author
A. R. (Abijah Richardson) Baker
1805–1876
A 19th-century Congregational minister, educator, and editor, he moved between church work and publishing in ways that shaped family and religious reading in New England. He is also remembered through the lively magazine work he shared with his wife, author Harriette Newell Woods Baker.
1 Audiobook
Theology in romance : or, the catechism and the Dermott family
by Madeline Leslie, A. R. (Abijah Richardson) Baker
About the author
Born in Franklin, Massachusetts, on August 30, 1805, Abijah Richardson Baker studied at Amherst College, graduating in 1830, and later at Andover Theological Seminary, finishing in 1835. Early in his career he taught in Massachusetts, including work at Phillips Academy in Andover, before entering the ministry.
Baker served as a Congregational pastor in several Massachusetts communities, including Medford, Lynn, Wellesley, and Boston. Alongside his church work, he also wrote and edited, with sources crediting him as the author of a school history of the United States and as editor of periodicals such as The Mother's Assistant and Happy Home.
He died on April 30, 1876. Although he is less widely known now than some of his contemporaries, his life brings together several important parts of 19th-century American culture: teaching, preaching, and building the kind of magazines and books that reached families in their everyday lives.