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Boston Library Society
The Boston Library Society was an American subscription library established in New England's pre-eminent city, Boston, during 1792. Early subscribers included Revolutionary War figures Paul Revere and William Tudor. The society existed until 1939 when it merged into a larger historical library known as the Boston Athenæum.It has been maintained as an institution within the Athenaeum and conducts short Annual Meetings, within he Athenaeum's Annual meetings.It was founded fifteen years before the atheneum. Brief history 1792–1858 The Boston Library "circulated polite general reading for ladies and gentlemen".Michael Wentworth and Elizabeth Lamb Clark. The Boston Library Society, 1794-1994: an exhibition of portraits, views, and materials related to the foundation of the society and some of its early members. Boston: Boston Athenaeum, 1995; p.44. It operated from rooms in the newly built Tontine Crescent, designed by Charles Bulfinch, who also served as one of the library's truste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elizabeth Inchbald
Elizabeth Inchbald (née Simpson, 15 October 1753 – 1 August 1821) was an English novelist, actress, dramatist, and translator. Her two novels, '' A Simple Story'' and '' Nature and Art'', have received particular critical attention. Life Born on 15 October 1753 at Stanningfield, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, Elizabeth was the eighth of the nine children of John Simpson (died 1761), a farmer, and his wife Mary, ''née'' Rushbrook. The family, like several others in the neighbourhood, was Roman Catholic. Her brother was sent to school, but Elizabeth and her sisters were educated at home. Inchbald had a speech impediment. Focused on acting from a young age, she worked hard to manage her stammer, but her family discouraged an attempt in early 1770 to gain a position at the Norwich Theatre. That same year her brother George became an actor. Still determined, Inchbald went to London to become an actress in April 1772 at the age of 18. It was a difficult beginning: some observer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Thornton Kirkland
John Thornton Kirkland (August 17, 1770 – April 26, 1840) was an American Congregational clergyman who served as President of Harvard University from 1810 to 1828. As an undergraduate, he was a member of the Hasty Pudding. He is remembered chiefly for his lenient treatment of students. Kirkland House, one of Harvard's undergraduate "houses," or residence halls, was named in his honor. Biography John and his twin brother, George, were born at Herkimer, New York, August 17, 1770. Their parents were Rev. Dr. Samuel Kirkland and his wife, Jerusha Bingham Kirkland. She was a niece of Rev. Eleazar Wheelock, D. D. Oliver Wendell Holmes describes him thus, in his study of Ralph Waldo Emerson: "His 'shining morning face' was round as a baby's, and talked as pleasantly as his voice did, with smiles for accents and dimples for punctuation.... It was of him that the story was always told,--it may be as old as the invention of printing,--that he threw his sermons into a barrel, where ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Emerson (minister)
William Emerson (May 6, 1769 – May 12, 1811) was one of Boston's leading citizens, a liberal-minded Unitarian minister, pastor to Boston's First Church and founder of its Philosophical Society, Anthology Club, and Boston Athenaeum, and father to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Biography Emerson was born in Concord, Massachusetts on 6 May 1769, the fifth born and only son of William and Phoebe (Bliss) Emerson. Family and early life William Emerson's grandfather, Joseph Emerson was a minister, as was his father, William Emerson Sr. Emerson's father built and inhabited The Old Manse at Concord. He was the chaplain to the Provincial Congress when it met at Concord in October 1774, and he was a chaplain to the Continental Army when war had begun. William Emerson Sr. died of camp fever while on campaign in 1776, when his son William Emerson was 7 years old. William Emerson Jr. married Ruth Haskins on 25 October 1796 in Boston. She was the daughter of John Haskins of Boston. The Emersons ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Eliot (missionary)
John Eliot ( – 21 May 1690) was a Puritan missionary to the American Indians who some called "the apostle to the Indians" and the founder of Roxbury Latin School in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1645. In 1660 he completed the enormous task of translating the ''Eliot Indian Bible'' into the Massachusett Indian language, producing more than two thousand completed copies. English education and Massachusetts ministry John Eliot was born in Widford, Hertfordshire, England and lived at Nazeing as a boy. He attended Jesus College, Cambridge. After college, he became assistant to Thomas Hooker at a private school in Little Baddow, Essex. After Hooker was forced to flee to the Netherlands, Eliot emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts, arranging passage as chaplain on the ship ''Lyon'' and arriving on 3 November 1631. Eliot became minister and "teaching elder" at the First Church in Roxbury. From 1637 to 1638 Eliot participated in both the civil and church trials of Anne Hutchinso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old South Meeting House
