia Earhart
- Katherine L. Putnam (1890β1983): wife of Harvey Hollister Bundy
- Roger Lowell Putnam (1893β1972): politician, businessman
Quincy
- Edmund Quincy (1602β1636): settled in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1633
- Josiah Quincy II (1744β1775): lawyer, revolutionary
- Josiah Quincy III (1772β1864): U.S. congressman, mayor of Boston, president of Harvard
- Dorothy Quincy Hancock: wife of John Hancock
- Abigail Smith Adams (1744β1818): wife of John Adams
- John Quincy Adams (1767β1848): President of the United States
Rice
Rice family, originally of Sudbury, Massachusetts
- Deacon Edmund Rice (1594β1663): colonist
- Alexander Hamilton Rice (1818β1895): industrialist, mayor of Boston, governor of Massachusetts, U.S. congressman
- Alexander Hamilton Rice, Jr. (1875β1956): physician, geographer and explorer
- Americus Vespucius Rice (1835β1904): general, U.S. congressman
- Edmund Rice (1842β1906): U.S. Army general, Medal of Honor recipient
- Edmund Rice (1819β1889): U.S. congressman
- Henry Mower Rice (1816β1894): U.S. senator
- Luther Rice (1783β1836): Baptist clergyman, missionary to India
- Thomas Rice (1768β1854): U.S. congressman
- William Marsh Rice (1816β1900): businessman, founder of Rice University
- William North Rice (1845β1928): geologist, educator
- William Whitney Rice (1826β1896): U.S. congressman
- William B. Rice (1840β1909): industrialist, philanthropist
Saltonstall
- Leverett Saltonstall I (1783β1845): politician, educator
- Leverett Saltonstall (1892β1979): U.S. senator
- William L. Saltonstall (1927β2009): politician
- Philip Saltonstall Weld (1915β1984): World War II commando, environmentalist
Sargent
- Colonel Epes Sargent (1690β1762): colonel of militia before the Revolution and a justice of the general session court for more than 30 years
- Paul Dudley Sargent (1745β1828): Revolutionary War hero, one of the founding overseers of Bowdoin College
- Harrison Tweed (1885β1969): lawyer and civic leader
- Tweed Roosevelt (1942β): great-grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt
- Harrison Tweed (1885β1969): lawyer and civic leader
- John Sargent (1750β1824): Loyalist officer during the American Revolution
- Winthrop Sargent (1753β1820): patriot, governor, politician, and writer; member of the Federalist Party
- Judith Sargent Murray (1751β1820): feminist, essayist, playwright, and poet; her home is the Sargent House Museum
- Daniel Sargent, Sr. (1730β1806): merchant, owned Sargent's Wharf in Boston
- Daniel Sargent (1764β1842): merchant, politician
- Daniel Sargent Curtis (1825β1908): lawyer, banker, trustee of the BPL, owner of Palazzo Barbaro
- Henry Sargent (1770β1845): painter and military man
- Henry Winthrop Sargent (1810β1882): horticulturist and landscape gardener
- Lucius Manlius Sargent (1786β1867): author, antiquarian, and temperance advocate
- Horace Binney Sargent (1821β1908): Civil War general, politician
- John Singer Sargent (1856β1925): artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation"
- Charles Sprague Sargent (1841β1927): botanist, first director of Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum
- Winthrop Sargent Gilman (1808β1884): head of the banking house of Gilman, Son & Co. in New York City
- Epes Sargent (1813β1880): editor, poet and playwright
- Francis W. Sargent (1915β1998): 64th governor of Massachusetts
- Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (1921β2014) (Harvard-1942): editor of The Washington Post
- Frances Sargent Osgood (1811β1850): poet, one of the most popular women writers during her time
- Anna Maria Wells (nΓ©e Foster; ca. 1794β1868): early American poet and writer for children
- Daniel Sargent (1764β1842): merchant, politician
- Paul Dudley Sargent (1745β1828): Revolutionary War hero, one of the founding overseers of Bowdoin College
Sears
- Richard Sears (1610β1676): colonist
- David Sears II (1787β1871): philanthropist, merchant, landowner
- Clara Endicott Sears (1863β1960): author, philanthropist
- Mason Sears (1899β1973): politician and ambassador
- Emily Sears: wife of Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.
