document_title: New England

question_text: which two new england states were not part of the original colonies

question_tokens: which two new england states were not part of the original colonies

text: New England

text: History[edit]

text: Eastern Algonquian peoples[edit]

text: The earliest known inhabitants of New England were American Indians who spoke a variety of the Eastern Algonquian languages.[12] Prominent tribes included the Abenakis, Mi'kmaq, Penobscot, Pequots, Mohegans, Narragansetts, Pocumtucks, and Wampanoag.[12] Prior to the arrival of European settlers, the Western Abenakis inhabited New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont, as well as parts of Quebec and western Maine.[13] Their principal town was Norridgewock in Maine.[14]

text: The Penobscot lived along the Penobscot River in Maine. The Narragansetts and smaller tribes under Narragansett sovereignty lived in Rhode Island, west of Narragansett Bay, including Block Island. The Wampanoag occupied southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. The Pocumtucks lived in Western Massachusetts, and the Mohegan and Pequot tribes lived in the Connecticut region. The Connecticut River Valley includes parts of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut and linked numerous tribes culturally, linguistically, and politically.[12]

text: As early as 1600, French, Dutch, and English traders began exploring the New World, trading metal, glass, and cloth for local beaver pelts.[12][15]

text: Colonial period[edit]

text: On April 10, 1606, King James I of England issued a charter for the Virginia Company, which comprised the London Company and the Plymouth Company. These two privately funded ventures were intended to claim land for England, to conduct trade, and to return a profit. In 1620, Pilgrims from the Mayflower established Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, beginning the history of permanent European settlement in New England.[16]

text: In 1616, English explorer John Smith named the region "New England".[17] The name was officially sanctioned on November 3, 1620,[18] when the charter of the Virginia Company of Plymouth was replaced by a royal charter for the Plymouth Council for New England, a joint-stock company established to colonize and govern the region.[19] As the first colonists arrived in Plymouth, they wrote and signed the Mayflower Compact,[20] their first governing document.[21] The Massachusetts Bay Colony came to dominate the area and was established by royal charter in 1629[22][23] with its major town and port of Boston established in 1630.[24]

text: Massachusetts Puritans began to settle in Connecticut as early as 1633.[25] Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts for heresy, led a group south, and founded Providence Plantation in the area that became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in 1636.[26][27] At this time, Vermont was yet unsettled, and the territories of New Hampshire and Maine were claimed and governed by Massachusetts.[28]

text: French and Indian Wars[edit]

text: Relationships between colonists and local Indian tribes alternated between peace and armed skirmishes, the bloodiest of which was the Pequot War in 1637 which resulted in the Mystic massacre.[29] On May 19, 1643, the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut joined together in a loose compact called the New England Confederation (officially "The United Colonies of New England"). The confederation was designed largely to coordinate mutual defense, and gained some importance during King Philip's War.[30] From June 1675 through April 1678, King Philip's War pitted the colonists and their Indian allies against a widespread Indian uprising, resulting in killings and massacres on both sides.[31]

text: During the next 74 years, there were six colonial wars that took place primarily between New England and New France,[32] during which New England was allied with the Iroquois Confederacy and New France was allied with the Wabanaki Confederacy. Mainland Nova Scotia came under the control of New England after the Siege of Port Royal (1710), but both New Brunswick and most of Maine remained contested territory between New England and New France. The British eventually defeated the French in 1763, opening the Connecticut River Valley for British settlement into western New Hampshire and Vermont.

text: The New England Colonies were settled primarily by farmers who became relatively self-sufficient. Later, New England's economy began to focus on crafts and trade, aided by the Puritan work ethic, in contrast to the Southern colonies which focused on agricultural production while importing finished goods from England.[33]

text: Dominion of New England[edit]

text: By 1686, King James II had become concerned about the increasingly independent ways of the colonies, including their self-governing charters, their open flouting of the Navigation Acts, and their growing military power. He therefore established the Dominion of New England, an administrative union comprising all of the New England colonies.[39] In 1688, the former Dutch colonies of New York, East New Jersey, and West New Jersey were added to the Dominion. The union was imposed from the outside and contrary to the rooted democratic tradition of the region, and it was highly unpopular among the colonists.[40]

text: The Dominion significantly modified the charters of the colonies, including the appointment of Royal Governors to nearly all of them. There was an uneasy tension between the Royal Governors, their officers, and the elected governing bodies of the colonies. The governors wanted unlimited authority, and the different layers of locally elected officials would often resist them. In most cases, the local town governments continued operating as self-governing bodies, just as they had before the appointment of the governors.[41]

text: After the Glorious Revolution in 1689, Bostonians overthrew royal governor Sir Edmund Andros. They seized dominion officials and adherents to the Church of England during a popular and bloodless uprising.[42] These tensions eventually culminated in the American Revolution, boiling over with the outbreak of the War of American Independence in 1775. The first battles of the war were fought in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, later leading to the Siege of Boston by continental troops. In March 1776, British forces were compelled to retreat from Boston.

text: New England in the new nation[edit]

text: After the dissolution of the Dominion of New England, the colonies of New England ceased to function as a unified political unit but remained a defined cultural region. By 1784, all of the states in the region had taken steps towards the abolition of slavery, with Vermont and Massachusetts introducing total abolition in 1777 and 1783, respectively.[43] The nickname "Yankeeland" was sometimes used to denote the New England area, especially among Southerners and the British.[44]

text: Vermont was admitted to statehood in 1791 after settling a dispute with New York. The territory of Maine had been a part of Massachusetts, but it was granted statehood on March 15, 1820 as part of the Missouri Compromise.[45] Today, New England is defined as the six states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.[5]

text: New England's economic growth relied heavily on trade with the British Empire,[46] and the region's merchants and politicians strongly opposed trade restrictions. As the United States and the United Kingdom fought the War of 1812, New England Federalists organized the Hartford Convention in the winter of 1814 to discuss the region's grievances concerning the war, and to propose changes to the Constitution to protect the region's interests and maintain its political power.[47] Radical delegates within the convention proposed the region's secession from the United States, but they were outnumbered by moderates who opposed the idea.[48]

text: Politically, the region often disagreed with the rest of the country.[49] Massachusetts and Connecticut were among the last refuges of the Federalist Party, and New England became the strongest bastion of the new Whig Party when the Second Party System began in the 1830s. The Whigs were usually dominant throughout New England, except in the more Democratic Maine and New Hampshire. Leading statesmen hailed from the region, including Daniel Webster.

text: Many notable literary and intellectual figures were New Englanders, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, George Bancroft, and William H. Prescott.[50]

text: Industrial Revolution[edit]

text: New England was key to the industrial revolution in the United States.[51] The Blackstone Valley running through Massachusetts and Rhode Island has been called the birthplace of America's industrial revolution.[52] In 1787, the first cotton mill in America was founded in the North Shore seaport of Beverly, Massachusetts as the Beverly Cotton Manufactory.[53] The Manufactory was also considered the largest cotton mill of its time. Technological developments and achievements from the Manufactory led to the development of more advanced cotton mills, including Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Towns such as Lawrence, Massachusetts, Lowell, Massachusetts, Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and Lewiston, Maine became centers of the textile industry following the innovations at Slater Mill and the Beverly Cotton Manufactory.[citation needed]

text: The Connecticut River Valley became a crucible for industrial innovation, particularly the Springfield Armory, pioneering such advances as interchangeable parts and the assembly line which influenced manufacturing processes all around the world.[54] From early in the nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth, the region surrounding Springfield, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut served as the United States' epicenter for advanced manufacturing, drawing skilled workers from all over the world.[55][56]

text: The rapid growth of textile manufacturing in New England between 1815 and 1860 caused a shortage of workers. Recruiters were hired by mill agents to bring young women and children from the countryside to work in the factories. Between 1830 and 1860, thousands of farm girls moved from rural areas where there was no paid employment to work in the nearby mills, such as the famous Lowell Mill Girls. As the textile industry grew, immigration also grew. By the 1850s, immigrants began working in the mills, especially Irish and French Canadians.[57]

text: New England as a whole was the most industrialized part of the U.S. By 1850, the region accounted for well over a quarter of all manufacturing value in the country and over a third of its industrial workforce.[58] It was also the most literate and most educated region in the country.[58]

text: During the same period, New England and areas settled by New Englanders (upstate New York, Ohio's Western Reserve, and the upper midwestern states of Michigan and Wisconsin) were the center of the strongest abolitionist and anti-slavery movements in the United States, coinciding with the Protestant Great Awakening in the region.[59] Abolitionists who demanded immediate emancipation such as William Lloyd Garrison, John Greenleaf Whittier and Wendell Phillips had their base in the region. So too did anti-slavery politicians who wanted to limit the growth of slavery, such as John Quincy Adams, Charles Sumner, and John P. Hale. When the anti-slavery Republican Party was formed in the 1850s, all of New England, including areas that had previously been strongholds for both the Whig and the Democratic Parties, became strongly Republican. New England remained solidly Republican until Catholics began to mobilize behind the Democrats, especially in 1928, and up until the Republican party realigned its politics in a shift known as the Southern strategy. This led to the end of "Yankee Republicanism" and began New England's relatively swift transition into a consistently Democratic stronghold.[60]

text: 20th century and beyond[edit]

text: The flow of immigrants continued at a steady pace from the 1840s until cut off by World War I. The largest numbers came from Ireland and Britain before 1890, and after that from Quebec, Italy and Southern Europe. The immigrants filled the ranks of factory workers, craftsmen and unskilled laborers. The Irish assumed a larger and larger role in the Democratic Party in the cities and statewide, while the rural areas remained Republican. Yankees left the farms, which never were highly productive; many headed west, while others became professionals and businessmen in the New England cities.

