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Exhibition Join In: Voluntary Assocations in America

Cotton Mather (1663–1728). Bonifacius. An Essay upon the Good, That It Is to Be Devised and Designed, by Those Who Desire to Answer the Great End of Life, and to Do Good While They Live. Boston in New England: Printed by B. Green, 1710. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (006.00.00)
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Cotton Mather (1663–1728). Bonifacius. An Essay upon the Good, That It Is to Be Devised and Designed, by Those Who Desire to Answer the Great End of Life, and to Do Good While They Live. Boston in New England: Printed by B. Green, 1710. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (006.00.00)
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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.”