Originally published on July 22, 2015 (Episode 22)
Introduction
The second part of Al Zambone’s conversation with Rick Kennedy shifts focus from Cotton Mather the public figure to Cotton Mather the pastor and Bostonian. While his father Increase Mather traveled, politicked, and published, Cotton walked the streets of Boston’s North End visiting the sick and dying, embodying a pastoral vocation often overlooked. The episode also touches on his role as a Harvard man, his devotion to community, and how these dimensions complicated the caricature of Cotton Mather.
About the Guest
Rick Kennedy is Professor of History at Point Loma Nazarene College.
For Further Investigation
Rick Kennedy, The First American Evangelical: A Short Life of Cotton Mather (Eerdmans, 2015)
Michael G. Hall, The Last American Puritan: The Life of Increase Mather (Wesleyan, 1988)
Kenneth Silverman, The Life and Times of Cotton Mather (Welcome Rain, 2001)
Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana: or, The ecclesiastical history of New-England, from its first planting in the year 1620 unto the year of Our Lord, 1698 (Thomas Parkhurst, London: 1702)
💬 Listen & Discuss
What can Cotton Mather’s life teach us about continuity and change in colonial New England? How do we judge a man remembered mainly for the Salem Witch Trials when he did so much else? Share your thoughts in the comments—and pass this episode to someone curious about what Puritanism was.
