Increase Mather

Increase Mather (June 21, 1639 – August 23, 1723) was a Puritan educator and clergyman.

Other reading

The first authority for the life of Increase Mather is the work of his son Cotton Mather, Parentalor: Memoirs of Remarkables in the Life and Death of the Ever Memorable Dr Increase Mather (Boston, 1724); there are also a memoir and constant references in Cotton Mather's Magnalia (London, 1702) especially vol. iv.; there is an excellent sketch in the first volume of JL Sibley's Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University (Cambridge, 1873), with an exhaustive list of Mather's works (about 150 titles); there is much valuable matter in Williston Walker's Ten New England Leaders (New York, 1901) and in his Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism (New York, 1893); for literary criticism of the Mather's see ch. xii. of MC Tyler's History of American Literature, 1607-1676 (New York, 1878), and Barrett Wendell's Cotton Mather (New York, 1891). Mather's worth has been under-estimated by Josiah Quincy, Justin Winsor and other historians out of sympathy with his ecclesiastical spirit, who represent him as only an ambitious narrow-minded schemer.

Related Topics:
JL Sibley - MC Tyler - Barrett Wendell - Josiah Quincy

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~