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X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Congregational Library & Archives
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20231103T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20231103T190000
DTSTAMP:20260211T162447Z
CREATED:20260209T161830Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260211T162447Z
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SUMMARY:Congregational Library & Archives Open House 2023
DESCRIPTION:Our 2023 Open House celebrated the launch of the virtual exhibition\, Founding 56: The Congregational Library’s Original Collection\, which explores the history of the Congregational Library’s original collection of 56 books and how its ideas have shaped understandings of the Congregational story over the past 170 years. \n\nOpen House attendees had the opportunity to see many of these original 56 print and manuscript works\, including publications by the Mathers\, a 1723 commonplace book kept by a Harvard student\, and publications by nineteenth-century reform societies. Congregational Library & Archives staff were on hand to answer questions about both the original collection and the most recent 56 items added to our collection\, which were also on display. \nOther highlights of the evening included a presentation by Dr. Tricia Peone\, New England’s Hidden Histories Project Director\, on recent additions to NEHH collections\, including records from the First and Second Churches of Boston\, the Hingham First Parish records\, John Eliot’s sermon notes\, new Cotton Mather materials\, and more. There was also a short program exploring the history and importance of the Congregational Library & Archives’ collections past and present featuring CLA Board Chair Rich Elliott\, CLA Executive Director Dr. Kyle Roberts\, and CLA Archivist Zachary Bodnar\, who developed the Founding 56 digital exhibition.
URL:https://congregationallibrary.org/events/congregational-library-archives-open-house-2023
LOCATION:Congregational Library & Archives\, 14 Beacon Street\, Boston\, MA\, 02108\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://congregationallibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/OpenHouseCarousel400.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20231025T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20231025T140000
DTSTAMP:20260211T162359Z
CREATED:20260209T162531Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260211T162359Z
UID:9434-1698238800-1698242400@congregationallibrary.org
SUMMARY:Invisible Agents: Witchcraft in Congregational Church Records
DESCRIPTION:A haunted house\, an unusual illness\, the intervention of a minister–each could lead to an accusation of witchcraft in early New England. Today\, people typically think of the Salem witch trials and little else when the history of witchcraft is mentioned. \nIn fact\, the belief in magic\, witchcraft\, ghosts\, and other invisible agents of Satan continued to impact congregations beyond Salem well into the eighteenth century. \nDr. Tricia Peone\, Project Director for New England’s Hidden Histories at the CLA\, explored two lesser-known cases of witchcraft that took place in Massachusetts and New Hampshire in the decades after Salem. Drawing from examples in Congregational church records\, she discussed how people determined whether or not witchcraft was the cause of their problems and how they dealt with this continuing threat to their communities. \nSPEAKER BIO \nDr. Tricia Peone is the project director of New England’s Hidden Histories at the Congregational Library & Archives. She holds a PhD in history from the University of New Hampshire with a specialization in the early modern Atlantic world and history of science. Prior to joining the CLA in 2022\, she was a research scholar at Historic New England for the Recovering New England’s Voices project and has previously worked as a lecturer and historical consultant. Dr. Peone’s scholarship focuses on early modern magic and witchcraft and her work on these subjects has appeared in journals\, books\, blogs\, and on radio and television.
