The Harvard Graduates Magazine Volume 25

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This book completes the series of histories of the clubs and players responsible for making baseball the national pastime that began with Base Ball Pioneers, 1850-1870 (McFarland 2011). Forty clubs and hundreds of pioneer players from the first hotbeds of New York City, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts are profiled by leading experts on baseball's early years. The subjects include legendary clubs such as the Knickerbockers of New York, the Eckfords and Atlantics of Brooklyn, the Athletics of Philadelphia, and Harvard's first baseball clubs, and fabled players like Jim Creighton, Dickey Pearce, and Daniel Adams, but space is also given to less well remembered clubs such as the Champion Club of Jersey City and the Cummaquids of Barnstable, Massachusetts. What united all of these founders of the game was that their love of baseball during its earliest years helped to make it the national pastime.

This book concludes fifty years of research on the empirical tradition in American liberal religious thought. At the University of Chicago, I wrestled with the issue of how to make pre-scientific religion intelligible in our scientific world. Being a student of B. E. Meland and attracted by H. N. Wieman’s philosophy of creative interchange, I initially worked on the key thinkers in the Chicago School from Shailer Mathews to B. E. Meland. This resulted in books on Wieman, A. N. Whitehead (with C. Hartshorne), A. E. Haydon, and The Chicago School: Voices of Liberal Religious Thought (1987). While teaching at the U. of Glasgow in 1982, I began a research project on the empirical tradition in nineteenth century American liberal religious thought. Chauncy Wright led me to F. E. Abbot and the Free Religious Association. The past twenty five years has focused on the empirical tradition in this association, with writings on the thought of F. E. Abbot, W. J. Potter, D. A. Wasson. This work on Minot J. Savage concludes my research on the Free Religious Association. Nearing completion is a work tracing the empirical tradition through the four thinkers in the FRA and eight in the Chicago School.

 Merchant John Banister (1707–1767) of Newport, Rhode Island, wore many hats: exporter, importer, wholesaler, retailer, money-lender, extender of credit and insurer, owner and outfitter of sailing vessels, and ship builder for the slave trade. His recently discovered accounting records reveal his role in transforming colonial trade in mid–18th century America. He combined business acumen and a strong work ethic with knowledge of the law and new technologies. Through his maritime activities and real estate development, he was a rain-maker for artisans, workers and producers, contributing to income opportunities for businesswomen, freemen and slaves. Drawing on Banister’s meticulous daybooks, ledgers, letters and receipts, the author analyzes his contribution to the economic history of colonial America, highlighting the complexity of the commerce of the era.