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Robert Swain Gifford

Robert Swain Gifford

Robert Swain Gifford (1840-1905) was an American landscape painter. He was influenced by the Barbizon school. Much of his work focuses on the landscapes of New England, where he was born. However, in the 1870s he undertook several journeys to Europe and the Middle East and painted some subjects from those regions. Some of his works hang in the most prominent galleries in the USA, including the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

External links

- [http://americanart.si.edu/search/artist_bio.cfm?StartRow=1&ID=1799 Biography of Gifford] on the Smithsonian site
- [http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/viewOnezoom.asp?dep=2&zoomFlag=0&viewmode=1&item=85%2E7 image of Gifford's Near the Coast] on the Metropolitan Museum of Art site Gifford, Robert Swain Gifford, Robert Swain Gifford, Robert Swain Gifford, Robert Swain

1840

1840 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar).

Events

- January 3 - One of the predecessor papers to the Herald Sun of Melbourne, Australia, The Port Phillip Herald, is founded by George Cavanaugh.
- January 10 - Uniform penny postage introduced in the UK.
- January 13 - The steamship Lexington burns and sinks four miles off the coast of Long Island with the loss of 139 lives.
- January 19 - Captain Charles Wilkes circumnavigates Antarctica, claiming what became known as Wilkes Land for the United States.
- January 20 - Dumont D'Urville discovers Adélie Land, Antarctica.
- January 22 - British colonists reach New Zealand. Official founding date of Wellington.
- February 6 - Treaty of Waitangi, document granting British sovereignty in New Zealand, is signed.
- February 10 - Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom marries Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg-Gotha.
- February 11 - Gaetano Donizetti's opera La Fille du Regiment premieres in Paris.
- March 1 - William Hobson, first Governor of New Zealand, suffers a stroke.
- March 1 - Adolphe Thiers becomes prime minister of France.
- May 1 - Britain issues the Penny Black, world's first postage stamp.
- May 6 - The Penny Black, world's first postage stamp becomes valid for the pre-payment of postage.
- May 7 - The Great Natchez Tornado: A massive tornado strikes Natchez, Mississippi during the early afternoon hours. Before it was over, 317 people had lost their lives and 209 were injured. It is the second deadliest tornado in U.S. history.
- July 4 - The Cunard Line's 700-ton wooden paddlewheel steamer RMS Britannia departs from Liverpool bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia on the first transatlantic passenger cruise.
- July 15 – Austria, Britain, Prussia, and Russia sign a London Treaty with the Sublime Porte, ruler of the Ottoman Empire.
- August 10 - Fortsas hoax - number of book collectors gather to Binche, Belgium to attend a non-existent book auction of the late "Count of Fortsas"
- September 10 - Ottoman and British troops bombard Beirut and land troops on the coast to pressure Egyptian Muhammad Ali to retreat from the country.
- October 7 - Willem II becomes King of the Netherlands.
- October 14 – Maronite leader Bashir II surrenders to the British forces and goes into exile in Malta.
- November - William Henry Harrison defeats Martin Van Buren in the U.S. presidential election.
- David Livingstone leaves for Africa.
- Punch caricature magazine begins publication.
- Pedro II is declared "of age" prematurely and begins to reassert central control in Brazil.
- Mount Allison University is founded in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada.
- Washingtonian Temperance Society is founded.

Births

- January 3 - Father Damien, Belgian missionary priest (d. 1888)
- January 23 - Ernst Abbe, German physicist (d. 1905)
- February 4 - Hiram Stevens Maxim, American firearms inventor (d. 1916)
- February 5 - John Boyd Dunlop, Scottish inventor (d. 1921)
- February 21 - Murad V, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1904)
- February 22 - August Bebel, German politician (d. 1913)
- February 23 - Carl Menger, Austrian economist (d. 1921)
- February 29 - John Philip Holland, Irish inventor (d. 1914)
- March 28 - Emin Pasha, German doctor and African administrator (d. 1892)
- April 2 - Emile Zola, French writer (d. 1902)
- April 22 - Odilon Redon, French painter (d. 1916)
- April 27 - Edward Whymper, English mountaineer (d. 1911)
- May 7 - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer (d. 1893)
- May 13 - Alphonse Daudet, French writer (d. 1897)
- June 2 - Thomas Hardy, English writer (d. 1928)
- August 4 - Richard von Krafft-Ebing, German sexologist (d. 1902)
- October 9 - Simeon Solomon, British artist (d. 1905)
- October 16 - Kuroda Kiyotaka, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1900)
- November 12 - Auguste Rodin, French sculptor (d. 1917)
- November 14 - Claude Monet, French painter (d. 1926)
- November 21 - Victoria, Princess Royal of the United Kingdom and Empress of Germany (d. 1901)
- November 29 - Rhoda Broughton, Welsh writer (d. 1920)

Deaths

- January 6 - Fanny Burney, English novelist (b. 1752)
- January 22 - Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, German anthropologist (b. 1752)
- February 13 - Nicolas Joseph Maison, French marshal and Minister of War (b. 1770)
- April 25 - Siméon-Denis Poisson, French mathematician, geometer, and physicist (b. 1781)
- May 7 - Caspar David Friedrich, German artist (b. 1774)
- May 26 - Sidney Smith, British admiral (b. 1764)
- May 27 - Nicolo Paganini, Italian violinist and composer (b. 1782)
- June 7 - King Frederick William III of Prussia (b. 1770)
- September 7 - Étienne-Jacques-Joseph-Alexandre MacDonald, French marshal (b. 1765)
- December 11 - Emperor Kokaku of Japan (b. 1771) Category:1840 ko:1840년 th:พ.ศ. 2383

United States

:For alternative meanings, see the disambiguation page for US, USA, United States, or American. The United States of America is a federal democratic republic situated primarily in central North America. It comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories. It is also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the States, or simply and most commonly, America. The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the government was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The date on which each of the fifty states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States). Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States has emerged as a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs.

