PAST EVENTS
Explore videos, transcripts, and items from our collection related to past events.
Each year, the Congregational Library & Archives hosts a variety of virtual and in-person programs about the 400+ year Congregational story and the archival and preservation practices required to protect and promote it.
Scroll down to browse past events, find links to program videos, and access related resources in the CLA's collection.
Christianity and Comics: Stories We Tell about Heaven and Hell
September 25, 2024
A virtual book talk with Dr. Blair Davis celebrating the release of Christianity and Comics: Stories We Tell About Heaven and Hell and discussing the comics industry's 80-year history of drawing from biblical source material.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: Marvel Team-Up "A Witch in Time!" (1976)
Celebrating Your Church's Anniversary: Tips and Tricks for a Memorable Commemoration
September 18, 2024
A virtual roundtable with Keiko Denbeau, Linda Lacy, and Norm Erlendson focused on sharing ideas for your church's next anniversary and celebrating some great ways Congregational churches share their community histories.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview | Video on YouTube
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: Alvin D. Johnson, Celebrating Your Church Anniversary (1968)
Cotton Mather and the Salem Witch Trials: Separating Fact from Fiction
August 8, 2024
A virtual roundtable with Marilynne Roach, Rachel Christ-Doane, and Dr. Tricia Peone about Cotton Mather's writings on witchcraft, misconceptions about his role in the Salem witch trials, and his legacy today.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview | Video on YouTube | Printable Video Transcript
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: The CLA's Salem Witchcraft Trials Research Guide
The Quebec Act at 250
June 27, 2024
A conversation with Dr. Brendan McConville to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Quebec Act and explore why this legislation made 18th-century Congregationalists profoundly uncomfortable.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview | Video on YouTube
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: The Quebec Act: A Primary Cause of the American Revolution (US Catholic Historical Society, 1936)
A Theology of Brotherhood: The Federal Council of Churches and the Problem of Race
June 19, 2024
A book talk with Dr. Curtis Evans to celebrate the release of A Theology of Brotherhood: The Federal Council of Churches and the Problem of Race.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview | Video on YouTube
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: George Edmund Haynes, Negro New-Comers in Detroit, Michigan: A Challenge to Christian Statesmanship (1918)
The Surprising History of a Hymn: "The Little Brown Church in the Vale"
June 12, 2024
A discussion of what the history of this beloved Congregational hymn reveals about nostalgia and the historical construction of evangelicalism with Dr. Christopher Cantwell.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview | Video on YouTube
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: Local Church History File for "Nashua, IA: Little Brown Church"
Word Made Fresh: An Invitation to Poetry for the Church
June 5, 2024
A book talk with Dr. Abram Van Engen to celebrate the release of Word Made Fresh: An Invitation to Poetry for the Church.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview | Video on YouTube
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: Isaac Watts, Horae Lyricae: Poems, Chiefly of the Lyric Kind (1781)
What Does Congregational Worship Sound Like Today?
