 
Summer reading assignment
The Library staff recommends six new books
What better way to spend the last weeks of summer than with a good book? Whether you're headed to the beach or taking refuge in air conditioning, associate librarian Steve Picazio and executive director Peggy Bendroth have suggestions for you summer reading list. Brush up on your Congregational history and knowledge of early New England with these summer reads, all available to borrowing members of the Congregational Library & Archives.
David Powers' work Damnable Heresy is a rich, fascinating look at the first book 'banned in Boston.' It's a biography of William Pynchon, an influential landowner whose work The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption was burned on the Common in 1650 for its argument against Puritan theology.
Francis Bremer's new work, Lay Empowerment and the Development of Puritanism, looks at how laypeople influenced Puritan society, where religious figures had an outsize influence on government, society, and private life. Frank will be speaking at the CLA on November 12, as part of our History Matters speaker series.
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| | Literary District's Larry Lindner and Joanna Albertson Grove at the Congregational Library & Archives |
An innovative coalition of readers and writers
Getting to know the Boston Literary District
Boston is well known for having a literary past - Louisa May Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, and earlier writers like African American poet Phillis Wheatley. But Boston present is in the midst of a literary renaissance. We have a vibrant community of writers and readers, and that vibrancy is expressed in organizations across the city, from the Boston Public Library to the Boston Athenaeum to the preeminent writers group GrubStreet
. Now, with all things literary under the one Literary District roof, the writing community has a stronger platform to showcase its art, and the reading community has a one-stop clearinghouse to find out what's going on - what writers are speaking where, what literary panels are being presented, what literary works are being performed, and so on.
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Middle Passage Remembrance Ceremony
The Congregational Library & Archives is proud to participate in Boston's Middle Passage remembrance ceremony, to take place at Boston's Faneuil Hall from 3:00 to 5:00 PM on Sunday, August 23rd.
We trumpet anti-slavery Congregationalists in the latest Bulletin, but history is never simple. The Library got involved in the Middle Passage Remembrance Ceremony to acknowledge the fact that some early Congregational ministers were slaveholders, complicit in the transatlantic slave trade.
This event is part of the national Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project. The ceremonies commemorate the captive Africans who perished in the Middle Passage during the 350 years of the transatlantic slave trade, as well as to honor the survivors of that perilous journey and acknowledge the role they and their descendants have played in building this nation.
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Become a Member
Members enjoy special events and a free subscription to The Bulletin, covering the history and significance of the American Congregational tradition. Our current issue explores Abolitionists, known and unknown.
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Upcoming Events
History Matters series - A Storm of WitchcraftWednesday, September 16, 2015 LEARN MOREHistory Matters series - Daily Bread: Food and Spirituality in Early Boston
Thursday, October 15, 2015 LEARN MORE
History Matters series - Putting the Congregation back into puritan Congregationalism Thursday, November 12, 2015
LEARN MORE
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