The Boston Associates

The term "Boston Associates" was coined by historian and professor of economics and Marxism, Vera Shlakman in her 1935 work, Economic History of a Factory Town, A Study of Chicopee, Massachusetts.

Tens of thousands of New Englanders received employment from these investors, working in any one of the hundreds of their mills.

[2] Mill locations established or improved by the Boston Associates:[3] Despite being "shrewd, far-sighted entrepreneurs who were quick to embrace...new investment opportunities", the Boston Associates were also "committed to the ideals of the original Protestant ethic and Republican simplicity".

Their investment in the Boston Manufacturing Company's Lowell Mills project, which Henry Clay called a test for "whether the manufacturing system is compatible with social virtues", epitomized their worldview.

[4] Though not authoritative or necessarily complete, Robert Dalzell's 1987 book, Enterprising elite: The Boston Associates and the world they made, enumerated the following businessmen as members of the Boston Associates social strata:[5][6]