"The Four-Fold Line of Mathers" +One:
Hannah Mather Crocker in Words, Deeds, and the Archival Record
Dr. Alea Henle
Wednesday, February 12, 2025 | 1-2 pm EST | Virtual
Our third annual Cotton Mather Lecture was presented by Dr. Alea Henle and sponsored by New England’s Hidden Histories, a digital project of the Congregational Library & Archives.
Richard, Increase, Cotton, Samuel, and Hannah. The last of Samuel Mather's children, Hannah, born in 1752, lived in the shadow of her Mather forebears. An advocate for women's intellectual equality, she established a women-only Masonic-equivalent lodge in post-Revolutionary Boston, raised a large family, and authored several treatises published after the death of her husband, Capt. Joseph Crocker.
Her many pseudonyms attest to her varied interests and priorities; these include: Prudencia, Increase Mather Jr. of the Inner Temple, and H. Mather Crocker. This talk will explore Hannah's life with particular attention to her investment in her paternal male line's place in history . . . and her own.
SPEAKER BIO
Dr. Alea Henle is a librarian and historian who serves as Head of Access and Borrow and Associate Librarian at Miami University (Ohio). She has presented on historical and library topics for numerous organizations and currently serves as Chair of the American Library Association's Library History Round Table. The talk draws in part from research for her book, Rescued from Oblivion: Historical Cultures in the Early United States (UMass Press, 2020).