Geography and climate

The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, the Bahamas, and numerous smaller nations. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, in the west; the Arctic Ocean, in the northernmost areas; and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, in the eastern and southeastern areas. Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguous United States, sometimes abbreviated CONUS, and as the Lower 48. Alaska, which is not included in the term contiguous United States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The archipelago of Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia is a federal district located on land donated by the state of Maryland. (Virginia also donated land, but it was returned in 1847.) The United States also has overseas territories with varying levels of independence and organization. When inland water is included in the total area, only Russia and Canada are larger than the United States; if inland water is excluded, China ranks third and the U.S. ranks fourth. The United States' total area is 3,718,711 square miles (9,631,418 km²), of which land makes up 3,537,438 square miles (9,161,923 km²) and water makes up 181,273 square miles (469,495 km²). The United States' landscape is one of the most varied among those of the world's nations: among its many features are temperate forestland and rolling hills, on the east coast; mangrove, in Florida; the Great Plains, in the center of the country; the Mississippi–Missouri river system; the Great Lakes, four of the five of which are shared with Canada; the Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains; deserts and temperate coastal zones, west of the Rocky Mountains; and temperate rain forests, in the Pacific northwest. Alaska's tundra, and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic diversity. Hawaii The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the Eastern Great Plains to the semi-arid shortgrass prairies on the high plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the southwest, from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of California have a Mediterranean climate. Rainforests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

History

American history started with the migration of people from Asia across the Bering land bridge approximately 12,000 years ago following large animals that they hunted into the Americas. These Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts. It is estimated that 2-9 million people lived in the territory now occupied by the U.S. before European contact, and the subsequent introduction of foreign diseases such as small pox that greatly diminished the native populations. Some advanced societies were the Anasazi of the southwest, who inhabited Chaco Canyon, and the Woodland Indians, who built Cahokia, located near present-day St Louis, a city with a population of 40,000 at its peak in AD 1200. Vikings first visited North America around 1000, but did not settle permanently. Following the discovery voyages of Christopher Columbus around 1492, other Europeans began to explore and settle there. During the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish settled parts of the present-day Southwest and Florida, founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and Santa Fe (in what is now New Mexico) in 1607. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia, also in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements, including New Amsterdam (the predecessor to New York City), were established in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey. In 1637, Sweden established a colony at Fort Christina (in what is now Delaware), but lost the settlement to the Dutch in 1655. This was followed by extensive British settlement of the east coast. The British colonists remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France ceded Canada and the Great Lakes region to Britain. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the colonists as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the colonists increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule. British Parliament, George Washington (1789-1797).]] In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed. From early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid-19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis in 1861, when seven southern states seceded¹ from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, mandating the freedom of all slaves in states in rebellion, though full emancipation did not take place until after the end of the war in 1865, the dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Thirteenth Amendment took effect. The Civil War effectively ended the question of a state's right to secede, and is widely accepted as a major turning point after which the federal government became more powerful than state governments. Thirteenth Amendment). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase often quoted in the era of Manifest Destiny, expressing a widely held belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout history. [http://americanart.si.edu/t2go/1lw/1931.6.1.html (more)] ]] During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the continent. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy that encouraged westward expansion in the United States. As the population of the Eastern states grew and as a steady increase of immigrants entered the country, settlers moved steadily westward across North America. In the process, the U.S. displaced most American Indian nations. This displacement of American Indians continues to be a matter of contention in the U.S. with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas American Indian populations were reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and US settlers acquired those emptied lands. In other instances American Indians were removed from their traditional lands by force. Though some would say the U.S. was not a colonial power until the Spanish-American War when it acquired Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, the dominion exercised over land in North America the United States claimed is essentially colonial. The Philippines became independent in 1946. During this period, the nation also became an industrial power. This continued into the 20th century, which has been termed "the American Century" because of the nation's overriding influence on the world. The US became a center for innovation and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving include the telephone, television, computer, the Internet, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, aviation, and aeronautics. In addition to the Civil War, another major traumatic experience for the nation was the Great Depression (1929 to 1939). The nation has also taken part in several major foreign wars, including World War I and World War II (in both of which the US later joined the Allies). During the Cold War, the US was a major player in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and, along with the Soviet Union, was considered one of the world's two "superpowers". With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the world's leading economic and military power. Beginning in the 1990s, the United States became very involved in police actions and peacekeeping, including actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Liberia, and the first Persian Gulf War driving Iraq out of Kuwait. After attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the United States and other allied nations found themselves involved in what has come to be called the "War on Terrorism," which has primarily encompassed military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Government

Iraq of the United States.]]

Republic and suffrage

The United States is an example of a constitutional republic, with a government composed of and operating through a set of limited powers imposed by its design and enumerated in the United States Constitution. Specifically, the nation operates as a presidential democracy. There are three levels of government: federal, state, and local. Officials of each of these levels are either elected by eligible voters via secret ballot or appointed by other elected officials. Americans enjoy almost universal suffrage from the age of 18 regardless of race, sex, or wealth. There are some limits, however: felons are disenfranchised and in some states former felons are likewise. Furthermore, the national representation of territories and the federal district of Washington, DC in Congress is limited: residents of the District of Columbia are subject to federal laws and federal taxes but their only Congressional representative is a non-voting delegate.

