Boston Brahmins, or simply "Brahmins"—sometimes also called the First Families of Boston—are a blue-blooded class of New Englanders who claim hereditary or cultural descent from the Anglo-Saxon Protestants who founded the city of Boston, Massachusetts and originally settled New England. They are part of the historic core of the East Coast Establishment, along with wealthy families of New York and Philadelphia.

Some of the Brahmins trace descent back to the original founders of Boston. Others bought their way into society in the 19th century with the profits of commerce, and by marrying into other Brahmin families like the Emersons and Winthrops.

The term Brahmin comes from the Indian caste system, of which the Brahmins are the highest caste. The American phrase was probably coined by writer Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., as part of a January 1860 article in the Atlantic Monthly called "The Professor's Story."

They are often perceived as marked by their distinctive elocution, high level of education and wealth and generally progressive politics. The nature of the Brahmins is summarized in the doggerel poem, "Boston Toast," by John Collins Bossidy .

"So this is good old Boston,

The home of the bean and the cod,

Where the Lowells talk only to the Cabots,

And the Cabots talk only to God."

Original Brahmin families

Brahmin families frequently intermarried. According to Yankee magazine and other sources, some Boston Brahmin families include the:

• Adams family
  • Samuel Adams
  • John Adams & Abigail Adams
  • John Quincy Adams
  • Charles Francis Adams, Sr.
  • Henry Adams
  • Charles Francis Adams, Jr.
  • Charles Francis Adams III
• Cabot family
  • Godfrey Lowell Cabot
  • Thomas Dudley Cabot
• Choate family
  • Rufus Choate
• Cushing family
  • Caleb Cushing
  • Thomas Cushing
  • William Cushing
  • Albert Cushing Read
• Crowninshield family
  • Arent S. Crowninshield
  • Jacob Crowninshield
  • Benjamin Williams Crowninshield
  • William Crowninshield Endicott
  • Frederic Crowninshield
• Delano family
  • Columbus Delano
  • Jane Delano
  • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
  • Paul Delano
• Eliot family
• Emerson family
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Endicott family
  • William Crowninshield Endicott
• Forbes family
  • John Murray Forbes
  • John Forbes Kerry
• Holmes Family
  • Abiel Holmes
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
• Jackson family
  • Jonathan Jackson
  • Patrick Tracy Jackson
• Lawrence family
  • Abbott Lawrence
  • Amos Lawrence
  • Amos Adams Lawrence
  • Samuel Lawrence
  • William Lawrence
• Lodge family
  • Henry Cabot Lodge
• Lowell family
  • Francis Cabot Lowell
  • James Russell Lowell
  • Abbott Lawrence Lowell
  • Percival Lowell
  • Amy Lowell
  • Robert Lowell
• Peabody family
  • Elizabeth Palmer Peabody
  • Endicott Peabody
  • George Peabody
  • George Foster Peabody
  • Nathaniel Peabody
• Phillips family
• Putnam family
• Quincy family
• Saltonstall family
  • Leverett Saltonstall
• Sturgis family
• Winthrop family
  • John Winthrop
  • John Winthrop (1714-1779)
  • Robert Charles Winthrop
  • Thomas Lindall Winthrop
  • Waitsill Winthrop

See also

• Aristocracy
• Back Bay
• Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts
• Establishment
• First families of Philadelphia
  • Biddle family
• Ivy League
• Kennedy political family
• List of U.S. political families
• Mrs. Astor and The Four Hundred
• Preppy
• Social Register

External links

• "The Brahmin Caste of New England," by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., which first appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1860, reproduced in Slate.com
• "The Truth About the Cabots and the Lowells and That Sort of Thing", by Judson D. Hale, Yankee Magazine, September 2003
• Slate.com: "What's a Boston Brahmin?"
• Cornell University Making of America: "The Professor's Story: Chapter I--The Brahmin Caste of New England", Atlantic Monthly, Jan 1860, p. 91
• Let's Go Boston - Boston Brahmins, a history