NEHH@20: Re-Examining Stories from New England Communities Digital Exhibition Launch

For twenty years, the New England’s Hidden Histories project at the Congregational Library & Archives has been digitizing, transcribing, and providing free online access to early New England Congregational church records. Since 2005, this landmark project has grown into a digital archive with 130,000 images and over 26,000 pages of transcription, representing collections from 160 historic New England churches. Working in partnership with libraries, archives, museums, churches, and other cultural institutions, the project team has uncovered valuable, and too often overlooked, firsthand accounts that preserve the voices of early New Englanders.

Join curators Dr. Richard Boles, Associate Professor of History and the Interim Director of Religious Studies at Oklahoma State University, and Dr. Tricia Peone, Project Director of New England’s Hidden Histories, for the virtual launch of a new online exhibition to celebrate the project’s milestone anniversary. NEHH@20: Re-Examining Stories from New England Communities showcases the work of scholars, church historians, and transcribers who have contributed to the project and uncovered new histories in the process. The exhibition explores the important research that has come from this archive and its impact on community histories of New England. Learn more about the making of the online exhibition, the history and evolution of the NEHH project, and the curators’ favorite stories from the archives.

Email any questions to programs@14beacon.org.

SPEAKER BIOS

Dr. Richard Boles is an Associate Professor of History and the Interim Director of Religious Studies at Oklahoma State University. His first book, Dividing the Faith: The Rise of Segregated Churches in the Early American North, was published by New York University Press. It examines the transition from racially diverse churches during the early eighteenth century to separate African American and Native American congregations by the early nineteenth century in the Mid-Atlantic and New England regions. His most recent publication appears in the just-released Routledge History of Religion and Politics in the United States Since 1775.

Dr. Tricia Peone joined the CLA in 2022 as the Project Director for New England’s Hidden Histories. Prior to joining the CLA, she was a research scholar at Historic New England for the Recovering New England’s Voices project. She has also previously worked as the public programs director at New Hampshire Humanities, a university lecturer teaching classes on the Salem witch trials, early New England, and public history, and as a researcher for cultural heritage organizations. Her scholarship focuses on early New England, particularly the history of magic and witchcraft, and her work on these subjects has appeared in journals, books, blogs, and on radio and television. She holds a PhD in history from the University of New Hampshire with a specialization in the early modern Atlantic world and history of science.