Federal government

The federal government is the national government, comprising the Legislative Branch (led by Congress), the Executive Branch (led by the President), and the Judicial Branch (led by the Supreme Court). These three branches were designed to apply checks and balances on each other. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, the issuing and management of currency, the management of trade and relations between the states, and the protection of human rights. In addition to these explicitly stated powers, the federal government—with the assistance of the Supreme Court—has gradually extended these powers into such areas as welfare and education, on the basis of the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution.

The Congress

necessary and proper The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives consists of 435 members, each of whom represents a congressional district and serves for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population; in contrast, each state has two Senators, regardless of population. There are a total of 100 senators, who serve six-year terms. The powers of Congress are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution; all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. The Constitution also includes the necessary-and-proper clause, which grants Congress the power to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."

The President

necessary-and-proper clause At the top level of the executive branch is the President of the United States. The President and Vice-President are elected as 'running mates' for four-year terms by the Electoral College, for which each state, as well as the District of Columbia, is allocated a number of seats based on its representation (or ostensible representation, in the case of D. C.) in both houses of Congress (see U.S. Electoral College). The relationship between the President and the Congress reflects that between the English monarchy and parliament at the time of the framing of the United States Constitution. Congress can legislate to constrain the President's executive power, even with respect to his or her command of the armed forces; however, this power is used only very rarely—a notable example was the constraint placed on President Richard Nixon's strategy of bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The President cannot directly propose legislation, and must rely on supporters in Congress to promote his or her legislative agenda. The President's signature is required to turn congressional bills into law; in this respect, the President has the power—only occasionally used—to veto congressional legislation. Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses. The ultimate power of Congress over the President is that of impeachment or removal of the elected President through a House vote, a Senate trial, and a Senate vote. The threat of using this power has had major political ramifications in the cases of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. The President makes around 2,000 executive appointments, including members of the Cabinet and ambassadors, which must be approved by the Senate; the President can also issue executive orders and pardons, and has other Constitutional duties, among them the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress once a year. Although the President's constitutional role may appear to be constrained, in practice, the office carries enormous prestige that typically eclipses the power of Congress: the Presidency has justifiably been referred to as 'the most powerful office in the world'. The Vice President is first in the line of succession, and is the President of the Senate ex officio, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. The members of the President's Cabinet are responsible for administering the various departments of state, including the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department. These departments and department heads have considerable regulatory and political power, and it is they who are responsible for executing federal laws and regulations. George W. Bush is the 43rd President, currently serving his second term.

The Courts

George W. Bush The highest court is the Supreme Court, which consists of nine justices. The court deals with federal and constitutional matters, and can declare legislation made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions. Below the Supreme Court are the courts of appeals, and below them in turn are the district courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law. Separate from, but not entirely independent of, this federal court system are the individual court systems of each state, each dealing with its own laws and having its own judicial rules and procedures. A case may be appealed from a state court to a federal court only if there is a federal question; the supreme court of each state is the final authority on the interpretation of that state's laws and constitution.

State and local governments

supreme court of each state. Note that Alaska and Hawaii are shown at different scales, and that the Aleutian Islands and the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are omitted from this map.]] The state governments have the greatest influence over people's daily lives. Each state has its own written constitution and has different laws. There are sometimes great differences in law and procedure between the different states, concerning issues such as property, crime, health, and education. The highest elected official of each state is the Governor. Each state also has an elected legislature (bicameral in every state except Nebraska), whose members represent the different parts of the state. Of note is the New Hampshire legislature, which is the third-largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, and has one representative for every 3,000 people. Each state maintains its own judiciary, with the lowest level typically being county courts, and culminating in each state supreme court, though sometimes named differently. In some states, supreme and lower court justices are elected by the people; in others, they are appointed, as they are in the federal system. The institutions that are responsible for local government are typically town, city, or county boards, making laws that affect their particular area. These laws concern issues such as traffic, the sale of alcohol, and keeping animals. The highest elected official of a town or city is usually the mayor. In New England, towns operate directly democratically, and in some states, such as Rhode Island and Connecticut, counties have little or no power, existing only as geographic distinctions. In other areas, county governments have more power, such as to collect taxes and maintain law enforcement agencies.

Political divisions

With the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen colonies proclaimed themselves to be nation states modeled after the European states of the time. Although considered as sovereigns initially, under the Articles of Confederation of 1781 they entered into a "Perpetual Union" and created a fully sovereign federal state, delegating certain powers to the national Congress, including the right to engage in diplomatic relations and to levy war, while each retaining their individual sovereignty, freedom and independence. But the national government proved too ineffective, so the administrative structure of the government was vastly reorganized with the United States Constitution of 1789. Under this new union, the continued status of the individual states as sovereign nation states fell into dispute in 1861, as several states attempted to secede from the union; in response, then-President Abraham Lincoln claimed that such secession was illegal, and the result was the American Civil War. Since the Union victory in 1865, the independent status of the individual states has not been broached again by any state, and the status of each state within the union has been deemed by mainstream officials and academics to be settled as being subordinate to the union as a whole. In subsequent years, the number of states grew steadily due to western expansion, the purchase of lands by the national government from other nation states, and the subdivision of existing states, resulting in the current total of 50. The states are generally divided into smaller administrative regions, including counties, cities and townships. The United States–Canadian border is the longest undefended political boundary in the world. The U.S. is divided into three distinct sections:
- the "continental United States," also known as "the Lower 48" and more accurately termed the conterminous, coterminous or contiguous United States
- Alaska, which is physically connected only to Canada
- the archipelago of Hawaii, in the central Pacific Ocean. The United States also holds several other territories, districts, and possessions, notably the federal district of the District of Columbia, which is the nation's capital, and several overseas insular areas, the most significant of which are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. The Palmyra Atoll is the United States' only incorporated territory; it is unorganized and uninhabited. The United States Navy has held a base at a portion of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 1898. The United States government possesses a lease to this land, which only mutual agreement or United States abandonment of the area can terminate. The present Cuban government of Fidel Castro disputes this arrangement, claiming Cuba was not truly sovereign at the time of the signing. The United States argues this point moot because Cuba apparently ratified the lease post-revolution, and with full sovereignty, when it cashed one rent check in accordance with the disputed treaty.