text: The Great Depression in the United States of the 1930s hit the region hard, with high unemployment in the industrial cities. The Democrats appealed to factory workers and especially Catholics, pulling them into the New Deal coalition and making the once-Republican region into one that was closely divided. However the enormous spending on munitions, ships, electronics, and uniforms during World War II caused a burst of prosperity in every sector.

text: The region lost most of its factories starting with the loss of textiles in the 1930s and getting worse after 1960. The New England economy was radically transformed after World War II. The factory economy practically disappeared. Like urban centers in the Rust Belt, once-bustling New England communities fell into economic decay following the flight of the region's industrial base. The textile mills one by one went out of business from the 1920s to the 1970s. For example, the Crompton Company, after 178 years in business, went bankrupt in 1984, costing the jobs of 2,450 workers in five states. The major reasons were cheap imports, the strong dollar, declining exports, and a failure to diversify.[61] Shoes followed.

text: What remains is very high technology manufacturing, such as jet engines, nuclear submarines, pharmaceuticals, robotics, scientific instruments, and medical devices. MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) invented the format for university-industry relations in high tech fields, and spawned many software and hardware firms, some of which grew rapidly.[62] By the 21st century the region had become famous for its leadership roles in the fields of education, medicine and medical research, high-technology, finance, and tourism.[63]

text: Some industrial areas were slow in adjusting to the new service economy. In 2000, New England had two of the ten poorest cities (by percentage living below the poverty line) in the U.S.: the state capitals of Providence, Rhode Island and Hartford, Connecticut.[64] They were no longer in the bottom ten by 2010; Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire remain among the ten wealthiest states in the United States in terms of median household income and per capita income.[65]

text: Cities and urban areas[edit]

text: Metropolitan areas[edit]

text: The following are metropolitan statistical areas as defined by the United States Census Bureau.

text:
Bangor, ME MSA
Barnstable Town, MA MSA (Greater Boston)
Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH MSA (Greater Boston)
Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT MSA (New York-Newark CSA)
Burlington-South Burlington, VT MSA
Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT MSA
Lewiston-Auburn, ME MSA
Manchester-Nashua, NH MSA
New Haven-Milford, CT MSA (New York-Newark CSA)
Norwich-New London, CT MSA
Pittsfield, MA MSA
Portland-South Portland, ME MSA
Springfield, MA MSA
Providence-Warwick, RI-MA MSA (Greater Boston)
Worcester, MA-CT MSA (Greater Boston)

text: State capitals[edit]

text:
Hartford, Connecticut
Augusta, Maine
Boston, Massachusetts
Concord, New Hampshire
Providence, Rhode Island
Montpelier, Vermont

text: Geography[edit]

text: The states of New England have a combined area of 71,991.8 square miles (186,458 km2), making the region slightly larger than the state of Washington and larger than England.[66][67] Maine alone constitutes nearly one-half of the total area of New England, yet is only the 39th-largest state, slightly smaller than Indiana. The remaining states are among the smallest in the U.S., including the smallest state—Rhode Island.

text: Geology[edit]

text: New England's long rolling hills, mountains, and jagged coastline are glacial landforms resulting from the retreat of ice sheets approximately 18,000 years ago, during the last glacial period.[68][69]

text: New England is geologically a part of the New England province, an exotic terrane region consisting of the Appalachian Mountains, the New England highlands, and the seaboard lowlands.[70] The Appalachian Mountains roughly follow the border between New England and New York. The Berkshires in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and the Green Mountains in Vermont, as well as the Taconic Mountains, form a spine of Precambrian rock.[71]

text: The Appalachians extend northwards into New Hampshire as the White Mountains, and then into Maine and Canada. Mount Washington in New Hampshire is the highest peak in the Northeast, although it is not among the ten highest peaks in the eastern United States.[72] It is the site of the second highest recorded wind speed on Earth,[73][74] and has the reputation of having the world's most severe weather.[75][76]

text: The coast of the region, extending from southwestern Connecticut to northeastern Maine, is dotted with lakes, hills, marshes and wetlands, and sandy beaches.[69] Important valleys in the region include the Connecticut River Valley and the Merrimack Valley.[69] The longest river is the Connecticut River, which flows from northeastern New Hampshire for 655 km (407 mi), emptying into Long Island Sound, roughly bisecting the region. Lake Champlain, which forms part of the border between Vermont and New York, is the largest lake in the region, followed by Moosehead Lake in Maine and Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire.[69]

text: Climate[edit]

text: The climate of New England varies greatly across its 500 miles (800 km) span from northern Maine to southern Connecticut:

text: Maine, northern and central New Hampshire, Vermont, and western Massachusetts have a humid continental climate (Dfb in Köppen climate classification). In this region the winters are long, cold, and heavy snow is common (most locations receive 60 to 120 inches (1,500 to 3,000 mm) of snow annually in this region). The summer's months are moderately warm, though summer is rather short and rainfall is spread through the year.

text: In central and eastern Massachusetts, southeastern New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and most of Connecticut, the same humid continental prevails (Dfa), though summers are warm to hot, winters are shorter, and there is less snowfall (especially in the coastal areas where it is often warmer).

text: Southern and coastal Connecticut is the broad transition zone from the cold continental climates of the north to the milder subtropical climates to the south. The frost free season is greater than 180 days across far southern/coastal Connecticut, coastal Rhode Island, and the islands (Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard). Winters also tend to be much sunnier in southern Connecticut and southern Rhode Island compared to the rest of New England.[77]

text: Demographics[edit]

text: In 2010, New England had a population of 14,444,865, a growth of 3.8% from 2000.[78] This grew to an estimated 14,727,584 by 2015.[79] Massachusetts is the most populous state with 6,794,422 residents, while Vermont is the least populous state with 626,042 residents.[78] Boston is by far the region's most populous city and metropolitan area.

text: Although a great disparity exists between New England's northern and southern portions, the region's average population density is 234.93 inhabitants/sq mi (90.7/km²). New England has a significantly higher population density than that of the U.S. as a whole (79.56/sq mi), or even just the contiguous 48 states (94.48/sq mi). Three-quarters of the population of New England, and most of the major cities, are in the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. The combined population density of these states is 786.83/sq mi, compared to northern New England's 63.56/sq mi (2000 census).

text: According to the 2006–08 American Community Survey, 48.7% of New Englanders were male and 51.3% were female. Approximately 22.4% of the population were under 18 years of age; 13.5% were over 65 years of age. The six states of New England have the lowest birth rate in the U.S.[80]

text: White Americans make up the majority of New England's population at 83.4% of the total population, Hispanic and Latino Americans are New England's largest minority, and they are the second-largest group in the region behind non-Hispanic European Americans. As of 2014, Hispanics and Latinos of any race made up 10.2% of New England's population. Connecticut had the highest proportion at 13.9%, while Vermont had the lowest at 1.3%. There were nearly 1.5 million Hispanic and Latino individuals reported in New England in 2014. Puerto Ricans were the most numerous of the Hispanic and Latino subgroups. Over 660,000 Puerto Ricans lived in New England in 2014, forming 4.5% of the population. The Dominican population is over 200,000, and the Mexican and Guatemalan populations are each over 100,000.[81] Americans of Cuban descent are scant in number; there were roughly 26,000 Cuban Americans in the region in 2014. People of all other Hispanic and Latino ancestries, including Salvadoran, Colombian, and Bolivian, formed 2.5% of New England's population, and numbered over 361,000 combined.[81]

text: According to the 2014 American Community Survey, the top ten largest reported European ancestries were the following:[82]

text:
Irish: 19.2% (2.8 million)
Italian: 13.6% (2.0 million)
French and French Canadian: 13.1% (1.9 million)
English: 11.9% (1.7 million)[83]
German: 7.4% (1.1 million)
Polish: 4.9% (roughly 715,000)
Portuguese: 3.2% (467,000)
Scottish: 2.5% (370,000)
Russian: 1.4% (206,000)
Greek: 1.0% (152,000)

text: English is, by far, the most common language spoken at home. Approximately 81.3% of all residents (11.3 million people) over the age of five spoke only English at home. Roughly 1,085,000 people (7.8% of the population) spoke Spanish at home, and roughly 970,000 people (7.0% of the population) spoke other Indo-European languages at home. Over 403,000 people (2.9% of the population) spoke an Asian or Pacific Island language at home.[84] Slightly fewer (about 1%) spoke French at home,[85] although this figure is above 20% in northern New England, which borders francophone Québec.[citation needed] Roughly 99,000 people (0.7% of the population) spoke languages other than these at home.[84]

text: As of 2014, approximately 87% of New England's inhabitants were born in the U.S., while over 12% were foreign-born.[86] 35.8% of foreign-born residents were born in Latin America, 28.6% were born in Asia, 22.9% were born in Europe, and 8.5% were born in Africa.[87]

text: Southern New England forms an integral part of the BosWash megalopolis, a conglomeration of urban centers that spans from Boston to Washington, D.C. The region includes three of the four most densely populated states in the U.S.; only New Jersey has a higher population density than the states of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

