1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Boston (Massachusetts)/Industry and Commerce

BOSTON

Industry and Commerce.—Boston is fringed with wharves. Commercial interests are largely concentrated in East Boston. Railway connexion with Worcester, Lowell and Providence was opened in 1835; with Albany, N.Y., and thereby with various lines of interior communication, in 1841 (double track, 1868); with Fitchburg, in 1845; and in 1851 connexion was completed with the Great Lakes and Canada. In 1840 Boston was selected as the American terminus of the Cunard Line, the first regular line of trans-Atlantic steamers. The following decade was the most active of the city’s history as regards the ocean carrying trade. Boston ships went to all parts of the globe. The Cunard arrangement was the first of various measures that worked for a commercial rapprochement between the New England states and Canada, culminating in the reciprocity treaty of 1854, and Boston’s interests are foremost to-day in demanding a return to relations of reciprocity. Beginning about 1855 the commerce of the port greatly declined. The Cunard service has not been continuous. In 1869 there was not one vessel steaming directly for Europe; in 1900 there were 973 for foreign ports. Great improvements of the harbour were undertaken in 1902 by the United States government, looking to the creation of two broad channels 35 ft. deep. Railway rates have also been a matter of vital importance in recent years; Boston, like New York, complaining of discriminations in favour of Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans and Galveston. Boston also feels the competition of Montreal and Portland; the Canadian roads being untrammelled in the matter of freight differentials. Boston is the second import port of the United States, but its exports in 1907 were less than those of Philadelphia, of Galveston, or of New Orleans. The total tonnage in foreign trade entering and leaving in 1907 was 5,148,429 tons; and in the same year 9616 coasting vessels (tonnage, 10,261,474) arrived in Boston. The value of imports and exports for 1907 were respectively $123,414,168 and $104,610,908. Fibres and vegetable grasses, wool, hides and skins, cotton, sugar, iron and steel and their manufactures, chemicals, coal, and leather and its manufactures are the leading imports; provisions, leather and its manufactures, cotton and its manufactures, breadstuffs, iron and steel and their manufactures are the leading exports. In the exportation of cattle, and of the various meat and dairy products classed as provisions, Boston is easily second to New York. It is the largest wool and the largest fish market of the United States, being in each second in the world to London only.

Manufacturing is to-day the most distinctive industry, as was commerce in colonial times. The value of all manufactured products from establishments under the “factory system” in 1900 was $162,764,523; in 1905 it was $184,351,163. Among the leading and more distinctive items were printing and publishing ($21,023,855 in 1905); sugar and molasses refining ($15,746,547 in 1900; figures not published in 1905 because of the industry being in the hands of a single owner); men’s clothing (in 1900, $8,609,475, in 1905, $11,246,004); women’s clothing (in 1900, $3,258,483, in 1905, $5,705,470); boots and shoes (in 1900, $3,882,655, in 1905, $5,575,927); boot and shoe cut stock (in 1905, $5,211,445); malt liquors (in 1900, $7,518,668, in 1905, $6,715,215); confectionery (in 1900, $4,455,184, in 1905, $6,210,023); tobacco products (in 1900, $3,504,603, in 1905, $4,592,698); pianos and organs ($3,670,771 in 1905); other musical instruments and materials (in 1905, $231,780); rubber and elastic goods (in 1900, $3,139,783, in 1905, $2,887,323); steam fittings and heating apparatus (in 1900, $2,876,327, in 1905, $3,354,020); bottling, furniture, &c. Art tiles and pottery are manufactured in Chelsea. Shipbuilding and allied industries early became of great importance. The Waltham watch and the Singer sewing-machine had their beginning in Boston in 1850. The making of the Chickering pianos goes back to 1823, and of Mason & Hamlin reed organs to 1854; these are to-day very important and distinctive manufactures of the city. The ready-made clothing industry began about 1830.