May 29, 2024
A conversation about what Congregational worship sounds like today from people who plan for it each week, featuring music ministry directors from Chicago, Boston, Norfolk, and Greensboro.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview | Video on YouTube
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: Brian Parks, Musics of a Village Church: A View from the Organ Bench (2013)
Congregationalists and the American Revolution: A Collections Tour
May 22, 2024
An in-person opportunity to view materials that teach us what the individuals who sat in New England's Congregational church pews experienced during the Revolutionary era.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: Richard Price, Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution (1784)
Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations
May 15, 2024
A book talk with Dr. Emily Conroy-Krutz to celebrate the release of Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview | Video on YouTube
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: 19th Century ABCFM Reports
Exploring Culture and Heritage through Congregational Church Records
May 7, 2024
A presentation by spring 2024 archives intern Rachel Groh about her work at the CLA and a few of the ways that church records can help us explore culture and heritage through the lens of Congregational history.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: Finding Aid for the Berkeley Temple Congregational Church Records
The Sounds of New England Congregationalism in the 18th Century
May 1, 2024
A presentation by Dr. Nym Cooke about the fascinating changes to the sounds heard in Congregational churches as musical philosophies shifted across the eighteenth century.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview | Video on YouTube
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: William Billings, The Psalm-Singer's Amusement: Containing a Number of Fuging Pieces and Anthems (1781)
Exploring Family History at the Congregational Library & Archives
April 25, 2024
An in-person workshop held at 14 Beacon that offered attendees the opportunity to learn how to use the New England's Hidden Histories digital archive and other resources at the CLA to conduct their own family history research.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: La Verne C. Cooley, A Short Biography of the Rev. John Cotton of Boston and A Cotton Genealogy of His Descendants (1945)
Stripped and Script: Loyalist Women Writers of the American Revolution
April 23, 2024
A book talk with Dr. Kacy Dowd Tillman about her then-recent book, Stripped and Script: Loyalist Women Writers of the American Revolution.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview | Video on YouTube
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: E. Alfred Jones, The Loyalists of Massachusetts, Their Memorials, Petitions, and Claims (1930)
To Keep or Not to Keep: The Value of the Retention Schedule
April 17, 2024
A virtual workshop with the CLA's archivists on creating a retention schedule to detail how your church's records should be handled in the future.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview | Video on YouTube | Printable Video Transcript
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: Zachary and Billy's Model Retention Schedule
Preserving the History of British Congregationalism: Dr Williams’s Library and the Congregational Library, London
March 20, 2024
A discussion about the fascinating histories of the CLA's sister institutions in England with Alan Argent and David Powell.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview | Video on YouTube
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: Dr Williams's Trust and Library: A History
Finding and Using Sources for African American History at the CLA
March 6, 2024
A workshop led by Dr. Richard Boles on accessing records related to 18th and 19th century African Americans at the CLA and in New England's Hidden Histories online.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: Lemuel Haynes, Sermon on 2 Timothy 2:25 (1801)
What a Library Means to a Church: Congregational Philanthropy & Print Culture
February 29, 2024
A presentation by Dr. Jonathan Beecher Field on the early history of printing in Boston and the impact of its print culture on the city's spiritual and intellectual activity.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: Your Church Library: A Manual for Church Librarians
Acquisitions Afternoon: Collecting Congregationalism and the Founding 56 Adopt-a-Book Program
February 22, 2024
A conversation with Rev. Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree about her journey as a book collector and decision to donate materials to the CLA.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview | Video on YouTube
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: Finding Aid for the Davida Foy Crabtree Papers
Cotton Mather and the Women He Loved
February 14, 2024
A lecture by Helen Gelinas about Cotton Mather's relationships with the women in his life: his three wives, his daughters, his sisters, and the one woman he strove to understand perhaps more than any other, Eve.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview | Video on YouTube
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: Cotton Mather, Victorina (1717)
Why Study Library History?
February 7, 2024
A discussion with Dr. Sophie Jones, Dr. Laura Miller, Dr. Matthew Sangster, and Dr. Norbert Schürer about the diverse ways that library history can illuminate facts of the past.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview | Video on YouTube
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: 1853 Catalog of Books Belonging to the Congregational Library Association
Protecting and Providing: A Guide to Reference Services for Church Collections
January 24, 2024
A virtual workshop with the CLA's archivists on showing your church's records with your community through starting a reference desk and developing reading room policies.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview | Video on YouTube | Printable Video Transcript
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: The CLA's Reading Room Policies
To “Revive Their Spirit”: Collecting Books and Shaping Archives in Nineteenth-Century New England
January 17, 2024
A presentation by Dr. Lindsay DiCuirci about the people, methods, and philosophies that informed antiquarian practices in the early United States and built collections like the Founding 56.
LEARN MORE: Event Overview | Video on YouTube
EXPLORE AT 14 BEACON: Founding 56 Digital Exhibition