text: Greater Boston, which includes parts of southern New Hampshire, has a total population of approximately 4.8 million,[88] while over half the population of New England falls inside Boston's Combined Statistical Area of over 8.2 million.[89]

text: Largest cities[edit]

text: The most populous cities as of the Census Bureau's 2014 estimates were (metropolitan areas in parentheses):[88][90]

text:
Boston, Massachusetts: 655,884 (4,739,385)
 Worcester, Massachusetts: 183,016 (931,802)
 Providence, Rhode Island: 179,154 (1,609,533)
 Springfield, Massachusetts: 153,991 (630,672)
 Bridgeport, Connecticut: 147,612 (945,816)
 New Haven, Connecticut: 130,282 (861,238)
 Stamford, Connecticut: 128,278 (part of Bridgeport's MSA)
 Hartford, Connecticut: 124,705 (1,213,225)
 Manchester, New Hampshire: 110,448 (405,339)
 Lowell, Massachusetts: 109,945 (part of Greater Boston)

tag: ol

text: During the 20th century, urban expansion in regions surrounding New York City has become an important economic influence on neighboring Connecticut, parts of which belong to the New York metropolitan area. The U.S. Census Bureau groups Fairfield, New Haven and Litchfield counties in western Connecticut together with New York City, and other parts of New York and New Jersey as a combined statistical area.[91]

text:
Major Cities of New England

1. Boston, Massachusetts

2. Worcester, Massachusetts

3. Providence, Rhode Island

4. Springfield, Massachusetts

5. Bridgeport, Connecticut

6. New Haven, Connecticut

7. Stamford, Connecticut

8. Hartford, Connecticut

9. Manchester, New Hampshire

10. Lowell, Massachusetts

text: Economy[edit]

text: Overview[edit]

text: Several factors combine to make the New England economy unique. The region is distant from the geographic center of the country, and is a relatively small region, and relatively densely populated. It historically has been an important center of industrial manufacturing and a supplier of natural resource products, such as granite, lobster, and codfish. New England exports food products, ranging from fish to lobster, cranberries, Maine potatoes, and maple syrup. The service industry is important, including tourism, education, financial and insurance services, plus architectural, building, and construction services. The U.S. Department of Commerce has called the New England economy a microcosm for the entire U.S. economy.[92]

text: In the first half of the 20th century, the region underwent a long period of deindustrialization as traditional manufacturing companies relocated to the Midwest, with textile and furniture manufacturing migrating to the South. In the mid-to-late 20th century, an increasing portion of the regional economy included high technology (including computer and electronic equipment manufacturing), military defense industry, finance and insurance services, as well as education and health services.

text: As of 2015, the GDP of New England was $953.9 billion.[93]

text: Exports[edit]

text: Exports consist mostly of industrial products, including specialized machines and weaponry (aircraft and missiles especially), built by the region's educated workforce. About half of the region's exports consist of industrial and commercial machinery, such as computers and electronic and electrical equipment. This, when combined with instruments, chemicals, and transportation equipment, makes up about three-quarters of the region's exports. Granite is quarried at Barre, Vermont,[94] guns made at Springfield, Massachusetts and Saco, Maine, boats at Groton, Connecticut and Bath, Maine, and hand tools at Turners Falls, Massachusetts. Insurance is a driving force in and around Hartford, Connecticut.[92]

text: Agriculture[edit]

text: Agriculture is limited by the area's rocky soil, cool climate, and small area. Some New England states, however, are ranked highly among U.S. states for particular areas of production. Maine is ranked ninth for aquaculture,[95] and has abundant potato fields in its northeast part. Vermont is fifteenth for dairy products,[96] and Connecticut and Massachusetts seventh and eleventh for tobacco, respectively.[97][98] Cranberries are grown in Massachusetts' Cape Cod-Plymouth-South Shore area, and blueberries in Maine.

text: Energy[edit]

text: Three of the six New England states are among the country's highest consumers of nuclear power: Vermont (first, 73.7%), Connecticut (fourth, 48.9%), and New Hampshire (sixth, 46%).[99] The region is mostly energy-efficient compared to the U.S. at large, with every state but Maine ranking within the ten most energy-efficient states;[100] every state in New England also ranks within the ten most expensive states for electricity prices.[101]

text: Employment[edit]

text:
Unemployment rates in New England

Employment area
October 2010
October 2011
October 2012
October 2013
December 2014
December 2015[102]
December 2016[103]
Net change

United States
9.7
9.0
7.9
7.2
5.6
5.0
4.7
−5.0

New England
8.3
7.6
7.4
7.1
5.4
4.3
3.5
−4.7

Connecticut
9.1
8.7
9.0
7.6
6.4
5.2
4.4
−4.7

Maine
7.6
7.3
7.4
6.5
5.5
4.0
3.8
−3.8

Massachusetts
8.3
7.3
6.6
7.2
5.5
4.7
2.8
−5.5

New Hampshire
5.7
5.3
5.7
5.2
4.0
3.1
2.6
−3.1

Rhode Island
11.5
10.4
10.4
9.4
6.8
5.1
5.0
−6.5

Vermont
5.9
5.6
5.5
4.4
4.2
3.6
3.1
−2.8

text: As of January 2017, employment is stronger in New England than in the rest of the United States. During the Great Recession, unemployment rates ballooned across New England as elsewhere; however, in the years that followed, these rates declined steadily, with New Hampshire and Massachusetts having the lowest unemployment rates in the country, respectively. The most extreme swing was in Rhode Island, which had an unemployment rate above 10% following the recession, but which saw this rate decline by over 6% in six years.

text: As of December 2016, the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) with the lowest unemployment rate, 2.1%, was Burlington-South Burlington, Vermont; the MSA with the highest rate, 4.9%, was Waterbury, Connecticut.[104]

text: Government[edit]

text: Town meetings[edit]

text: New England town meetings were derived from meetings held by church elders, and are still an integral part of government in many New England towns. At such meetings, any citizen of the town may discuss issues with other members of the community and vote on them. This is the strongest example of direct democracy in the U.S. today, and the strong democratic tradition was even apparent in the early 19th century, when Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America:

text:
“
New England, where education and liberty are the daughters of morality and religion, where society has acquired age and stability enough to enable it to form principles and hold fixed habits, the common people are accustomed to respect intellectual and moral superiority and to submit to it without complaint, although they set at naught all those privileges which wealth and birth have introduced among mankind. In New England, consequently, the democracy makes a more judicious choice than it does elsewhere.[105]
”

text: By contrast, James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 55 that, regardless of the assembly, "passion never fails to wrest the scepter from reason. Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob."[106] The use and effectiveness of town meetings is still discussed by scholars, as well as the possible application of the format to other regions and countries.[107]

text: Politics[edit]

text: Elections[edit]

text: State and national elected officials in New England recently have been elected mainly from the Democratic Party.[108] The region is generally considered to be the most liberal in the United States, with more New Englanders identifying as liberals than Americans elsewhere. In 2010, four of six of the New England states were polled as the most liberal in the United States; Maine and New Hampshire also were more liberal than the bottom-half.[109]

text: The six states of New England voted for the Democratic Presidential nominee in the 1992, 1996, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016 elections, and every New England state other than New Hampshire voted for Al Gore in the presidential election of 2000. In the 113th Congress the House delegations from all six states of New England were all Democratic. New England is home to the only two independents currently serving in the U.S. Senate, both of whom caucus with the Democratic Party: Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist,[110][111] representing Vermont; and Angus King, an Independent representing Maine.

text: In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama carried all six New England states by 9 percentage points or more.[112] He carried every county in New England except for Piscataquis County, Maine, which he lost by 4% to Senator John McCain (R-AZ). Pursuant to the reapportionment following the 2010 census, New England collectively has 33 electoral votes.

text: The following table presents the vote percentage for the popular-vote winner for each New England state, New England as a whole, and the United States as a whole, in each presidential election from 1900 to 2016, with the vote percentage for the Republican candidate shaded in red and the vote percentage for the Democratic candidate shaded in blue:

text:
Year
Connecticut
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Vermont
New England
United States

