Discovering Each Other: Immigrants and Congregationalists in America, 1826-1924 – A Virtual Exhibition Launch with Rev. Dr. Kazimieriz Bem

From the founding of the Congregational Home Missionary Society in 1826 to President Calvin Coolidge’s signing of the Immigration Act of 1924, Congregationalists have played an active role in national conversations and responses to immigration. Women and men embraced the opportunity to serve as missionaries to the millions of people coming into the United States. Immigrant converts joined their work, even in the face of the prejudice they faced from fellow Congregationalists and their own kin.  

Join curator Rev. Dr. Kazimierz Bem, pastor of First Church in Marlborough, Massachusetts (Congregational) UCC and senior lecturer in church history at the Evangelical School of Theology in Wrocław, Poland, for a virtual launch of a new online exhibition. Learn more about the individual and institutional motivations and actions of Congregationalists towards immigrants to the United States, and the reception they received over a century.  

This event is free and open to all, but registration is required. Click here to register.

After registering, you will receive an email with information about attending the webinar. 

Email any questions to programs@14beacon.org. 

Speaker:

Kazimierz Bem is the pastor of First Church in Marlborough (Congregational) UCC in Massachusetts, and holds a D.Sc. from the Polish Academy of Science in Warsaw. He is a senior lecturer in church history at the Evangelical School of Theology in Wrocław (Poland) and author of many books including, Calvinism in the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, 1548-1648: The Churches and the Faithful (Brill, 2020). He was a Congregational Library & Archives Fellow in 2024 and is finishing his work on his new book, provisionally titled Anarchists, Communists, and Women. Congregational and Presbyterian Work among Polish Immigrants in the United States 1880-1924.