Boston, Massachusetts in Go Down, Moses (Location)

Boston is the capital of Massachusetts and its largest city. The novel uses it, however, as a kind of cultural shorthand to represent the "North," and in particular the abolitionists whose anti-slavery campaign helped bring on the Civil War: it refers not just to "the New England mechanics" and [Boston] "bankers," but also, disparagingly, to "the Boston-bred (even when not born in Boston) spinster descendants of long lines of similarly-bred and likewise spinster aunts and uncles whose hands knew no callus except that of the indicting pen" and whose civilized world was defined by Boston's "Beacon Hill" (273).