2016
54.6%
47.8%
60.0%
46.8%
54.4%
56.7%
55.3%
48.2%

2012
58.1%
56.3%
60.7%
52.0%
62.7%
66.6%
59.1%
51.1%

2008
60.6%
57.7%
61.8%
54.1%
62.9%
67.5%
60.6%
52.9%

2004
54.3%
53.6%
61.9%
50.2%
59.4%
58.9%
57.7%
50.7%

2000
55.9%
49.1%
59.8%
48.1%
61.0%
50.6%
56.1%
48.4%

1996
52.8%
51.6%
61.5%
49.3%
59.7%
53.4%
56.8%
49.2%

1992
42.2%
38.8%
47.5%
38.9%
47.0%
46.1%
44.4%
43.0%

1988
52.0%
55.3%
53.2%
62.5%
55.6%
51.1%
49.5%
53.4%

1984
60.7%
60.8%
51.2%
68.7%
51.7%
57.9%
56.2%
58.8%

1980
48.2%
45.6%
41.9%
57.7%
47.7%
44.4%
44.7%
50.8%

1976
52.1%
48.9%
56.1%
54.7%
55.4%
54.3%
51.7%
50.1%

1972
58.6%
61.5%
54.2%
64.0%
53.0%
62.7%
52.5%
60.7%

1968
49.5%
55.3%
63.0%
52.1%
64.0%
52.8%
56.1%
43.4%

1964
67.8%
68.8%
76.2%
63.9%
80.9%
66.3%
72.8%
61.1%

1960
53.7%
57.0%
60.2%
53.4%
63.6%
58.6%
56.0%
49.7%

1956
63.7%
70.9%
59.3%
66.1%
58.3%
72.2%
62.0%
57.4%

1952
55.7%
66.0%
54.2%
60.9%
50.9%
71.5%
56.1%
55.2%

1948
49.5%
56.7%
54.7%
52.4%
57.6%
61.5%
51.5%
49.6%

1944
52.3%
52.4%
52.8%
52.1%
58.6%
57.1%
52.4%
53.4%

1940
53.4%
51.1%
53.1%
53.2%
56.7%
54.8%
52.8%
54.7%

1936
55.3%
55.5%
51.2%
49.7%
53.1%
56.4%
50.9%
60.8%

1932
48.5%
55.8%
50.6%
50.4%
55.1%
57.7%
49.1%
57.4%

1928
53.6%
68.6%
50.2%
58.7%
50.2%
66.9%
53.2%
58.2%

1924
61.5%
72.0%
62.3%
59.8%
59.6%
78.2%
63.3%
54.0%

1920
62.7%
68.9%
68.5%
59.8%
64.0%
75.8%
66.7%
60.3%

1916
49.8%
51.0%
50.5%
49.1%
51.1%
62.4%
51.1%
49.2%

1912
39.2%
39.4%
35.5%
39.5%
39.0%
37.1%
36.6%
41.8%

1908
59.4%
63.0%
58.2%
59.3%
60.8%
75.1%
60.2%
51.6%

1904
58.1%
67.4%
57.9%
60.1%
60.6%
78.0%
60.4%
56.4%

1900
56.9%
61.9%
57.6%
59.3%
59.7%
75.7%
59.4%
51.6%

text: Political party strength[edit]

text: Judging purely by party registration rather than voting patterns, New England today is one of the most Democratic regions in the U.S.[113][114][115] According to Gallup, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont are "solidly Democratic", Maine "leans Democratic", and New Hampshire is a swing state.[116] Though New England is today considered a Democratic Party stronghold, much of the region was staunchly Republican before the mid-twentieth century. This changed in the late 20th century, in large part due to demographic shifts[117] and the Republican Party's adoption of socially conservative platforms as part of their strategic shift towards the South.[60] For example, Vermont voted Republican in every presidential election but one from 1856 through 1988, and has voted Democratic every election since. Maine and Vermont were the only two states in the nation to vote against Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt all four times he ran for president. Republicans in New England are today considered by both liberals and conservatives to be more moderate (socially liberal) compared to Republicans in other parts of the U.S.[118]

text:
State
Governor
Senior U.S. Senator
Junior U.S. Senator
U.S. House Delegation
Upper House Majority
Lower House Majority

CT
D. Malloy
R. Blumenthal
C. Murphy
Democratic 5–0
Tied 18–18
Democratic 80–71

ME
P. LePage
S. Collins
A. King[†]
Split 1–1
Republican 18–17
Democratic 76–72–2

MA
C. Baker
E. Warren
E. Markey
Democratic 9–0
Democratic 34–6
Democratic 125–35

NH
C. Sununu
J. Shaheen
M. Hassan
Democratic 2-0
Republican 14–10
Republican 226–174

RI
G. Raimondo
J. Reed
S. Whitehouse
Democratic 2–0
Democratic 33–5
Democratic 64–10–1

VT
P. Scott
P. Leahy
B. Sanders[†]
Democratic 1–0
Democratic 21–7–2
Democratic 83–53–7–7

text: New Hampshire primary[edit]

text: Historically, the New Hampshire primary has been the first in a series of nationwide political party primary elections held in the United States every four years. Held in the state of New Hampshire, it usually marks the beginning of the U.S. presidential election process. Even though few delegates are chosen from New Hampshire, the primary has always been pivotal to both New England and American politics. One college in particular, Saint Anselm College, has been home to numerous national presidential debates and visits by candidates to its campus.[119]

text: Education[edit]

text: Colleges and universities[edit]

text: New England contains some of the oldest and most renowned institutions of higher learning in the United States and the world. Harvard College was the first such institution, founded in 1636 at Cambridge, Massachusetts to train preachers. Yale University was founded in Saybrook, Connecticut in 1701, and awarded the nation's first doctoral (PhD) degree in 1861. Yale moved to New Haven, Connecticut in 1718, where it has remained to the present day.

text: Brown University was the first college in the nation to accept students of all religious affiliations, and is the seventh oldest U.S. institution of higher learning. It was founded in Providence, Rhode Island in 1764. Dartmouth College was founded five years later in Hanover, New Hampshire with the mission of educating the local American Indian population as well as English youth. The University of Vermont, the fifth oldest university in New England, was founded in 1791, the same year that Vermont joined the Union.

text: In addition to four out of eight Ivy League schools, New England contains the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), four of the original Seven Sisters, the bulk of educational institutions that are identified as the "Little Ivies", one of the eight original Public Ivies, the Colleges of Worcester Consortium in central Massachusetts, and the Five Colleges consortium in western Massachusetts. The University of Maine, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Connecticut, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the University of Rhode Island, and the University of Vermont are the flagship state universities in the region.

text: Private and independent secondary schools[edit]

text: At the pre-college level, New England is home to a number of American independent schools (also known as private schools). The concept of the elite "New England prep school" (preparatory school) and the "preppy" lifestyle is an iconic part of the region's image.[120]

text: Public education[edit]

text: New England is home to some of the oldest public schools in the nation. Boston Latin School is the oldest public school in America and was attended by several signatories of the Declaration of Independence.[121] Hartford Public High School is the second oldest operating high school in the U.S.[122]

text: As of 2005, the National Education Association ranked Connecticut as having the highest-paid teachers in the country. Massachusetts and Rhode Island ranked eighth and ninth, respectively.

text: New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont have cooperated in developing a New England Common Assessment Program test under the No Child Left Behind guidelines. These states can compare the resultant scores with each other.

text: The Maine Learning Technology Initiative program supplies all students with Apple MacBook laptops.

text: Academic journals and press[edit]

text: There are several academic journals and publishing companies in the region, including The New England Journal of Medicine, Harvard University Press, and Yale University Press. Some of its institutions lead the open access alternative to conventional academic publication, including MIT, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Maine. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston publishes the New England Economic Review.[123]

text: Culture[edit]

text: New England has a shared heritage and culture primarily shaped by waves of immigration from Europe.[124] In contrast to other American regions, many of New England's earliest Puritan settlers came from eastern England, contributing to New England's distinctive accents, foods, customs, and social structures.[125]:30–50 Within modern New England a cultural divide exists between urban New Englanders living along the densely populated coastline, and rural New Englanders in western Massachusetts, northwestern and northeastern Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, where population density is low.[126]

text: Today, New England is the least religious region of the U.S. In 2009, less than half of those polled in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont claimed that religion was an important part of their daily lives. In Connecticut and Rhode Island, also among the ten least religious states, 55 and 53%, respectively, of those polled claimed that it was.[127] According to the American Religious Identification Survey, 34% of Vermonters, a plurality, claimed to have no religion; on average, nearly one out of every four New Englanders identifies as having no religion, more than in any other part of the U.S.[128] New England had one of the highest percentages of Catholics in the U.S. This number declined from 50% in 1990 to 36% in 2008.[128]

text: Cultural roots[edit]

text: Many of the first European colonists of New England had a maritime orientation toward whaling (first noted about 1650)[129] and fishing, in addition to farming. New England has developed a distinct cuisine, dialect, architecture, and government. New England cuisine has a reputation for its emphasis on seafood and dairy; clam chowder, lobster, and other products of the sea are among some of the region's most popular foods.

text: New England has largely preserved its regional character, especially in its historic places. The region has become more ethnically diverse, having seen waves of immigration from Ireland, Quebec, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Asia, Latin America, Africa, other parts of the U.S., and elsewhere. The enduring European influence can be seen in the region in the use of traffic rotaries, the bilingual French and English towns of northern Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire, the region's heavy prevalence of English town- and county-names, and its unique, often non-rhotic coastal dialect reminiscent of southeastern England.

text: Within New England, many names of towns (and a few counties) repeat from state to state, primarily due to settlers throughout the region having named their new towns after their old ones. For example, the town of North Yarmouth, Maine was named by settlers from Yarmouth, Massachusetts, which was in turn named for Great Yarmouth in England. As another example, every New England state has a town named Warren, and every state except Rhode Island has a city or town named Andover, Bridgewater, Chester, Franklin, Manchester, Plymouth, Washington, and Windsor; in addition, every state except Connecticut has a Lincoln and a Richmond, and Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine each contains a Franklin County.

