New England
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for New England. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a term applied to the Northeastern States of the American Union. It comprises Maine, New Hampshire , Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island , a total area of about 65,000 square miles. It is a part of the original grant made by James I in 1606 to the Plymouth Company. The name was given to this region by John Smith, who prepared a map of the coast in 1614. Twenty-one thousand persons came to New England from 1620 to 1640, the twenty years preceding the assembling of Cromwell's Long Parliament . Of these one person in 200 was a graduate either of Oxford or Cambridge. It is perhaps superfluous to add that New England has had an influence on the educational, religious, and public institutions of this country entirely out of proportion to its area and population. Without a doubt the common people of New England have formed the most intelligent peasantry, perhaps yeomanry is a better word, in the world. Immigration of the enterprising elements to the West, the abandonment of many old farms, and the infiltration of people of foreign descent has changed the character of the inhabitants of many sections seriously. See articles on the several states, rivers, chief cities, etc.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a collective name given to the six Eastern States of the United States of America, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont. Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, embracing an area of 66,400 square miles. The area of New England is one-fiftieth of the total area of the United States.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 writer praised New England's "most intelligent peasantry" and worried about "the infiltration of people of foreign descent"; the descendants of those Irish, Italian, French-Canadian and Portuguese arrivals became the region's demographic core, and Roman Catholicism long ago displaced the Congregational establishment the entry took for granted. The mill economy that made Lowell, Lawrence and Fall River rich collapsed as textiles moved south and then overseas, and the region's wealth now rests on the universities, hospitals, finance and biotechnology clustered around Boston. The six states the accounts list are unchanged, but population has roughly doubled since Collier's wrote in 1921, to about 15 million at the 2020 census. Surveys now rank New England among the least religiously observant parts of the country ederding both encyclopedias would have found astonishing.
Written for this edition, 2026.