Foreign relations and military

sovereign] The immense military and economic dominance of the United States has made foreign relations an especially important topic in its politics, with considerable concern about the image of the United States throughout the world. Reactions towards the United States by other nationalities are often strong, ranging from uninhibited admiration and mimicking of all things American to anti-Americanism. US foreign policy has swung about several times over the course of its history between the poles of strict isolationism and imperialism and everywhere in between. Three of the nation's four military branches are administered by the Department of Defense: the Army, the Navy (including the Marine Corps), and the Air Force. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, but is placed under the Department of the Navy in time of war. The combined United States armed forces consist of 1.4 million active duty personnel, along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard. Military conscription ended in 1973. The United States Armed forces are considered to be the most powerful military (of any sort) on Earth and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other nation. The 2005 defense budget amounted to $401.7 billion, which is an increase of 4% over 2004 and of 35% since 2001. Over 50% of that number is spent in research & development. (For comparison, in 2004 the European Union (considered as the second-largest military force) had a combined total of 1.6 million troops, and a defense budget of €160 billion, with less than 10% of that being spent on R&D.)

Largest cities

The United States has dozens of major cities, including 11 of the 55 global cities of all types — with three "alpha" global cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The figures expressed below are for populations within city limits. A different ranking is evident when considering U.S. metro area populations, although the top three would be unchanged. Note that some cities not listed (such as Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.) are still considered important on the basis of other factors and issues, including culture, economics, heritage, and politics. The twenty largest cities, based on the United States Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, are as follows:

Economy

The United States has the largest single-country economy in the world, with a per-capita gross domestic product of $40,100. In this market-oriented economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and services predominantly in the private marketplace. gross domestic product The largest industry of the U.S. is now service, which employs roughly three quarters of the U.S. work force. The United States has many natural resources, including oil and gas, metals, and such minerals as gold, soda ash, and zinc. In agriculture, the U.S. is a top producer of, among other crops, corn, soy beans, and wheat; the United States is a net exporter of food. The U.S. manufacturing sector produces goods such as, cars, airplanes, steel, and electronics, among many others. Economic activity varies greatly from one part of the country to another, with many industries being largely dependent on a certain city or region; New York City is the center of the American financial, publishing, broadcasting, and advertising industries; Silicon Valley is the country’s primary location for high-technology companies, while Los Angeles is the most important center for film production. The Midwest is known for its reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry, with Detroit, Michigan, serving as the center of the American automotive industry; the Great Plains are known as the "breadbasket" of America for their tremendous agricultural output; the intermountain region serves as a mining hub and natural gas resource; the Pacific Northwest for fish and timber, while Texas is largely associated with the oil industry; the Southeast is a major hub for both medical research and the textiles industry. Several countries continue to link their currency to the dollar or even use it as a currency (such as Ecuador), although this practice has subsided since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Many markets are also quoted in dollars, such as those of oil and gold. The dollar is also the predominant reserve currency in the world, and more than half of global reserves are in dollars. The largest trading partner of the United States is Canada (19%), followed by China (12%), Mexico (11%), and Japan (8%). More than 50% of total trade is with these four countries. In 2003, the United States was ranked as the third most visited tourist destination in the world; its 40,400,000 visitors ranked behind France's 75,000,000 and Spain's 52,500,000. Labor unions have existed since the 19th century, and grew large and powerful from the 1930s to the 1950s. See Labor history of the United States. Since 1970 they have shrunk in the private sector and now cover fewer than 8% of the workers. However union membership has grown rapidly in the public sector, especially among teachers, nurses, police, postal workers, and municipal clerks. There have been few strikes in recent years. The United States' imports exceed exports by 80%, leading to an annual trade deficit of $700,000,000,000, or 6% of gross domestic product. It is the largest debtor nation in the world, with total gross foreign debt of over $13,000,000,000,000 (2005 estimate); and it absorbs more than 50% of global savings annually. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has increased the use of neoliberal economic policies that reduce government intervention and reduce the size of the welfare state, backing away from the more interventionist Keynsian economic policies that had been in favor since the Great Depression. As a result, the United States provides fewer government-delivered social welfare services than most industrialized nations, choosing instead to keep its tax burden lower and relying more heavily on the free market and private charities. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the national level ($5.15 per-hour), including the highest, Washington State at $7.35. Twenty-six states are the same as the federal level; two--Ohio and Kansas--are below; and six do not have state laws. America's wealth is relatively highly concentrated. The average C.E.O. earns 500 times the typical amount a worker grosses, this is up from 25 times in the late 1970s. In terms of wealth the top 1% of Americans own 40% of all assets and 50.1% of the country's income goes to the top twenty percent of households. Average wages for the majority of employees have been largely stagnating since the 1970s. America's poverty line defined as a family of four earning less than $19,157 is at 12.7% of the general population. Approximately one out of every five children in the United States grows up below the official poverty line. Among racial groups; African Americans have the lowest median income while Asians had the highest. Regionally, the southern states had the lowest median incomes while the West Coast and New England had the highest. The current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan remarked that the U.S.’s growing income inequality since the 1970s is, "not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing."[http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0614/p01s03-usec.html?s=itm] However, Greenspan also noted, "...you can look at the system and say it's got a lot of problems to it, and sure it does. It always has. But you can't get around the fact that this is the most extraordinarily successful economy in history."

