New Haven

New Haven, city, Connecticut, United States, at the mouth of the Quinnipiac River on Long Island Sound. Once a prosperous manufacturing centre, New Haven now has an economy based on four sectors: biotechnology, health care, higher education, and arts and entertainment. Yale University (1701) commands a central position in the city’s economic and cultural life. One of the country’s premier educational institutions, the university is New Haven’s largest employer. Associated with Yale are the Peabody Museum of Natural History, with a dinosaur fossil collection; Yale Center for British Art; the Yale University Art Gallery, with an extensive collection by European masters; and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, containing a Gutenberg Bible. The Museum of the New Haven Colony Historical Society details the city’s development. New Haven is also the seat of Albertus Magnus College (1925) and Southern Connecticut State College (1893); the University of New Haven (1920) is in nearby West Haven.

New Haven is a deep-water port and a transport hub. The city has printing and publishing industries and also produces firearms, rubber goods, paper items, foodstuffs, chemicals, primary and fabricated metals, machinery, and glassware. New Haven has a variety of performing-arts facilities and museums, as well as an arts centre. Nature and recreation areas are located at West and East Rocks, lofty red sandstone cliffs north-east of the city. New Haven’s central green, which dates from the 17th century, is bordered by three early 19th-century churches. Also of interest are Grove Street Cemetery, which contains the graves of lexicographer Noah Webster and inventor Eli Whitney. New Haven is home to an annual international tennis tournament.

New Haven was founded in 1638 by English Puritans. Originally called Quinnipiac, in 1640 it was renamed New Haven, either as “new harbour” or after Newhaven in England. Having been an independent colony until absorbed by Connecticut Colony in 1665, with Hartford it served (1701-1875) as joint capital of Connecticut. With its fine natural harbour, New Haven was a busy 18th-century maritime centre possessing a large colonial and West Indian trade. During the American War of Independence the town was raided (in 1779) and partially burned by British forces. Aided by enormous immigration throughout the 19th century, New Haven became an important manufacturing town. Eli Whitney introduced the principle of interchangeable parts here, and other inventors, notably Charles Goodyear, worked in the city. New Haven was one of the first cities in the country to undertake extensive urban renewal in the 1950s and has received national attention for its efforts to solve its urban problems, including the nation’s first anti-poverty programme (in 1962) and the Liveable City Initiative, a neighbourhood revitalization programme introduced in the 1990s. Population 124,001 (2006).