Astronomer's head of human resources (HR), Kristin Cabot, currently caught in the middle of a raging controversy after being spotted canoodling with her boss, Andy Byron, at the Coldplay concert, has a connection to Boston's richest families.
Kristin is married to Andrew Cabot, the owner of Privateer Rum, and part of one of Boston's most elite families. Andrew is the descendant of the Caboot family, which is part of America's elite class, commonly known as the "Boston Brahmins".
What are Boston Brahmins?
Oliver Wendell Holmes coined the term in his 1861 novel Elsie Venner, calling Boston's elite families "the Brahmin Caste of New England", according to a PBS report. Brahmins are the highest priestly caste in India, and Mr Holmes borrowed the term to describe Boston's upper-class, Anglo-Saxon Protestant families, which has stuck since then.
The Boston Brahmins were the descendants of Puritans, having made their fortune as American merchants. They were the closest thing the United States has ever had to a true aristocracy.
Mr Holmes described Boston Brahmins as a group who believed they were destined to build a "shining city on a hill", rooted in the Puritan ideals of discipline, thrift, education, and cultural refinement, as per New England Historical Society.
The Brahmins were known for their philanthropy but also for their exclusivity, often resisting the integration of immigrants, as seen in their founding of the Immigration Restriction League in 1894. When immigrants did move in to the newly fashionable Old South End, the Brahmins moved out.
Who are the popular Boston Brahmins?
Some of the popular Boston Brahmin family names are Adams, Cabot, Coffin, Eliot, Emerson, Endicott, Forbes, Gardner, Holmes, Lawrence, Lowell, Otis, Parkman, Peabody, Phillips, Putnam, Quincy, Weld, Wigglesworth, and Winthrop.
How rich are the Cabots?
The Cabots are part of a class so rarefied that, for decades, even the Kennedys were considered outsiders. Their business ventures spanned shipping, carbon black manufacturing (a critical component in tire production), and various other enterprises across the region.
The family is so well known in Boston, it's said locally that the "Cabots speak only to God". As a local poem goes, "And this is good old Boston/ The home of the bean and the cod/ Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots/ And the Cabots talk only to God".