text: Accents[edit]

text: There are several American English accents spoken in the region (normally north of Connecticut), including New England English and its derivative known as the Boston accent,[130] which is native to the northeastern coastal regions of New England. The most identifiable features of the Boston accent are believed[by whom?] to have originated from England's Received Pronunciation, which shares features such as dropping the final R and the broad A. Another source was 17th century speech in East Anglia and Lincolnshire where many of the Puritan immigrants originated.[citation needed] The East Anglian "whine" developed into the Yankee "twang".[125] Boston accents were most strongly associated at one point with the so-called "Eastern Establishment" and Boston's upper class, although today the accent is predominantly associated with blue-collar natives, as exemplified by movies such as Good Will Hunting and The Departed. The Boston accent and those accents closely related to it cover eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine.[131]

text: Some Rhode Islanders speak with a non-rhotic accent that many compare to a "Brooklyn" accent or a cross between a New York and Boston accent, where "water" becomes "wata". Many Rhode Islanders distinguish the aw sound [ɔː], as one might hear in New Jersey; e.g., the word "coffee" is pronounced /ˈkɔːfi/ KAW-fee.[132] This type of accent was brought to the region by early settlers from eastern England in the Puritan migration in the mid-seventeenth century.[125]:13–207

text: Social activities and music[edit]

text: Acadian and Québécois culture are included in music and dance in much of rural New England, particularly Maine. Contra dancing and country square dancing are popular throughout New England, usually backed by live Irish, Acadian, or other folk music. Fife and drum corps are common, especially in southern New England and more specifically Connecticut, with music of mostly Celtic, English, and local origin.

text: Traditional knitting, quilting, and rug hooking circles in rural New England have become less common; church, sports, and town government are more typical social activities. These traditional gatherings are often hosted in individual homes or civic centers.

text: New England leads the U.S. in ice cream consumption per capita.[133][134] In the U.S., candlepin bowling is essentially confined to New England, where it was invented in the 19th century.[135]

text: New England was an important center of American classical music for some time. Prominent modernist composers also come from the region, including Charles Ives and John Adams. Boston is the site of the New England Conservatory and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

text: In popular music, the region has produced Donna Summer, JoJo, New Edition, Bobby Brown, Passion Pit, Meghan Trainor, New Kids on the Block, Rachel Platten, and John Mayer. In rock music, the region has produced Rob Zombie, Aerosmith, The Modern Lovers, Phish, the Pixies, GG Allin, the Dropkick Murphys, and Boston. Quincy, Massachusetts native Dick Dale helped popularize surf rock.

text: Media[edit]

text: The leading U.S. cable TV sports broadcaster ESPN is headquartered in Bristol, Connecticut. New England has several regional cable networks, including New England Cable News (NECN) and the New England Sports Network (NESN). New England Cable News is the largest regional 24-hour cable news network in the U.S., broadcasting to more than 3.2 million homes in all of the New England states. Its studios are located in Newton, Massachusetts, outside of Boston, and it maintains bureaus in Manchester, New Hampshire; Hartford, Connecticut; Worcester, Massachusetts; Portland, Maine; and Burlington, Vermont.[136] In Connecticut, Litchfield, Fairfield, and New Haven counties it also broadcasts New York based news programs—this is due in part to the immense influence New York has on this region's economy and culture, and also to give Connecticut broadcasters the ability to compete with overlapping media coverage from New York-area broadcasters.

text: NESN broadcasts the Boston Red Sox baseball and Boston Bruins hockey throughout the region, save for Fairfield County, Connecticut.[137] Most of Connecticut, save for Windham county in the state's northeast corner, and even southern Rhode Island, receives the YES Network, which broadcasts the games of the New York Yankees. For the most part, the same areas also carry SportsNet New York (SNY), which broadcasts New York Mets games.

text: Comcast SportsNet New England broadcasts the games of the Boston Celtics, New England Revolution and Boston Cannons.

text: While most New England cities have daily newspapers, The Boston Globe and The New York Times are distributed widely throughout the region. Major newspapers also include The Providence Journal, Portland Press Herald, and Hartford Courant, the oldest continuously published newspaper in the U.S.[138]

text: Comedy[edit]

text: New Englanders are well represented in American comedy. Writers for The Simpsons and late-night television programs often come by way of the Harvard Lampoon. Family Guy is an animated sitcom situated in Rhode Island, created by Connecticut native and Rhode Island School of Design graduate Seth MacFarlane (along with American Dad! and The Cleveland Show). A number of Saturday Night Live (SNL) cast members have roots in New England, from Adam Sandler to Amy Poehler, who also stars in the NBC television series Parks and Recreation. Former Daily Show correspondents Rob Corddry and Steve Carell are from Massachusetts. Carell was also involved in film and the American adaptation of The Office, which features Dunder-Mifflin branches set in Stamford, Connecticut and Nashua, New Hampshire.

text: Late-night television hosts Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien have roots in the Boston area. Notable stand-up comedians are also from the region, including Bill Burr, Dane Cook, Steve Sweeney, Steven Wright, Sarah Silverman, Lisa Lampanelli, Denis Leary, Lenny Clarke, Patrice O'Neal, and Louis CK. SNL cast member Seth Meyers once attributed the region's imprint on American humor to its "sort of wry New England sense of pointing out anyone who's trying to make a big deal of himself", with the Boston Globe suggesting that irony and sarcasm are its trademarks, as well as Irish influences.[139]

text: Literature[edit]

text: The literature of New England has had an enduring influence on American literature in general, with themes that are emblematic of the larger concerns of American letters, such as religion, race, the individual versus society, social repression, and nature.[140] Famous New England writers include Transcendentalist philosophers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, poets Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Bishop, and novelists Nathaniel Hawthorne and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

text: Boston was the center of the American publishing industry for some years, largely on the strength of its local writers and before it was overtaken by New York in the middle of the nineteenth century. Boston remains the home of publishers Houghton Mifflin and Pearson Education, and it was the longtime home of literary magazine The Atlantic Monthly. Merriam-Webster is based in Springfield, Massachusetts. Yankee is a magazine for New Englanders based in Dublin, New Hampshire.

text: Twentieth and twenty-first century writers hailing from New England include Maine native Stephen King and New Hampshire native John Irving, and New England is a major setting of their works. George V. Higgins wrote about life in the New England criminal underworld, while H.P. Lovecraft set many of his works of horror in his native Rhode Island.

text:
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Anne Sexton

Sylvia Plath

Stephen King

Jack Kerouac

Harriet Beecher-Stowe

text: Film, television, and acting[edit]

text: New England has a rich history in filmmaking dating back to the dawn of the motion picture era at the turn of the 20th century, sometimes dubbed Hollywood East by film critics. A theater at 547 Washington Street in Boston was the second location to debut a picture projected by the Vitascope, and shortly thereafter several novels were being adapted for the screen and set in New England, including The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables.[141] The New England region continued to churn out films at a pace above the national average for the duration of the 20th century, including blockbuster hits such as Jaws, Good Will Hunting, and The Departed, all of which won Oscars. The New England area became known for a number of themes that recurred in films made during this era, including the development of yankee characters, smalltown life contrasted with city values, seafaring tales, family secrets, and haunted New England.[142] These themes are rooted in centuries of New England culture and are complemented by the region's diverse natural landscape and architecture, from the Atlantic Ocean and brilliant fall foliage to church steeples and skyscrapers.

text: Since the turn of the millennium, Boston and the greater New England region have been home to the production of numerous films and television series, thanks in part to tax incentive programs put in place by local governments to attract filmmakers to the region.[143]

text: Notable actors and actresses that have come from the New England area include Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Amy Poehler, Elizabeth Banks, Steve Carell, Ruth Gordon, John Krasinski, Edward Norton, Mark Wahlberg, and Matthew Perry. A full list of those from Massachusetts can be found here, and a listing of notable films and television series produced in the area here.

text: Sports[edit]

text: Two popular American sports were invented in New England: basketball, invented by James Naismith (a Canadian) in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891,[144] and volleyball, invented in 1895 by William G. Morgan, in Holyoke, Massachusetts.[145] Additionally, Walter Camp is credited with developing modern American football in New Haven, Connecticut, in the 1870s and 1880s.[146]

text: New Hampshire Motor Speedway is an oval racetrack that has hosted several NASCAR and American Championship Car Racing races, whereas Lime Rock Park in Connecticut is a traditional road racing venue home of sports car races. Events at these venues have had the "New England" moniker, such as the NASCAR New England 300 and New England 200, the IndyCar Series New England Indy 200, and the American Le Mans Series New England Grand Prix.

text: Professional and semi-professional sports teams[edit]

text: The major professional sports teams in New England are based in Massachusetts: the Boston Red Sox, the New England Patriots (based in Foxborough, Massachusetts), the Boston Celtics, the Boston Bruins, the New England Revolution (also based in Foxborough), and the Boston Cannons. Hartford had professional hockey team the Hartford Whalers from 1975 until they moved to North Carolina in 1997. WNBA team the Connecticut Sun are based in southeastern Connecticut at the Mohegan Sun resort, which is also home to the professional indoor lacrosse team the New England Black Wolves. New England is also home to the Boston Blades, Boston Pride, and the Connecticut Whale which represent three of the five professional women's hockey teams in the United States.

text: There are also minor league baseball and hockey teams based in larger cities, such as the Bridgeport Bluefish (baseball), the Bridgeport Sound Tigers (hockey), the Connecticut Tigers (baseball), the Hartford Yard Goats (baseball), the Hartford Wolf Pack (hockey), the Lowell Spinners (baseball), the Manchester Monarchs (hockey), the New Britain Bees (baseball), the New Hampshire Fisher Cats (baseball), the Pawtucket Red Sox (baseball), the Portland Sea Dogs (baseball), the Providence Bruins (hockey), the Springfield Thunderbirds (hockey), the Vermont Lake Monsters (baseball), and the Worcester Railers (hockey).