- John W. Sears (1930β2014): politician
Tarbox
Tarbox family
- John Tarbox (1645β1674): colonist
- John K. Tarbox (1838β1887): U.S. congressman
- Increase N. Tarbox (1815β1888): author
Thorndike
- Israel Thorndike (1755β1832): merchant, politician
- Augustus Thorndike (1896β1986): physician
- George Thorndike Angell (1823β1909): lawyer, philanthropist
Tudor
- William Tudor (1750β1819): lawyer, politician, founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society
- William Tudor (1779β1830): cofounder of the North American Review and the Boston Athenaeum
- Frederic Tudor (1783β1864): Boston's "Ice King", founder of the Tudor Ice Company
- Tasha Tudor (1915β2008): illustrator and author of children's books
Warren
- Richard Warren (1578β1628): London merchant, Mayflower passenger
- James Warren (1726β1808): Army general, paymaster of American Army, president of Massachusetts Congress
- Mercy Otis Warren (1728β1814): playwright, historian, pioneer feminist, revolutionary
- Dr. Joseph Warren (1741β1775): major-general, hero/martyr of Bunker Hill, president of Massachusetts Congress, sent Paul Revere on his famous midnight ride
- Dr. John Warren (1753β1815): founder of Harvard Medical School, surgeon at Bunker Hill, co-founder of the Massachusetts Medical Society
- Dr. John Collins Warren (1778β1856): surgeon, gave first public demonstration of surgical anesthesia, a founder of The New England Journal of Medicine, president of the American Medical Association, founding dean of Harvard Medical School, and a founder of Massachusetts General Hospital
- John Collins Warren, Jr. (1842β1947): surgeon and president of the American Surgical Association
Weld
- Thomas Weld (born c. 1600): colonist, Puritan minister
- William Gordon Weld (1775β1825): merchant
- William Fletcher Weld (1800β1881): merchant, philanthropist
- Ezra Greenleaf Weld (1801β1874): daguerreotypist
- Theodore Dwight Weld (1803β1895): abolitionist
- Stephen Minot Weld (1806β1867): politician, educator
- George Walker Weld (1840β1905): philanthropist
- Stephen Minot Weld, Jr. (1842β1920): Civil War general
- Charles Goddard Weld (1857β1911): philanthropist
- Isabel Weld Perkins (1877β1948): philanthropist
- Philip Saltonstall Weld (1915β1984): World War II commando, environmentalist
- Tuesday Weld (b. 1943): actress
- William Weld (b. 1945): governor of Massachusetts
Wigglesworth
- Michael Wigglesworth (1631β1705): colonist, clergyman
- Edward Wigglesworth (1693β1765): clergyman, educator
- Richard B. Wigglesworth (1891β1960): U.S. congressman
Winthrop
- John Winthrop (1588β1649): governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony
- Lucy Winthrop Downing, mother of diplomat Sir George Downing, 1st Baronet, founder of New York, of Downing Street, London, and ultimately of Downing College, Cambridge UK. Lucy's letter to her brother Governor Winthrop provided the impetus for the founding of Harvard College.
