Where:
Boston Athenæum
10 ½ Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02108
Admission:
FREE
Categories:
< 21, Art, Lectures & Conferences, Meetup
Event website:
http://www.bostonathenaeum.org/events/3987/lively-place
When Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded in 1831, it revolutionized the way Americans mourned the dead by offering a peaceful space for contemplation. This cemetery, located not far from Harvard University, was also a place that reflected and instilled an imperative to preserve and protect nature in a rapidly industrializing culture—lessons that would influence the creation of Central Park, the cemetery at Gettysburg, and the National Parks system. Even today this urban wildlife habitat and nationally recognized hotspot for migratory songbirds continues to connect visitors with nature and serves as a model for sustainable landscape practices. Beyond Mount Auburn’s prescient focus on conservation, it also reflects the impact of Transcendentalism and the progressive spirit in American life seen in advances in science, art, and religion and in social reform movements. In "The Lively Place," Stephen Kendrick celebrates this vital piece of our nation’s history. He tells the story of Mount Auburn’s founding, its legacy, and the many influential Americans interred there, including religious leaders, abolitionists, poets, and reformers.
Stephen Kendrick is senior minister at the First Church in Boston, Unitarian Universalist. He is the author or coauthor of "Holy Clues: The Gospel According to Sherlock Holmes," "Sarah’s Long Walk: The Free Blacks of Boston and How Their Struggle for Equality Changed America," "Douglass and Lincoln," and the novel "Night Watch."
Registration is not required.
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The Athenæum's five galleried floors overlook the peaceful Granary Burying Ground, and, as Gamaliel Bradford wrote in 1931, "it is safe to say that [no library] anywhere has more an atmosphere of its own, that none is more conducive to intellectual aspiration and spiritual peace." The building was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
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