Where is New England?
Professor Robert A. Gross presented this paper on the panel “The Future of New England History,” at the Institute’s tenth annual conference, hosted by Smith College and Historic Deerfield, June 11–13, 2004. Uncommon Sense appreciates his allowing it to be printed here. Concord, Massachusetts, and Bridgeport, Connecticut, are seldom mentioned in the same breath. The one evokes the classic New England town, the other the post-industrial misery of once-thriving manufacturing cities struggling to survive in a global economy. Home of Puritans, Minutemen, and Transcendentalists, Concord, sixteen miles from Boston, suggests compelling ideals associated with Americans’ preferred vision of themselves. Linked to the Puritans, it stands for close community and steadfast faith; joined to the Minutemen, it stirs with liberty and sacrifice; inspired by the Transcendentalists, it beckons us to lead simple lives, close to nature, to resist conformity, and to cultivate our higher selves. By contrast, B
