Building the Social Network

Massachusetts Congregationalist minister and author Cotton Mather wrote in his publication Bonifacius that Christians should always be seeking ways to do good. One of his suggestions was that people ought to gather in neighborhood associations that might keep up with the needs of people in their communities and find ways that they can support neighbors who are struggling. Benjamin Franklin, one of the important association builders of early America, said that this essay “gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life.”