The father of Ralph Waldo Emerson was the minister of the First Church in Boston. He was a founder of the Anthology Club, a Boston literary society that included George Ticknor and Daniel Webster, and wrote articles for the club's The Monthly Anthology. Their publication was the forerunner of The North American Review, America's leading literary journal. The Anthology Club's reading room led to the founding in 1807 of the Boston Athenaeum.