The Boston Brahmin. America's Elite

And this is good old Boston

The home of the beans and the cod

Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots

And the Cabots talk only to God.

The nature of Boston upper crust comes through in this old New England drinking limerick.

The word Brahmin comes from the caste system in India. The Brahmin's were the Upper Caste in India.

These are the names of the families that make up some of the Boston Brahmin in alphabetical order- Adams Amory Bacon Cabot Chaffee Choate Codman Coffin Coolidge Cooper Cushing Dana Delano Dudley Eliot Emerson Endicott Forbes Garner Holmes Jackson Lawrence Lodge Lowell Minot Norcross Otis Parkman Peabody Perkins Putnam Quincy Rice Saltonstall Sears Tarbok Thorndike Tudor Weld and my personal favorite Wiggleworth and Winthrop.

Looking through this long list of surnames you will find some of the Founding Fathers,US Presidents,Vice Presidents,Cabinet members, Supreme Court Justices, Senators,Congressmen,Captains of Industry,Writer,Poets,Actors. This is the Who's Who of New England's Blue Bloods.

The Brahmin elite had closed themselves off within their own aristocratic value system in their secluded New England enclaves by the 1840. The ideal Brahmin was not just wealthy but was also urban and well bred.They would never be as crass as to say it but they did view themselves as America's Uncrowned Royalty. Many traced their family roots back to the original founders of Boston,and Cambridge. Other joined the ranks of the wealthy in the 18th century through commerce and others through ownership of whaling ships.

They formed a closed society. They married within their circle. Their children all went to the best schools with other children of the Boston Brahmin. Then moved into the seats of power throughout the Government and Industry.
Many of their families today form what's know as Old Back Bay Boston Society. Their families still control vast fortunes,quietly. They've been taught to stay in the background,and not to flaunt their wealth or positions. It's so much easier to hold on to that wealth that way.