Top 7 Massachusetts Tech Support Companies

With the invention of machine tools and textiles, Massachusetts gained status as the world leader during the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s. Its economy quickly changed from agricultural to industrial in just decades, using water and then steam power to run textile, footwear, furniture, and machinery factories. Drawing labor from New Yorkers in the poor house at first, it later utilized inexpensive immigrant labor from Europe and Canada.

Massachusetts born Horace Mann was the leader behind the state educational system's model. Other notable New Englanders including Henry Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson became nationally renowned writers. Also major players in the Transcendentalism movement, the two emphasized the importance of nature to humans.

In the years preceding the Civil War, Massachusetts was a bustle of activity; the center of social progressivism, tee-tattlers, and abolitionists in the U.S. Antagonists started pro-slavery riots in Massachusetts from 1835 to 1837. The works of the abolitionists added a large part to actions taken by Massachusetts in the Civil War.

The first state to abolish slavery, Massachusetts was also the first to train and arm a Black regiment with White officers; the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, as depicted in a Robert Gould Shaw Memorial relief in the Boston Commons.