In September 1847, recent divinity school graduate Thomas Wentworth Higginson, age 24, accepted the pulpit at the First Religious Society in Newburyport, Massachusetts. It was his first pastorate, he was a newlywed, and his liberal politics were not yet radical. But by the time he resigned his ministry there exactly two years later, his antislavery sentiments had become intolerable to many in the congregation. Drawing largely on Higginson’s unpublished correspondence, this talk will present the evolution of Higginson’s short time at the Newburyport FRS.
Guest speaker is Dr. Sandra Harbert Petrulionis, Distinguished Professor of English and American Studies at Pennsylvania State University in Altoona. Her books include To Set This World Right: The Antislavery Movement in Thoreau’s Concord, Thoreau in His Own Time, and The Oxford Handbook of Transcendentalism. She is currently working on a biography of author, reformer, and editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and, with Noelle A. Baker, is editing The Almanacks of Mary Moody Emerson: A Scholarly Digital Edition.
Sunday, January 29, 10:30am worship service followed by Q&A at 11:30, in person or attend on YouTube 26 Pleasant St, Newburyport