Transportation

Alan Greenspan ]] Because the United States is a relatively young nation, most of the development of U.S. cities has taken place since the invention of the automobile. To link its vast territory, the United States built a network of high-capacity, high-speed highways, of which the most important element is the Interstate Highway system, commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the German Autobahn. The United States also has a transcontinental rail system, which is used for moving freight across the lower forty-eight states. Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak, which serves forty-six of the lower forty-eight states. Many cities in the United States have extensive mass-transit systems. New York City operates one of the world's largest and most heavily used subway systems. The regional rail and bus networks that extend into Long Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York, and Connecticut are among the most heavily used in the world. Air travel is often preferred for destinations over 300 miles (500 kilometers) away. In terms of passengers, seventeen of the world's thirty busiest airports in 2004 were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; in terms of cargo, in the same year, twelve of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Memphis International Airport. There are several major seaports in the United States; the three busiest are the Port of Los Angeles, California; the Port of Long Beach, California; and the Port of New York and New Jersey. Others include Houston, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington; plus, outside the contiguous forty-eight states, Anchorage, Alaska, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Society

Demographics

Hawaii The mean center of the U.S. population continues to drift farther west and south. The fastest growing region is the western United States followed by the southern portion. According to Census 2000, the states that saw the greatest increases from 1990 were: Nevada (66.3%), Arizona (40%), Colorado (30.6%), Utah (29.6%), Idaho (28.5%), Georgia (26.4%), Florida (23.5%), Texas (22.8%), North Carolina (21.4%), and Washington (21.1%). [http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab03.pdf]

Ethnicity and race

:Main article: Racial demographics of the United States The United States is a very racially diverse country. According to the 2000 census, it has 31 ethnic groups with at least one million members each, and numerous others represented in smaller amounts. The majority of Americans descend from white European immigrants who arrived at the establishment of the first colonies (most after Reconstruction). This majority--69.1% in 2000--decreases each year, and is expected to become a plurality within a few decades. The most frequently stated European ancestries are German (15.2%), Irish (10.8%), English (8.7%), Italian (5.6%) and Scandinavian (3.7%). Many immigrants also hail from Slavic countries such as Poland and Russia. Other significant immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada. Russia Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are the largest minority group in the country, comprising 12.5% of the population (2000 census). People of Mexican descent made up 7.3% of the population in the 2000 census, and this proportion is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. About 12.3% (2000 census) of the American people are African Americans (Blacks). African Americans are spread throughout the country, but their presence is largest in the South. Asian Americans--including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders--are a third significant minority (3.7% of the population in 2000). Most Asian Americans are concentrated on the West Coast and Hawaii. The largest groups are immigrants or descendants of emigrants from the Philippines, China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. Indigenous peoples in the United States, such as American Indians and Inuit, make up 0.9% of the population (2000 census). About 35% live on Indian reservations.

Religion

Polls estimate that just under 80 percent of Americans are Christians of various denominations. The other 20 percent comprises other religions such as Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, other various faiths, and those without a specific religion. The United States is noteworthy among developed nations for its relatively high level of religiosity. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, about 44% of Americans attend a religious service at least once a week. However, this rate is not uniform across the country; attendance is more common in the Bible Belt—composed largely of Southern and Midwestern states—than in the Northeast and West Coast. In the Southern states, Baptists are the largest group, followed by Methodists; Roman Catholics are dominant in the Northeast and in large parts of the Midwest due to their being settled by descendants of Catholic immigrants from Europe (such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland) or other parts of North America (mainly Quebec and Puerto Rico). The rest of the country for the most part has a complex mixture of various Christian groups.

Education

West Coast's home at Monticello and the University of Virginia (library building shown above, and designed by Jefferson), the only collegiate campus on the list. Both sites are located in Charlottesville, Virginia.]] In the United States, education is a state, not federal, responsibility, and the laws and standards vary considerably. However, the federal government, through the Department of Education, is involved with funding of some programs and exerts some influence through its ability to control funding. In most states, all students must attend mandatory schooling starting with kindergarten, which children normally enter at age 5, and following through 12th grade, which is normally completed at age 18

Landscape

Landscape can mean:
- The layout of a land area, particularly with respect to its appearance and character. A landscape includes such elements as landforms, bodies of water, flora and fauna, and lighting and weather conditions (the natural elements), as well as human presence and human-built elements (the cultural elements or built environment). See also Landscape Architecture, Landscape Ecology and Landscape Engineering, Landscape Planning, Landscape Design.
- A depiction of a landscape in a painting or photograph. See Landscape painting.
- The orientation of a rectangular page, painting or other graphic, denoting that the longer axis is horizontal. (So named because landscape paintings usually have this orientation.) When the long axis is vertical, it is termed portrait.
- In String Theory, it is used to refer to the Anthropic landscape. Related terms:
- Hardscape
- Seascape
- Skyscape
- Cloudscape
- Moonscape
- In Sonic Art, the Soundscape
- Landscape is also a play by Harold Pinter ja:景観

Painter

:For the computer graphics program, see Corel Painter. Corel Painter, in which the painter portrayed himself at work]] A painter is a person who applies an emulsion called paint to a surface. As a trade painters apply paint to woodwork, walls, etc. See: Painter and decorator and Interior decoration. In the arts, a painters create paintings—two-dimensional artworks—by applying paint to a flat surface.