URL:https://congregationallibrary.org/events/invisible-agents
LOCATION:Virtual
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://congregationallibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/InvisibleAgentsCarousel400.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20231019T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20231019T143000
DTSTAMP:20260211T162249Z
CREATED:20260209T162730Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260211T162249Z
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SUMMARY:Phillis Wheatley Peters and the Black Congregational Calvinist Tradition
DESCRIPTION:This program offered an important discussion of Phillis Wheatley Peters as a theological thinker within the Black Calvinist tradition with Steven Harris\, Rev. Dr. Stephen G. Ray\, Jr\, and Dr. Cassander L. Smith in honor of the 250th anniversary of the publication of Wheatley Peters’ Poems on Various Subjects\, Religious and Moral. \n\nWheatley Peters has rightfully garnered popular and academic interest for her work as a Black poet writing in eighteenth-century Boston. Kidnapped from West Africa and sold into enslavement as a young child\, Wheatley Peters learned to read and write\, and soon produced highly esteemed poems for members of her community. On September 1\, 1773\, her first book of poetry\, Poems on Various Subjects\, Religious and Moral\, was published in London while on a trip with the son of the family that enslaved her. \nCuriously absent from consideration\, however\, has been exploration of Wheatley Peters’ contribution to Black theology. Wheatley Peters sits uncomfortably in the narrative arc often told about Black theology\, especially the Calvinist tradition she participated in as a member of Old South Church in Boston. Putting Wheatley Peters into conversation with other Black Congregationalists in the Calvinist tradition\, such as Jupiter Hammon and Lemuel Haynes\, reveals in important and interesting ways how she both adopted and adapted the theological material and resources available to her to make sense of her identity and social location. \nSPEAKER BIOS \nSteven Harris is a faith-based public policy expert and scholar of American religious history and African American studies. He currently serves as Senior Director of Academic Programs at the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University. Prior to arriving at Georgetown\, Steven spent several years on Capitol Hill building coalitions and working on domestic and international public policy issues at the intersection of religion\, justice\, and human dignity. His research interests lie at the historical intersection of black religious thought and Calvinistic theology. His most recent published writing on the topic was a contribution to the edited volume\, The Oxford Handbook of Calvin and Calvinism (OUP\, 2021). A Vanderbilt graduate\, Steven received an MDiv from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary\, an MA in Religion from Yale Divinity School\, an MA in Religion from Harvard University\, and is currently a PhD candidate at Harvard. \nDr. Cassander (Cassie) Smith is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Alabama. Her teaching and research focus on representations of black Africans in early Atlantic literature\, emphasizing the racial/cultural ideologies that helped shape English encounters with the early Americas and helped shape the literature produced about those encounters. She is the author of Race and Respectability in an Early Black Atlantic (LSU\, 2023) and Black Africans in the British Imagination: English Narratives of the Early Atlantic World (LSU\, 2016) as well as the co-editor of several anthologies. Along with Tara A. Bynum and Brigitte Fielder\, she wrote the introduction to a special issue of Early American Literature in 2022 devoted to Phillis Wheatley. \nRev. Dr. Stephen G. Ray\, Jr. is the Senior Minister at the historic United Church on the Green\, New Haven CT. Prior to this call he served as the 13th President of Chicago Theological Seminary and a past President of the Society for the Study of Black Religion. Ray had a distinguished career in theological education as holder of two endowed chairs and published broadly in the areas of religion and African-American Studies.
URL:https://congregationallibrary.org/events/peters-black-congregational-calvinist-tradition
LOCATION:Virtual
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://congregationallibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/WheatleyCarousel400.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20231017T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20231017T140000
DTSTAMP:20260211T161157Z
CREATED:20260209T162931Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260211T161157Z
UID:9441-1697547600-1697551200@congregationallibrary.org
SUMMARY:Opportunities and Challenges Facing Religious Archives Today: The View from Boston