text: The NBA G League fields the Maine Red Claws based in Portland, Maine. The Springfield Armor in Springfield, Massachusetts previously played in the region. The Red Claws are affiliated with the Boston Celtics, and the Armor were affiliated with the Brooklyn Nets, prior to relocating to Grand Rapids, Michigan to become the Grand Rapids Drive. New England is also represented in the Premier Basketball League by the Vermont Frost Heaves of Barre, Vermont.

text: Thanksgiving Day high school football rivalries date back to the 19th century, and the Harvard-Yale rivalry ("The Game") is the oldest rivalry in college football. The Boston Marathon is run on Patriots' Day every year; it is a New England cultural institution and the oldest annual marathon in the world. The race offers far less prize money than many other marathons, but its difficulty and long history make it one of the world's most prestigious marathons.[147]

text: Transportation[edit]

text: The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) provides rail and subway service within the Boston metropolitan area, bus service in Greater Boston, and commuter rail service throughout Eastern Massachusetts and parts of Rhode Island. The New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority in partnership with the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) operates the Metro-North Railroad, which provides commuter rail service in Southwestern Connecticut in the corridor between New York City and New Haven. CTDOT provides the Shore Line East commuter rail service along the Connecticut coastline east of New Haven, terminating in Old Saybrook and New London.

text: Amtrak provides interstate rail service throughout New England. Boston is the northern terminus of the Northeast Corridor. The Vermonter connects Vermont to Massachusetts and Connecticut, while the Downeaster links Maine to Boston. The long-distance Lake Shore Limited train has two eastern termini after splitting in Albany, one of which is Boston. This provides rail service on the former Boston and Albany Railroad, which runs between its namesake cities. The rest of the Lake Shore Limited continues to New York City.


document_title: Into the Wild (film)

question_text: who does kristen stewart play in into the wild

root

text: Into the Wild (film)

text: Plot[edit]

text: In April 1992, Christopher McCandless arrives in a remote area just north of the Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska. Noting Chris' unpreparedness, the stranger who drops him off lends him a pair of boots. Chris travels into the wilderness and sets up a campsite in an abandoned city bus, which he calls "The Magic Bus". At first, McCandless is content with the isolation, the beauty of nature around him, and the thrill of living off the land. He hunts with a .22 caliber rifle, reads books, and keeps a diary of his thoughts as he prepares himself for a new life in the wild.

tag: p

text: Two years earlier, in May 1990, McCandless graduates with high honors from Emory University. Shortly afterwards, McCandless rejects his conventional life by destroying all of his credit cards and identification documents. He donates nearly all of his savings to Oxfam and sets out on a cross-country drive in his Datsun B210 to experience life in the wilderness. McCandless does not tell his parents, Walt and Billie McCandless, or his sister Carine what he is doing or where he is going. He refuses to keep in touch with them after his departure, causing his parents to become increasingly anxious and eventually desperate.

text: At Lake Mead, McCandless' car is caught in a flash flood, causing him to abandon it and begin hitchhiking. He burns what remains of his cash and assumes a new name: "Alexander Supertramp." In Northern California, McCandless encounters a hippie couple named Jan Burres and Rainey. Rainey tells McCandless about his failing relationship with Jan, which McCandless helps rekindle. In September, McCandless arrives in Carthage, South Dakota and works for a contract harvesting company owned by Wayne Westerberg. He is forced to leave after Westerberg is arrested for satellite piracy.

text: McCandless then travels on the Colorado River and, though told by park rangers that he may not kayak down the river without a license, ignores their warnings and paddles downriver until he eventually arrives in Mexico. There, his kayak is lost in a dust storm, and he crosses back into the United States on foot. Unable to hitch a ride, he travels on freight trains to Los Angeles. Not long after arriving, however, he starts feeling "corrupted" by modern civilization and decides to leave. Later, he is forced to resume hitchhiking, after being beaten by railroad police.

text: In December 1991, McCandless arrives at Slab City, in the Imperial Valley, and encounters Jan and Rainey again. There, he also meets Tracy Tatro, a teenage girl who shows interest in McCandless, but he rejects her because she is underage. After the holidays, McCandless decides to continue heading for Alaska. One month later, camping near Salton City, McCandless encounters Ron Franz, a retired man who recounts the story of the loss of his family in a car accident while he was serving in the United States Army. He now occupies his time in a workshop as an amateur leather worker. Franz teaches McCandless the craft of leatherwork, resulting in the making of a belt that details McCandless' travels. After spending two months with Franz, McCandless decides to leave for Alaska, despite this upsetting Franz, who has become quite close to McCandless. On a parting note, Franz gives McCandless his old camping and travel gear, along with the offer to adopt him as his grandchild, but McCandless simply tells him that they should discuss this after he returns from Alaska.

text: Four months later, at the abandoned bus, life for McCandless becomes harder, and he begins to make poor decisions. As his supplies begin to run out, he realizes that nature is also harsh and uncaring. McCandless concludes that true happiness can only be found when shared with others, and he seeks to return from the wild to his friends and family. However, he finds that the stream he had crossed during the winter has become wide, deep, and violent due to the snow thaw, and he is unable to cross. Saddened, he returns to the bus. In a desperate act, McCandless is forced to gather and eat roots and plants. He confuses similar plants and eats a poisonous one, falling sick as a result. Slowly dying, he continues to document his process of self-realization and imagines his family for one last time. He writes a farewell to the world and crawls into his sleeping bag to die. Two weeks later, his body is found by moose hunters. Shortly afterwards, Carine returns to Virginia with her brother's ashes in her backpack.

text: Cast[edit]

text:
Emile Hirsch as Chris McCandless
Marcia Gay Harden as Billie McCandless
William Hurt as Walt McCandless
Jena Malone as Carine McCandless
Catherine Keener as Jan Burres
Hal Holbrook as Ron Franz
Brian H. Dierker as Rainey
Kristen Stewart as Tracy Tatro
Vince Vaughn as Wayne Westerberg
Zach Galifianakis as Kevin
Thure Lindhardt as Mads
Signe Egholm Olsen as Sonja
Merritt Wever as Lori
Jim Gallien as Himself
Leonard Knight as Himself
R. D. Call as Bull
Cheryl Harrington as social worker

tag: ul

text: Production[edit]

text: This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (September 2017)

tag: table

text: Filming[edit]

text: The scenes of graduation from Emory University in the film were shot in the fall of 2006 on the front lawn of Reed College. Some of the graduation scenes were also filmed during the actual Emory University graduation on May 15, 2006.[5] The Alaska scenes depicting the area around the abandoned bus on the Stampede Trail were filmed 50 miles (80 km) south of where McCandless actually died, in the tiny town of Cantwell. Filming at the actual bus would have been too remote for the technical demands of a movie shoot.[6] A replica bus used in the movie is now a tourist attraction at a restaurant in Healy, Alaska.[7]

text: Release[edit]

text: Critical reception[edit]

text: The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 82% of 194 reviews of the film were positive, resulting in a "Certified Fresh" rating. Its consensus read: "With his sturdy cast and confident direction, Sean Penn has turned a complex work of nonfiction like Into the Wild into an accessible and poignant character study."[8] Metacritic assigned the film an average score of 73 out of 100 based on 38 reviews from mainstream critics.[9]

text: Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars out of four and described it as "spellbinding." Ebert wrote that Emile Hirsch gives a "hypnotic performance," commenting: "It is great acting, and more than acting." Ebert added, "The movie is so good partly because it means so much, I think, to its writer-director, Sean Penn."[10]

text: The American Film Institute listed the film as one of ten AFI Movies of the Year for 2007.[11][12]

text: National Board of Review named it one of the Top Ten Films of the Year.[13]

text: Into the Wild also ranks 473rd in Empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.[14]

text: Top ten lists[edit]

text: The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007.[15]

text:
1st: Ben Lyons, The Daily 10[16]
2nd: Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post[15]
2nd: Tasha Robinson, The A.V. Club[15]
3rd: James Berardinelli, ReelViews[15]
3rd: Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times[15]
3rd: Peter Travers, Rolling Stone[17]
4th: Kyle Smith, New York Post[15]
5th: Claudia Puig, USA Today[15]

5th: David Germain, Associated Press[18]
5th: Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal[15]
6th: Carrie Rickey, The Philadelphia Inquirer[15]
6th: Steven Rea, The Philadelphia Inquirer[15]
7th: A.O. Scott, The New York Times (tied with The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)[15]
7th: Noel Murray, The A.V. Club[15]
9th: Christy Lemire, Associated Press[18]
10th: Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times[19]

text: Awards[edit]

text: Winnings[edit]

text:
65th Golden Globe Awards[20]

Best Original Song – Motion Picture ("Guaranteed")

Gotham Awards

Best Feature Film

Mill Valley Film Festival

Best Actor (Emile Hirsch)

Palm Springs International Film Festival

Director of the Year Award (Sean Penn)
Rising Star Award Actor (Emile Hirsch)

National Board of Review

Breakthrough Performance – Male (Emile Hirsch)

Rome Film Festival

Jury Award (William Pohlad), (Art Linson), (Sean Penn)

São Paulo International Film Festival

Best Foreign Language Film (Sean Penn)

Italian Online Movie Awards

Best Motion Picture Of The Year
Best Motion Picture soundtrack

text: Nominations[edit]

text:
80th Academy Awards[21]