New England

:This article is about the region in the United States of America. For other uses, see New England (disambiguation). New England (disambiguation) The New England region of the United States is located in the northeastern corner of the country. Boston is its business and cultural center and its most populous city. The region is made up of the following states:
- Connecticut
- Maine
- Massachusetts
- New Hampshire
- Rhode Island
- Vermont New England is the most well-defined region of the United States, with more uniformity and more shared heritage than other regions of the country. But, while there is cultural and historical uniformity throughout the whole region, Northern and Southern New England differ in the fact that the former is more rural whereas the latter is very urban. This difference has always existed, however, even when the region was young, and thus does not imply a growing or changing trend, but rather the result of historical population patterns. Western and Eastern New England share similar differences, with the former not only being much more rural, but also usually lacking the Boston accent that typifies the region in the eyes of outsiders. While some parts of Western New England closely border metropolitan New York City, they are still historically, and, for the most part, culturally part of New England. Together, the Mid-Atlantic and New England regions are generally referred to as the Northeastern region of the United States.

History

The indigenous peoples of New England

New England has long been inhabited by Algonquian-speaking native peoples, including the Abenaki, the Penobscot, the Wampanoag, and many others. During the 15th and 16th centuries, Europeans such as Giovanni Verrazano, Jacques Cartier and John Cabot (known as Giovanni Caboto before being based in England) charted the New England coast. They referred to the region as Norumbega, named for a fabulous native city that was supposed to exist there. See also: List of place names in New England of aboriginal origin.

Early European settlement (1610s-1630s)

List of place names in New England of aboriginal origin while its interior is rendered New Belgium, New Netherland and Irocoisia]] The name New England dates to the earliest days of European settlement: in 1616 Captain John Smith described the area in a pamphlet "New England." The name was officially sanctioned in 1620 by the grant of King James I to the Plymouth Council for New England. The region was subsequently divided through further grants, including the 1629 royal grant of "Hampshire" which was issued for "makeing a Plantation & establishing of a Colony or Colonyes in the Countrey called or knowen by ye name of New England in America."

The New England Confederation (1630s-1650s)

Following the Pequot War in 1637, the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut joined together in a loose compact called the New England Confederation. The confederation was designed largely to coordinate mutual defense against the Dutch in the New Netherland colony to the south and the French in New France to the north, as well as to enforce the return of runaway slaves. The confederation had a council comprising two delegates from each of the four colonies, but it had no formal enforcement powers and relied on the individual colonies to voluntarily follow council decisions. The confederation disintegrated in the 1650s when the powerful Massachusetts Bay Colony refused to follow decisions of the confederation council regarding the conflict with the Dutch. King Philip's War (1675-1676), the bloodiest Indian war of the early colonial period, had a devastating effect on the colonies of southern New England, but effectively ended the power and influence of the Indians in the region.

The Dominion of New England (1686-1689)

In 1686, King James II, concerned about the increasingly independent ways of the colonies, in particular their open flouting of the Navigation Acts, decreed the Dominion of New England, an administrative union comprising all the New England colonies. Two years later, the provinces of New York and New Jersey, which had been acquired from the Dutch, were added. The union, imposed from the outside, was highly unpopular among the colonists. In 1687, when the Connecticut Colony refused to follow a decision of the dominion governor Edmund Andros, he sent an armed contigent to seize the colony's charter, which the colonists, according to popular legend, hid inside the Charter Oak tree. Andros' efforts to unify the colonial defenses met little success and the dominion ceased after only three years, after the removal of King James II in the Glorious Revolution in 1689.

Modern New England (1689-present)

Glorious Revolution The colonies were not formally united again until 1776, when they became part of the United States; however, especially in the 18th century and the early 19th century, New England was still considered to be a very distinct region of the country, as it is today. During the War of 1812, there was talk of secession from the Union, as New England merchants opposed the war with Great Britain. 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. New England has largely preserved its regional character, especially in its historic sites. Its name is a reminder of the past, as many of the original English-Americans have migrated further west.

Politics

The early European settlers of New England were English Protestants fleeing religious persecution. This, however, did not prevent them from establishing colonies where religion was legislated to an extreme, and where those who deviated from the established doctrine were persecuted greatly.

Town meetings in New England

A derivative of meetings held by church elders, town meetings were an integral part of governance and remain so today in towns across New England. At such meetings, any citizen of the town may discuss issues of the day with other members of the community, and vote on them. This is the most direct democracy in the United States today, and the form of dialogue has been adopted under certain circumstances elsewhere. Such a strong democratic tradition was even apparent in the early 19th century, when Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America that: In New England, where education and liberty are the daughters of morality and religion, where society has acquired age and stability enough to enable it to form principles and hold fixed habits, the common people are accustomed to respect intellectual and moral superiority and to submit to it without complaint, although they set at naught all those privileges which wealth and birth have introduced among mankind. In New England, consequently, the democracy makes a more judicious choice than it does elsewhere.

