6 days ago
Scandal-hit Astronomer HR chief has ties to Boston Brahmins. Who are they?
A two-second viral kiss-cam video featuring Astronomer HR chief Kristin Cabot and her boss Andy Byron during a Coldplay concert has led to a storm of memes as well as turned media gaze into their private lives. The scandal has brought into focus Cabot's elite family background - the Boston is married to Andrew Cabot, the sixth-generation owner of Privateer Rum, and has two children with him. The Cabots are one of the original Boston Brahmin families, whose influence stretches back to over two centuries. advertisementWHO ARE THE BOSTON BRAHMINS?One of America's oldest and storied aristocrats, the Boston Brahmins are descendants of English puritans. The puritans were religious reformers who sailed to New England in the 1600s.
The term was coined in the 1860s by writer and physician Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr, who likened Boston's elite class to the 'Brahmins' of India for their intellectualism, self-restraint, and inherited status. The name has stuck since families - Cabots, Lowells, Adamses, Peabodys, Eliots, and Winthrops - helped shape America's political, cultural, and educational institutions. These families helped create Harvard, launched shipping empires, and wrote some of the country's earliest Boston Brahmins were among the earliest to campaign for ending slavery and liberating enslaved people. They also bankrolled some of America's earliest museums and Anglo-American elites earned massive wealth through multiple business ventures - whale oil, opium, and later carbon black manufacturing (a critical component in the production of tyres).However, what set them apart was not just their wealth, but their cultural refinement. They preferred to stay out of the spotlight and married within their INFLUENCEEven though the grip of the Boston Brahmin families has begun to wane, the Cabot name still carries weight in Boston. Their estimated wealth is reported to be around USD 15 their legacy isn't without its share of controversy. Some of these families had backed the Immigration Restriction League - an anti-immigration organisation - that worked against migration from Southern and Eastern Europe. This was to protect their lineage and the idea of American as Irish, Italian and Jewish immigrants arrived in Boston, leaving their imprint on Boston's culture, the Boston Brahmins began to fade into the Cabot's fleeting kiss-cam video went viral, it brought with it a cacophony of opinions on the scandal involving two married people. And also threw the spotlight on America's oldest elite, whose legacy has been built on discretion.- EndsTrending Reel