Best Supporting Actor (Hal Holbrook)
Best Film Editing (Jay Cassidy)

65th Golden Globe Awards[22]

Best Original Score – Motion Picture (Michael Brook, Kaki King, Eddie Vedder)

American Cinema Editors

Best Edited Feature Film – Dramatic (Jay Cassidy)

Broadcast Film Critics Association

Best Film
Best Actor (Emile Hirsch)
Best Supporting Actor (Hal Holbrook)
Best Supporting Actress (Catherine Keener)
Best Director (Sean Penn)
Best Writer (Sean Penn)
Best Song ("Guaranteed")

34th César Awards

Best Foreign Film

Chicago Film Critics Association Awards

Best Picture
Best Screenplay – Adapted (Sean Penn)
Best Supporting Actor (Hal Holbrook)

Directors Guild of America Awards

Best Director – Film (Sean Penn)

Cinema Audio Society

Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Motion Pictures

Costume Designers Guild Awards

Excellence in Costume Design for Film – Contemporary

Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards

Best Foreign Film – English Language (Sean Penn)

Grammy Awards

Best Song Written for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media ("Guaranteed")

Gotham Awards

Breakthrough Award (Emile Hirsch)

Satellite Awards

Best Original Song ("Rise")

Screen Actors Guild Awards

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role (Emile Hirsch)
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role (Hal Holbrook)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role (Catherine Keener)

USC Scripter Award

USC Scripter Award (Sean Penn) (screenwriter), (Jon Krakauer) (author)

Writers Guild of America Awards

Best Adapted Screenplay (Sean Penn)

text: Box office[edit]

text: In North America, Into the Wild initially opened in limited release, in four theaters and grossed $212,440, posting a per-theater average of $53,110. For the next several weeks, the film remained in limited release until it expanded to over 600 theaters on October 19, 2007; in its first weekend of wide release, the film grossed just $2.1 million for a per-theater average of $3,249. As of December 25, 2008, the film grossed $18,354,356 domestically and $37,281,398 internationally. In total, the film has grossed $55,635,754 worldwide.[23]

text: Home media[edit]

text: Into the Wild was released on March 4, 2008 on standard DVD,[24] Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition DVD,[25] and standard HD DVD.[26] The special edition DVD and HD DVD contain two special features entitled The Story, The Characters and The Experience. The Blu-ray Disc edition was released in France on July 16, 2008.[27] The Blu-ray edition for the US was released on December 16, 2008.[28]

text: Soundtrack[edit]

text: The songs on the soundtrack were performed by Eddie Vedder, lead singer of Pearl Jam, and Jerry Hannan. Vedder won a Golden Globe for Best Original Song for the song "Guaranteed". The score was written and performed by Michael Brook and Kaki King. The music at the end of the theatrical trailer is "Acts of Courage" by X-Ray Dog, a company that supplies music for many movie trailers. Eddie Vedder said whilst writing the songs on the album "I spent three days giving him (Sean Penn) colors that I could paint with. Different sounds. It would be pump organ and vocal, or it would be an uptempo song. I just gave him 25 minutes of music, stuff I felt that were colors on the palette. And I really didn’t think anything was gonna come out of it. Maybe a little piece or something".[29]

text:
"Hard Sun" (Eddie Vedder and Corin Tucker)
"Society" (Eddie Vedder and Jerry Hannan)
"No Ceiling" (Eddie Vedder)
"Rise" (Eddie Vedder)
"Long Nights" (Eddie Vedder)
"The Wolf" (Eddie Vedder)
"Guaranteed" (Eddie Vedder)

"Going Up The Country" (Canned Heat)
"King of the Road" (Roger Miller)
"Emory and Old St. Andrews March" (The Atlanta Pipe Band)
"U Can't Touch This" (M.C. Hammer)
"The Water Ran This Way Back and Forth" (Pedro)
"I Thought I Was You" (Kelly Peterson)
"Kaa" (Claude Chaloub)

"Fork And File" (The Crooked Jades)
"Dakota Themes" (Peter Ostroushko)
Slab Song (Everett 'Insane Wayne' Smith)
"Tracy's Song" (Kristen Stewart)
"Angel from Montgomery" (Kristen Stewart and Emile Hirsch)
"Picking Berries" (Gustavo Santaolalla)
"Porterville" (Creedence Clearwater Revival)


document_title: Bridget Jones's Baby

question_text: who does bridget jones end up with in the third movie

text: Bridget Jones's Baby

text: Plot[edit]

text: On her 43rd birthday, Bridget Jones is awoken by her mother who reminds her that her time to have children is running out. She goes to attend the funeral of Daniel Cleaver, who is presumed dead after a plane crash. While there she sees her ex, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), and his new wife. They bump into one another somewhat awkwardly and then go their separate ways.

text: Bridget now works as a television producer and is close friends with the anchor of the show she runs, Miranda (Sarah Solemani), who offers to take her out for her birthday. Bridget turns down her offer to spend time with her old group of friends, but is heartbroken when they cancel on her due to commitments to their children.

text: Deciding to celebrate her single life Bridget accepts Miranda's offer to take her away for the weekend. They go to a music festival where Miranda challenges her to sleep with the first man she meets. Falling in the mud, Bridget is helped out by a random stranger. After attending an Ed Sheeran concert a drunk Bridget crawls into a yurt she thinks belongs to her and Miranda, but actually belongs to the handsome stranger she met earlier. The two have sex and in the morning Bridget makes her escape. The stranger returns disappointed that she is gone.

text: Returning home Bridget goes to the christening of Jude's youngest child where she is the godmother and Mark has been asked to be the godfather. Mark tells her that he and his wife are planning on divorcing and Bridget has sex with him. When Mark reveals he is travelling the next day Bridget is reminded that he had always put work before their relationship and leaves in the morning before he wakes up, leaving behind a note telling him that reconnecting with him is too painful.

text: Bridget finds that she is gaining weight. Shazzer suggests that Bridget might be pregnant, especially when she realises that Bridget used old, expired condoms when having sex. Taking a pregnancy test at work, Bridget confirms she is pregnant and decides that she wants to keep the baby as it is her last chance to have a child.

text: After a visit to the obstetrician and gynecologist, Dr. Rawlings, she realises that she does not know who the father is and doesn't even have a way of contacting Jack, the handsome stranger. However Miranda spies him on TV where they realise that Jack Qwant is a billionaire and the inventor of a dating site that has an algorithm to match couples together. Miranda conspires with Bridget to have Jack on the show to take hair samples so that Bridget will be able to test it against the DNA of her baby to either confirm or eliminate Jack as the father. At the taping the hair and makeup artist is able to nab samples of Jack's hair for Bridget but Jack recognises Bridget, and she decides to tell him that she is pregnant and that he is the father, without mentioning Mark Darcy. Initially taken aback Jack decides to throw himself into the role of supporting Bridget.

text: Feeling things are going too quickly with Jack, Bridget decides to go forward and tell Mark. However Mark is so thrilled at the news that he is about to be a father that Bridget does not tell him about Jack. Bridget also decides not to go forward with testing the DNA while her child is still in the womb as she is terrified by the possibility that she might miscarry. She persuades Dr. Rawlings to go through appointments twice, once with Jack and another time with Mark.

text: Bridget invites Jack to a work event and is startled when Mark shows up as well. The two men immediately take a liking to one another, finding the other's accomplishments impressive. They go out to dinner where Bridget finally comes clean and tells them that she is unsure who the father is. Jack takes the news well, telling Bridget that the child is the priority. Mark Darcy is upset and walks out of the restaurant.

text: At an ante-natal class, Jack arrives early and Bridget is gratified when Mark shows up as well. Jack and Mark are mistaken for a gay couple with Bridget as their surrogate, much to Mark's discomfort and Jack's amusement. Mark is also jealous at the easy rapport that Jack has with Bridget and his warmth in taking care of her.

text: Bridget experiences cramps and goes to the hospital, taking Jack with her as she is unable to reach Mark. When at last Mark arrives he is upset to see the two laughing together and embracing. Mark and Jack fight and Bridget sends them out of the room. Outside, Jack implies that he and Bridget had sex without condoms, making Mark realise that he is less likely to be the father. He leaves once again.

text: Bridget continues to prepare for the arrival of her baby, now with only Jack by her side. They have a discussion where he asks her to move in with him and confesses that life for him is lonely. Bridget asks him what will happen if Mark is the father and he tells her he will need to re-evaluate their relationship if that is the case. He also confesses that the reason Mark has been absent is because Jack heavily implied that Mark was unlikely to be the father. An upset Bridget goes to talk to Mark, but sees his wife arriving at his house and decides to let him be.

text: At nine months, Bridget quits her job rather than being fired for numerous gaffes and unprofessional mishaps, notably inviting a guest onto the show with the sole intent of obtaining a sample of his DNA, live broadcasting bare arses during the launch event of a public news-gathering initiative and mixing up a guest with his chauffeur. Unemployed, exhausted, and hungry, she goes out shopping but has her card eaten by a cashpoint and locks herself out of the bank lobby, leaving her keys and her food inside. When no one buzzes her up to her building she stands outside in the rain feeling miserable. Mark arrives and breaks in for her. He informs her that he and his wife are going through with their divorce and she was only there to pick up the last of her things. Just as they are about to kiss Bridget's water breaks. When his phone rings for work he throws it out the window in a romantic gesture, which leaves them without a means to call transport to the hospital. They enlist the help of a local restaurant to get them to hospital, but a traffic jam due to protests forces them to walk. Overtaken by contractions Bridget cannot walk and Mark offers to carry her, but almost collapses. Jack arrives just in time and the two of them get Bridget to the hospital.