New England and political thought

Democracy in America spirit that, in many ways, is still alive and well in New England today.]] In the colonial period and the early time of the republic, New England leaders like John Hancock, John Adams, and Samuel Adams joined those in Philadelphia and Virginia to direct the country. At the time of the Civil War, New England, the mid-Atlantic, and the Midwest combined against slavery, eventually ending the practice in the United States. Henry David Thoreau, one of New England's most iconic thinkers, made the case for civil disobedience, libertarianism, and even had some anarchist tendencies; this spirit is still alive in the Free State Project and occasional discussions of secession. New England led the rest of the country in abolishing the death penalty for crimes like robbery and burglary in the 19th century. In the 20th century, the region remained a source of political thought and intellectual ferment in the nation, eventually becoming the forefront of the civil rights issue of same sex marriage, with Vermont being the first state to allow civil unions between same sex couples, and Massachusetts being the first state to allow marriage between same sex couples. As of 2005, Connecticut now also allows for civil unions. While well known for its liberal tendencies, the region still has a history similar to the rest of the country. Puritan New England, of course, was highly intolerant of any deviation from the strict social norms. Arguments against slavery, at first, were not moral, but economic, since owning slaves was expensive and not very useful in the northern climate. During the civil rights era, Boston brewed with tension over school busing to end de facto segregation of its public schools. Despite these examples, the region is still known as one of the more liberal regions of the United States.

Contemporary New England politics

Today, the dominant party in New England is the Democratic Party, though most states have a significant Republican electorate, especially New Hampshire and Maine which are both represented in the U.S. Senate by two Republicans. As of the 2004 elections, Maine is the only state that has its governorship and legislature controlled by one party (the Democrats). 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 native New Englander himself, carried all six New England states for the Democrats. New Hampshire and Connecticut are the only New England states with capital punishment, although New Hampshire currently has no person on death row and has not had an execution since 1939. Connecticut last had an execution in 2005, the first in New England in forty-five years.

Education

Higher education

2005.]] New England contains some of the oldest and most renowned institutions of higher learning in the United States. The first such institution, Harvard, was founded at Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1636. 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 Amherst College, Bates College, Boston College, Bowdoin College, Brandeis University, Brown University, Colby College, Connecticut College, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, College of the Holy Cross, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Middlebury College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, Trinity College, Tufts University, Wesleyan University, Wellesley College, Wheaton College, Williams College, and Yale University. A number of the graduates settle in the region after school, providing the area with a well-educated population and one of its most valuable resources.

Public and private education

In terms of public education, many New England states spend higher than the national average on their students and schools. Massachusetts and Connecticut, for instance, have some of the best and highest-rated public schools in the United States. The state of Massachusetts, on average, is consistently ranked as one of the most educated states in the country. A recent government-funded survey of the 50 states ranked Massachusetts as number one in public education. The renowned Boston Latin School is the oldest public high school in America. In addition, New England is also home to many of the United States' most prominent independent schools (also known as private schools), such as Roxbury Latin and Phillips Academy in Massachusetts, St. Paul's School and Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. The concept of the elite "New England prep school" and the "preppy" lifestyle is an iconic part of the region's image, especially when viewed from the rest of the United States. Culturally, education is considered to be very important, especially in the more-populated, more-urban states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

Population

In 1910, 6,552,681 people lived in New England. Today, the total population of New England is 13,922,517. If New England were one state, the population would rank 5th in the nation, behind Florida. The total area in this scenario (181,440 sq km) would rank 20th behind North Dakota.

Regional population layout

North Dakota As some of the original English New England settlers migrated westward, immigrants from Canada, Ireland, Italy, and eastern Europe moved into the region. Massachusetts in particular has the highest concentration of persons of Irish heritage in the country. Rhode Island has the highest concentration of Italians (percentage-wise). Today, although the region has attracted quite a few Jewish and Asian-American residents, it remains one of the whitest parts of the nation and has a smaller proportion of African-Americans and Hispanic Americans than much of the country. Connecticut (which is adjacent to New York City) and Massachusetts (which has Boston) have higher minority populations than the rest of New England, while Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine are largely populated with people of European descent. New England still retains a large English population, especially in the more rural areas. The region has remained consistently openminded towards other backgrounds however, a tradition which has continued from the abolitionist days of William Lloyd Garrison and Charles Sumner.

Southern New England

The bulk of the region's population is concentrated in southern New England, which contains Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The most populous state is Massachusetts, whose population is centered mostly around its political and cultural capital, Boston; whereas Western Massachusetts is less densely populated and more spread out. The resulting effect is a minor cultural divide between urban New Englanders, typically Bostonians, and rural New Englanders, who hail from western Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

Coastal New England

The coastline is more urban than western New England, which is typically rural, even in urban states like Massachusetts. These characteristics of the region's population are due mainly to historical factors; the original colonists settled mostly on the coastline of Massachusetts Bay. The only state without access to the Atlantic Ocean, Vermont, is also the least-populated. 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, Providence, New Haven, and Bridgeport, as well as smaller cities, like Newburyport, Gloucester, 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, also a popular tourist attraction, is lined with sandy beaches and dotted with bed and breakfasts. The rocky coast of Maine is best known for its lobster. New Hampshire, which has the smallest coastline of all of the coastal New England states, is home to Hampton Beach, also frequented by visitors to the region.

Urban New England

Cape Cod neighborhood, with Cambridge on the northern bank of the Charles River.]] Three of the four most densely populated states in the United States are in New England. In order, the four most densely populated states are: New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Indeed, southern New England forms an integral part of the BosWash megalopolis, a conglomeration of urban centers that spans from Boston to Washington, D.C. The largest cities by population in New England are: Greater Boston: approx. 5,800,000
- Boston, Massachusetts: 589,141
- Cambridge, Massachusetts: 101,355
- Lynn, Massachusetts: 88,025
- Quincy, Massachusetts: 88,025
- Newton, Massachusetts: 83,829
- Somerville, Massachusetts: 77,478
- Brookline, Massachusetts: 57,107 Brookline, Massachusetts Providence, Rhode Island: 173,618 Worcester, Massachusetts: 172,648 Springfield, Massachusetts: 152,082 Hartford, Connecticut: 141,578 Bridgeport, Connecticut: 139,529 New Haven, Connecticut: 123,626 Stamford, Connecticut: 117,083 Waterbury, Connecticut: 107,271 Manchester, New Hampshire: 107,006 Lowell, Massachusetts: 105,167

Regional nomenclature

A person from New England is known as a New Englander. Sometimes, they are also referred to as Yankees, although this term has grown to refer to the people of the greater region of the northeastern United States.