The Old South Meeting House is a historic Congregational church building located at the corner of Milk and Washington Streets in the Downtown Crossing area of Boston, Massachusetts, built in 1729. It gained fame as the organizing point for the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773. Five thousand or more colonists gathered at the Meeting House, the largest building in Boston at the time. History Church (1729–1872) The meeting house or church was completed in 1729, with its 56 m (183 ft) steeple. The congregation was gathered in 1669 when it broke off from First Church of Boston, a Congregational church founded by John Winthrop in 1630. The site was a gift of Mrs. Norton, widow of John Norton, pastor of the First Church in Boston. The church's first pastor was Rev. Thomas Thacher, a native of Salisbury, England. Thacher was also a physician and is known for publishing the first medical tract in Massachusetts. After the Boston Massacre in 1770, yearly anniversary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caleb Bingham
Caleb Bingham (1757–1817) was an educator and textbook author of late 18th-century New England, whose works were also influential into the 19th and 20th. Among his most influential works were books on oratory, or public speaking. A native of Salisbury, Connecticut, he spent much of his career in Boston, Massachusetts as a publisher and bookseller. Bingham was educated at Dartmouth College and valedictorian of his class of 1782. He also taught at the college. One of his most popular works was ''The Columbian Orator'', originally published in 1797, an anthology which contained rules on oratory, but consisted primarily of texts for reading and recitation. The selections (from about three dozen writers) include poems, essays, short dialogues, and extracts from famous speeches. The content reflects a substantial concern with the moral education of youth and the preparation of citizens in the young Republic. (Selections include arguments made in Parliament in support of the Amer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nathan Webb (Massachusetts Legislator)
Nathan Webb (April 7, 1767 – February 25, 1853) was a teacher, firefighter, and public official in Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He arrived in Boston from Windham, Connecticut around 1783, when he was 16 years old. In 1783, he began work as a teaching assistant (or "Usher") at the North Writing School, a public school under the direction of schoolmaster John Tileston, on Love Lane (later Tileston Street) in the North End. Webb continued teaching through 1789. According to his diary (1788-1791), in his young adult years he was active in the Independent Musical Club, a private music club with both male and female members founded in 1789. When George Washington visited Boston in 1789, Webb attended the parade that took place by the triumphal arch on Washington Street. He belonged to the New North congregation when it was overseen by John Eliot. Around 1792 he was founding member of the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society and remained active f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comte De Volney
''Comte'' is the French, Catalan and Occitan form of the word 'count' (Latin: ''comes''); ''comté'' is the Gallo-Romance form of the word 'county' (Latin: ''comitatus''). Comte or Comté may refer to: * A count in French, from Latin ''comes'' * A county in France, that is, the territory ruled by a count * La Comté, a commune in the Pas-de-Calais département of France * Comté cheese, a French cheese from Franche-Comté People with the surname * Alfred Comte (1895–1965), Swiss aviation pioneer * Auguste Comte (1798–1857), French philosopher * Charles Comte (1782–1837), French lawyer, journalist and political writer * Claudine le Comte (born 1950), Belgian fencer * Fabienne Comte, French statistician * Fernando Compte (1930–2013), founder and first president of the International Sambo Federation * Ferran Soriano i Compte (born 1967), Spanish CEO of various football clubs, including Manchester City F.C. * Harry Comte (1909—1945), Australian rules footballer * Louis Comt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Kaspar Lavater
Johann Kaspar (or Caspar) Lavater (; 15 November 1741 – 2 January 1801) was a Swiss poet, writer, philosopher, physiognomist and theologian. Early life Lavater was born in Zürich, and was educated at the '' Gymnasium'' there, where J. J. Bodmer and J. J. Breitinger were amongst his teachers. Corruption fighter At barely twenty-one years of age, Lavater greatly distinguished himself by denouncing, in conjunction with his friend Henry Fuseli the painter, an iniquitous magistrate, who was compelled to make restitution of his ill-gotten gains. Zwinglian In 1769 Lavater took Holy Orders in Zurich's Zwinglian Church, and officiated until his death as deacon or pastor in churches in his native city. His oratorical fervor and genuine depth of conviction gave him great personal influence; he was extensively consulted as a casuist, and was welcomed with enthusiasm on his journeys throughout Germany. His writings on mysticism were widely popular as well. In the same year (1769), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon (; 8 May 173716 January 1794) was an English historian, writer, and member of parliament. His most important work, ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, is known for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its polemical criticism of organised religion. Early life: 1737–1752 Edward Gibbon was born in 1737, the son of Edward and Judith Gibbon at Lime Grove, in the town of Putney, Surrey. He had six siblings, five brothers and one sister, all of whom died in infancy. His grandfather, also named Edward, had lost his assets as a result of the South Sea bubble stock-market collapse in 1720 but eventually regained much of his wealth. Gibbon's father was thus able to inherit a substantial estate. One of his grandmothers, Catherine Acton, descended from Sir Walter Acton, 2nd Baronet. As a youth, Gibbon's health was under constant threat. He described himself as "a puny ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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