DESCRIPTION:Zachary Bodnar (Congregational Library & Archives)\, Thomas Lester (Archdiocese of Boston Archive & Library)\, and Jessica Suarez (Harvard Divinity School) represent Boston-area institutions with significant collections that document centuries of religious life\, ecclesiastical activity\, and community experiences. Their archives are routinely used by diverse audiences\, including academic scholars\, clergy\, genealogists\, church historians\, and students–each with their own set of interests and needs. With small archival staffs\, sizeable collections\, and active audiences\, they face myriad challenges\, from creating processing priorities to the demands of reference work to the need to make materials accessible both in person and online. \nEmbedded within different types of institutions – a theological school\, a regional diocese\, and an independent research library – these archives also face unique constraints and challenges determined by their institutional contexts. As the religious landscape of Greater Boston – and the nation more broadly – continues to change in the wake of the COVID pandemic\, some of these archivists have found increased demands placed on them from churches\, associations\, and individuals newly reinvested in the stewardship of their history\, memory\, and collections. \nThis fascinating conversation focused on how religious archives in one of the nation’s oldest cities seek to serve expanding audiences while stewarding growing collections. \nSPEAKER BIOS \nZachary Bodnar graduated with a Masters of Library and Information Science from Simmons University\, with a concentration in archives management\, in 2018. Prior to his work at the CLA\, Zachary worked at the Bellamy-Ferriday House and Garden archive\, the Vassar College Special Collections\, the Harvard Law School Library\, and the Harvard Botany Libraries. Zachary joined the CLA as an Archives Assistant in 2017\, helping to prepare materials for digitization through the New England’s Hidden Histories program. In 2018\, he took on the title of Archivist. His professional interests include metadata collection and management\, digital archiving\, audio/visual preservation\, and archives management. \nJessica Suárez is the Curator of Manuscripts and Archives at Harvard Divinity School Library. Jessica graduated with a Master of Arts in History from Northeastern University in 2001 and a Master of Library and Information Science with a concentration in archives from Simmons University in 2005. Prior to starting at the Harvard Divinity School Library in 2006\, she worked at the Harvard Law School Library\, Houghton Library\, and the Boston City Archives. Currently Jessica is part of a Harvard-wide mass digitization pilot for AV material focused on the Carlton Pearson archive. \nThomas Lester has been the Director of the Archive & Library for the Archdiocese of Boston since November 2014 and oversees the archive\, research library\, and records management for the central administration\, parishes\, and schools of the Archdiocese of Boston. Highlights of his tenure include publishing an online database of Catholic sacramental records in partnership with the New England Historic Genealogical Society\, creating a preservation plan for digital records\, and offering a searchable collections catalog. He has also authored or contributed to over 150 articles and one book. Thomas is an active member of New England Archivists and currently serves as the Vice President/President-elect of the Association of Catholic Diocesan Archivists.
URL:https://congregationallibrary.org/events/religious-archives-today
LOCATION:Virtual
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://congregationallibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RATCarousel400.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230927T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230927T140000
DTSTAMP:20260211T162108Z
CREATED:20260209T163115Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260211T162108Z
UID:9443-1695819600-1695823200@congregationallibrary.org
SUMMARY:The Historical Directory of the Christian Denomination and Afro-Christian Churches
DESCRIPTION:This program celebrated the release of The Historical Directory of the Christian Denomination and Afro-Christian Churches in a virtual discussion with author Richard H. Taylor. \nIn this important new resource\, Taylor explores the history of the first native-born Protestant religious movement in the United States\, the Christian Connection. Early America set the stage for a “religion of the people.” Empowered by religious freedom and increasing literacy rates\, ordinary people read the Bible on their own. Many sought to free themselves from complicated theologies and arbitrary authorities. Three break outs of these values coalesced to form the Christian Connection\, whose heirs united with the Congregationalists in 1931. Closely related to them was an autonomous Afro-Christian movement that drew from their African roots to embody an Afrocentric Christianity. These movements also provided the incubator for many other American religious groups. \nRichard Taylor’s new book gives a history of their active\, but little known\, traditions\, principles. and activities. It helps local historians to see their impact on their communities\, directs genealogists to the lives of nearly 7\,000 congregations\, and assembles a large body of resources for individual and academic study. \nSPEAKER BIO \nRichard H. Taylor is the former Chair of the Historical Council of the United Church of Christ (2002-2009). He served as Vice President of the Congregational Christian Historical Society from 1981 until its union with the American Congregational Association (ACA; Congregational Library) in 2008. His articles\, essays\, and research have appeared in many books\, collections\, and journals\, including the recent Afro-Christian Convention: The Fifth Stream of the United Church of Christ (2023). An ordained minister in the United Church of Christ\, he has served pastorates in Rhode Island\, Michigan\, Connecticut\, Massachusetts\, and Pennsylvania.
URL:https://congregationallibrary.org/events/historical-directory
LOCATION:Virtual
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://congregationallibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Historical-Directory-Carousel-400.png
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