- John Winthrop the Younger (1606β1676): governor of Connecticut
- Fitz-John Winthrop (1637β1711): governor of Connecticut
- John Winthrop the Younger (1606β1676): governor of Connecticut
- John Winthrop: married Anne Dudley, granddaughter of Thomas Dudley
- John Winthrop (1714β1779): acting president of Harvard, pioneer of American science
- Thomas Lindall Winthrop (1760β1841): lieutenant governor of Massachusetts
- Robert Charles Winthrop (1809β1894): lawyer, politician, philanthropist
- Winthrop Rockefeller (1912β1973): governor of Arkansas, philanthropist
See also
- First Families of Virginia
- Colonial families of Maryland
- American gentry
- Dominant minority
- Elitism
- Golden Square Mile
- Old Philadelphians
- Preppy
- Socialite
- Upper class
- White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
- Yankee
References
- β "People & Events: Boston Brahmins". PBS. PBS Online. Retrieved 29 November 2015.
- β Greenwood, Andrew (11 August 2011). An Introduction to the Unitarian and Universalist Traditions, page LX. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
- β Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The Brahmin Caste of New England", The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 27, Chapter 1 (1860). The series of articles that this article was part of eventually became his novel Elsie Venner, and the first chapter of that novel was about the Brahmin caste.
- β Andrews, Robert (ed.) (1996). Famous Lines: A Columbia Dictionary of Familiar Quotations. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-10218-6. External link in
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(help) - β McPhee, John. Giving Good Weight. p. 163.
- β Ronald Story, Harvard and the Boston Upper Class: The Forging of an Aristocracy, 1800β1870 (1985).
- β Paul Goodman, "Ethics and Enterprise: The Values of a Boston Elite, 1800β1860", American Quarterly, Sept 1966, Vol. 18 Issue 3, pp 437β451.
- β Peter S. Field Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Making of a Democratic Intellectual Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. ISBN 0847688429. ISBN 978-0847688425
- β Ronald Story, "Harvard Students, the Boston Elite, and the New England Preparatory System, 1800β1870", History of Education Quarterly, Fall 1975, Vol. 15 Issue 3, pp 281β298.
- β Farrell, Betty (1993). Elite Families: Class and Power in Nineteenth-Century Boston. SUNY Press. ISBN 1438402325.
- β Muskett, Joseph James, ed. (1900). "Appleton of New England". Suffolk Manorial Families (Exeter: William Pollard & Co) 1: 330β334. Retrieved February 20, 2014.
- β Jewett, Issac Appleton (1801). Memorial of Samuel Appleton of Ipswich, Massachusetts: With Genealogical Notices of Some of His Descendants. Boston.
- β Ipswich Historical Society (1906). "A Genealogy of the Ipswich Descendants of Samuel Appleton.*". Publications of the Ipswich Historical Society. Retrieved February 16, 2014.
- β Quinn, Bradlee. "David Bradlee". Internet Archive. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
- β Sarah Bradlee Fulton
- β Quinn, Bradleeq. "Sarah Bradlee". Boston Tea Party Museum. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
- β History of the Town of Hingham, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Solomon Lincoln Jr., Caleb Gill, Jr. and Farmer and Brown, Hingham, 1827
- β History of the Town of Hingham, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Solomon Lincoln, Jr., Caleb Gill, Jr. and Farmer and Brown, Hingham, Mass., 1827
- β Hall, Alexandra [2009]. The New Brahmins. Boston Magazine
- β http://www.masshist.org/findingaids/doc.cfm?fa=fa0057
- β Lowell, Delmar R., The Historic Genealogy of the Lowells of America from 1639 to 1899; Rutland VT, The Tuttle Company, 1899; ISBN 978-0-7884-1567-8.
- β John J. Waters, The Otis Family in Provincial and Revolutionary Massachusetts (U. of North Carolina Press, 1968)
- β https://www.jpmorgan.com/pages/jpmorgan/about/history/month/apr
- β Robert Moody, The Saltonstall Papers, 1607β1815: Selected and Edited and with Biographies of Ten Members of the Saltonstall Family in Six Generations. Vol. 1, 1607β1789 vol 2 1791β1815 (1975).
- β Malcolm Freiberg, "The Winthrops and Their Papers", Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 1968, Vol. 80, pp 55β70