Brewster Ladies' Library On the Road to the Mayflower with Karen Rinaldo and Kevin M. Doyle

The 60-year old Church of England didn’t tolerate dissention, so the movement of some sects to worship in their own way led to harassment and persecution. The Separatists in Scrooby, a small hamlet 200 miles north of London, decided to leave the birthplace of William Brewster and move to the far more tolerant country of Holland across the North Sea. The few hundred followers of Reverend John Robinson found employment in Amsterdam in 1609 and lived there for three years. The presentation will have you walk in the footsteps of the Pilgrims along the canals and past the buildings that have existed for a thousand years. You will take a photographic journey through the historic sites that the Pilgrims saw daily. It is the prequel to the popular In the Wake of the Mayflower where the authors recount the challenges and accomplishments of the 53 survivors of the voyage that shaped the course of Colonial and Indigenous history.

About the Authors

Karen Rinaldo is an artist and visual historian who was commissioned in 1994 to paint an accurate portrayal of” The First Thanksgiving, 1621” that Scholastic Book selected as a "masterpiece” to teach American history. The Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian along with the local Wampanoag tribe also cite the scene as authentic. That became the wellspring of the book In the Wake of the Mayflower she co-authored with Kevin M. Doyle, a retired combat veteran, Revolutionary War historian, and author of many articles on vignettes in history that deserve to be remembered. Both authors live on Cape Cod and are active in historical associations.