Culture

See Cuisine of New England

Historico-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. As the oldest of the American regions, New England has developed a distinct cuisine, dialect, architecture, and government. New England cuisine is known for its emphasis on seafood and dairy; clam chowder, lobster, and other products of the sea are among some of the region's most popular foods.

New England's unique culture

Despite a changing population, much of the original spirit of the region remains. It can be seen in the simple, woodframe houses and quaint white church steeples that are features of many small towns, and in the traditional lighthouses that dot the Atlantic coast. New England is also well known for its mercurial weather and its crisp chill. (Mark Twain is quoted as saying "If you don't like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes.") For its vibrant colored foliage in autumn, the region is a popular tourist destination. As a whole, New England tends to be progressive in its politics, although somewhat Puritan in its personal mores. Due to the fact that so many recent European immigrants live in the region and due to the influence of the many universities, the region often shows a greater receptivity to European ideas and culture than the rest of the country. The region has remained consistently openminded towards other backgrounds, a tradition which has continued from the abolitionist days of William Lloyd Garrison and Charles Sumner to the region's recent controversial legal battle in regarding relationships between homosexual couples. As of 2005, Massachusetts permits same sex marriages, and Vermont and Connecticut allow for civil unions between gay couples. Although New England has always been one of the more socially progressive regions of the United States, its internal cultural and social battles have always been somewhat paradoxical. Its fervent abolitionism, for instance, was often met with intense racism on the part of the recently-immigrated Irish segment of its population, which resented the control of native born Protestants over the region, and often competed economically with African-Americans. It was Alexis de Tocqueville who noted, in 1835, that New England was the only region of the United States at the time to have properly separated religion from its government, an ironic mixture of the region's heavy Puritan heritage and strong tradition of direct democracy.

Social life in New England

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. In the rural parts of the region, people socialize through typical common activities such as church, sports, and town government.

The continuing European influence

The overall feeling of the region can be described as decidedly European, with the region's colonial past still alive and thriving through tourism, the hundreds of historic sites that dot the region, and the rich cultural traditions that have endured and developed over centuries. Long-time and native residents are typically knowledgeable of the history of the region, and proud of it, as well. The often-parodied dialect of the region is most commonly known as Boston English, although, in reality, this accent is reserved mostly for the coasts of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Maine. It is the result of an incomplete transition from 17th century British English, which the standard American dialect imitates, and modern British English. There are also other regional accents as well, such as the Cape Cod Brahmin accent, which is also often heavily parodied.

Intraregional cultural differences

While Boston is typically viewed as the region's cultural center, the extent to which it influences the rest of New England is debatable. Perhaps as a result of the "Hub of the Universe" mentality that is demonstrated by many Bostonians, people from Massachusetts may sometimes have a tendency to over-emphasize the importance of the role that their state and city play in New England. People from the northern parts of the region, such as northern Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, as well as the southwestern part of the region, such as Fairfield County, Connecticut, may have divergent views with regard to the cultural influence of Boston, with some rejecting its influence entirely. Much of southwestern Connecticut, for example, is considered a part of metropolitan New York City. Boston, however, certainly only exemplifies, for the most part, the gritty culture of urban New England; therefore, to say that its sphere of influence does not encompass all of New England.

Economy

In the twentieth century, most of New England's traditional industries have relocated to states or foreign countries where goods can be made more cheaply. In more than a few factory towns, skilled workers have been left without jobs. Largely around Boston in the ring of Route 128, the gap has been partly filled by high technology industries, in particular biotech. Education, high technology, financial services, tourism, and medicine, continue to drive the local economy. In the southwestern Connecticut counties of Fairfield and New Haven the economy is more closely associated with New York City, and the economy is more often viewed as an extension of the New York Metropolitan Area. For years many residents of southwestern Connecticut have crossed the state line each day to work in Manhattan. More recently, New Yorkers have begun to travel into Connecticut as part of a reverse commute to many of the job centers developed in the suburbs. The GDP of New England is approximately $649 billion; per capita it is $45,786

Literature

New England has always received a great deal of attention from American writers like Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, John Updike, John Irving and Arthur Miller. Largely on the strength of local writers like Thoreau, Boston, Massachusetts 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, among others, as well as the literary magazine The Atlantic Monthly. New England is also the setting for most of the gothic horror stories of H.P. Lovecraft, most probably because he lived his life in Providence, Rhode Island. 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. More recently, author Stephen King has also used the small towns of the New England state of Maine as the setting for much of his horror fiction, with much of the action taking place in or near the fictional town of Castle Rock. Modern author 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. The novel Ethan Frome was written in 1911 by Edith Wharton. It is set in turn-of-the-century New England, in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. Like much literature of the region, it plays off themes of isolation and hopelessness.

Notable New Englanders

All of the following people were born in New England or spent a significant portion of their life in New England, making them a well-known figure in the region. Some of them, like Robert Frost, who was actually born in California, emigrated to New England and are now considered to be icons of the region. All of them exemplify some aspect of the region in one way or another.
- John Adams
- John Quincy Adams</