Early settlers were attracted to Norwell for agricultural reasons, with the town later developing a major shipbuilding industry, based on the North and Northwest rivers.

Much of Norwell's eastern border lies along the North River, where many shipbuilding companies once stood.

On the national level, Norwell is a part of Massachusetts's 9th congressional district, represented by Bill Keating.

The town is represented in the Massachusetts Senate by Patrick O'Connor as a part of the Plymouth and Norfolk district, which includes Cohasset, Duxbury, Hingham, Hull, Marshfield, Scituate, and Weymouth.

The James Library was founded by Josiah Leavitt James of Chicago, a former resident of South Scituate, who was persuaded by William Hamilton Fish, minister of First Parish Church, to fund a town library.

It has two teams (sets of teachers) for each grade: Orange (6th), Purple (6th), Green (7th), Gold (7th), Red (8th) and Blue (8th).

Norwell High School is near Assinippi and serves students from ninth through twelfth grade.

[citation needed] Norwell High's teams are known as the Clippers, and their colors are blue and gold.

At the high school, Norwell is very well known nationwide[citation needed] for their FIRST robotics team 348, which consistently performs well and won second place overall at the Florida Regionals in March 2015 in addition to other awards in the past few seasons.

Norwell girls' lacrosse is well known on the South Shore[citation needed], having won three Division II state championships.

In 2021, both the Girls and Boys soccer teams won the Division III state championship title.

They are intended, according to the former town planner,[19] to allow residents and students to travel without walking on the side of Norwell's busiest roads.

[20] After a successful ten-taxpayer lawsuit[21] that prohibited the use of Community Preservation funds from building what one town official called, instead of a sidewalk, a "pathwalk," along Norwell's busiest road (Route 123) only 600' parallel north of the pathway, voters approved the necessary appropriations to build part of it.

[22][23] The pathway stretches from South Street to the town center near the state police barracks.

[24] Norwell residents can now walk along the forested pathway or the less frequented, traditional sidewalk along Main Street.

Main Street remains the only road in town for which taxpayers have provided funding for both a pathway on one side and a sidewalk on the other.