text: During labour both Mark and Jack try to help Bridget. However, during labour Bridget accidentally punches Jack in the nose. She also reaches to Mark for comfort and he reassures her that she can get through labour and he will love her no matter whether the child is his or not, while sustaining an agonising bite to the wrist by Bridget. While Jack and Mark wait outside, Jack apologises to Mark for his behaviour and Mark accepts. Bridget gives birth to a boy and all of Bridget's friends and relatives come to visit her in the delivery room. Meanwhile, Dr. Rawlings has both men come with her to perform the DNA test. After having bonded for the last 6 months Mark and Jack each wish each other luck.

text: A year later Bridget prepares to be married. At the altar she is greeted by Jack, holding her son, and then moves forward to marry Mark Darcy. After the wedding Mark and Jack, now friends, head to the reception together, while Bridget carries her and Mark's son, William.

text: A newspaper lying on a bench reveals that Daniel Cleaver has been found alive in the woods in the wreckage of the plane.

text: Cast[edit]

text:
Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones
Colin Firth as Mark Darcy QC
Patrick Dempsey as Jack Qwant
Sally Phillips as Sharon "Shazzer"
James Callis as Tom
Shirley Henderson as Jude
Sarah Solemani as Miranda
Neil Pearson as Richard Finch
Emma Thompson as Doctor Rawlings
Jim Broadbent as Mr. Colin Jones
Ben Willbond as Giles
Gemma Jones as Mrs. Pamela Jones
Celia Imrie as Una Alconbury
Jessica Hynes as Magda
Kate O'Flynn as Alice Peabody
Joanna Scanlan as Cathy
James Faulkner as Uncle Geoffrey
Katia Elizarova as Glamorous ex
Ed Sheeran as himself
Erron Gordon as Breakfast TV Show Director

text: Production[edit]

text: In July 2009, Variety announced that a third instalment of the Bridget Jones films was in the early stages of development. Working Title Films confirmed that it would not be based on Helen Fielding's third Bridget Jones novel, but instead would be based on the columns she wrote for The Independent in 2005.[4][5] On 1 March 2011, it was reported that both Renée Zellweger and Colin Firth were interested in reprising their roles.[6] In July 2011, Paul Feig was in final talks to direct the film based on the script by author Fielding.[7] On 11 August 2011, Universal Studios and Working Title greenlit the third film.[8] On 4 October 2011, Deadline reported that Feig had exited the project due to creative differences with Working Title, and Feig had also worked on the recent draft of the script.[9][10] Production was slated to begin in January 2012 with the returning cast including Zellweger, Firth, and Hugh Grant.[9] On 30 November 2011, Peter Cattaneo came on board to direct the sequel, newly titled "Bridget Jones's Baby" from a script by Fielding, Feig, and David Nicholls.[11] Producers on board were Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner of Working Title, along with Jonathan Cavendish of Little Bird.[11] On 3 February 2012, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that the production had been delayed due to creative differences between the script of the film and actors, especially Grant as he disliked the script and reportedly exited the project, though this was denied by producer Bevan.[10] However, the producer confirmed that they were working on the script and the film would be made as planned.[10]

text: In April 2013, Firth spoke to the Chicago Sun-Times, stating "unfortunately, it might be a bit of a long wait," and he said he "wouldn't say that it's completely dead in the water, but the way it's going, you might be seeing Bridget Jones' granddaughter's story being told by the time we get there."[12] In an interview on 10 October 2014, Grant mentioned an existing script for a sequel, though he also expressed his dislike for it, and stated that he would not star in the third film.[13][14][15] Later in the next week, producers hired Emma Thompson to rewrite the original script written by Fielding and Nicholls.[16]

text: On 25 June 2015, it was reported that final negotiations for the film were going on and Sharon Maguire, director of the first film would return to direct the third film.[14] Gemma Jones and Jim Broadbent were also in talks to return for the third film to join the cast.[14][17] On 9 September 2015, Patrick Dempsey joined the cast of the film.[18]

text: Filming[edit]

text: Filming for a short period began in July 2015 in Dublin, where the first scenes for the film were shot at Ed Sheeran's concert at Croke Park.[19][20] Official principal photography with the actual cast began on 2 October 2015 in London.[18][21]

text: On 13 October 2015, shooting was taking place at Borough Market,[22] and later in October in Windsor Great Park, at Rosy Bottom.[23] On 26 October 2015, filming took place at a church in Oxfordshire.[24]

text: Filming wrapped up on 27 November 2015.[25] Reshoots took place for one week starting 8 January 2016.[26]

text: Music[edit]

text: Release[edit]

text: In October 2015, Bridget Jones's Baby was set for a 16 September 2016 release.[27][28] On 23 March the first trailer was released.[29] Like the previous two films, the movie received an R rating.[30] Renee Zellweger's physical appearance in the trailer for the film has rekindled a debate about the possibility that Zellweger had plastic surgery, which began in 2014 when she re-emerged from a long hiatus.[31] An editorial focused on the trailer for the film by Variety critic Owen Gleiberman titled "Renee Zellweger: If She No Longer Looks Like Herself, Has She Become a Different Actress?"[32] triggered a firestorm of controversy including responses from Zellweger herself, who called the scrutiny over her appearance "sexist" and attributing her difference in appearance solely to "ageing," and wrote an open essay explaining her response in the weeks before the film's release.[33][34]

text: Reception[edit]

text: Box office[edit]

text: Bridget Jones's Baby grossed $212 million worldwide, including $24.1 million in the United States and Canada and $60 million in the United Kingdom, against a budget of $35 million.[2]

text: The film was released in North America on 16 September 2016 and was projected to gross $12–16 million in its opening weekend from 2,927 theaters.[35][36] It made $364,000 from its Thursday night previews and $3 million on its first day.[37] In total, the film made $8.2 million in its opening weekend, falling below projections and scoring the lowest opening of the series.[38]

text: Internationally, where Universal Pictures handled most of the releases, the film fared better and especially in the U.K. where the previous two installments registered the biggest grossers. It debuted day-and-date in conjuncture with its North American release in 41 countries, including big markets like the UK and Ireland, Russia, Australia, Mexico and Spain in its opening weekend.[35][39] The film will be released in a total of 62 countries.[40][41] It scored the biggest opening day in the franchise in the U.K., the Netherlands and Latin America including Mexico, Panama and Peru, and had No. 1 opening days in the U.K., Australia, Spain, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Croatia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa and Ukraine.[40] Through Sunday, 18 September, it had an opening weekend of $29.9 million from 39 markets and debuted at No. 1 in 24 of them.[42] It was in second place at the box office, behind A Chinese Odyssey Part Three.[43] It topped the international box office in its second weekend, earning $21.9 million from 47 markets.[44] It recorded the biggest debut in the franchise and had No. 1 openings in certain markets like Australia ($4.2 million), the Netherlands ($1.9 million), Spain ($1.7 million), Iceland and New Zealand and bowed at second place in France ($3.7 million) and Russia ($1.4 million).[42][44][45]

text: In the United Kingdom and Ireland – the biggest market for the first two films – the film opened on Friday, 16 September, and recorded the biggest comedy/romantic comedy opening day ever, as well as the biggest Working Title and September opening of all time with $4 million at 641 theaters.[40] It went on to score a record breaking £8.11 million ($10.5 million) opening and dominated 57% of the total market share which is the biggest romantic comedy opening weekend ever in the UK; the biggest opening weekend ever for Working Title; and the biggest September launch weekend of all time.[42] Excluding previews, the film has the seventh biggest debut of the year.[46] The film fell just 20% in its second weekend to £6.4 million ($8.3 million)[47] and continued to lead the box office for the third consecutive weekend, despite the influx of a row of competitions.[48] After three straight wins, it was surpassed by The Girl on the Train in its fourth weekend.[45] It broke a number of records including the fastest romantic comedy to earn £30 million, doing so on its seventeenth day (the first film took 31 days and the second film took 24 days).[49] It has so far grossed a total of $54 million there becoming the biggest market outside of North America like its predecessors.[41] Adjusted for inflation it is the lowest-grossing film behind both the films (£73.1 million and £57.8 million respectively).[50]

text: After 31 days of playing in theaters, the film became the biggest film in the franchise in the United Kingdom with £42.24 million, surpassing the first film's final gross of £42 million. It currently sits as the third biggest film of 2016 behind Finding Dory (£42.25 million) and The Jungle Book (£46.1 million).[51] In Netherlands, it is the highest-grossing Working Title picture of all time with $8.1 million — passing Notting Hill (1999), which held the record for 17 years.[41]

text: Critical response[edit]

text: Bridget Jones's Baby received generally positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 77%, based on 188 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Bridget Jones's Baby might be late on arrival, but fans of the series should still find its third installment a bouncing bundle of joy."[52] On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a score 59 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[53] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[54]

text: Awards and nominations[edit]

text:
Year
Association
Category
Nominee(s)
Result

2017
Diversity in Media Awards
Movie of the Year
Bridget Jones's Baby
Nominated