Women in the 19C United States of America: New Hampshire Christian Science Founder, Mary Baker Eddy d. 12/3/1910

Monday, January 21, 2019

New Hampshire Christian Science Founder, Mary Baker Eddy d. 12/3/1910

Mary Baker Eddy, born on July 16, 1821 in Bow, New Hampshire, founded of the Christian Science movement. Deeply religious, she advocated Christian Science as a spiritual practical solution to health and moral issues. She wrote Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures; founded The First Church of Christ, Scientist of Boston in 1879; and conceived several periodicals including The Christian Science Monitor.
Starting at the age of 8, little Mary began to hear voices calling her name and would go to her mother only to be told she had not been called. In her autobiography, Eddy explained: "One day when my cousin, Mehitable Huntoon, was visiting us, and I sat in a little chair by her side, in the same room with grandmother, — the call again came, so loud that Mehitable heard it, though I had ceased to notice it. Greatly surprised, my cousin turned to me and said, 'Your mother is calling you!' Mary responded to the voice with the phrase from Samuel 'Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth.' When the call came again I did answer, in the words of Samuel, but never again to the material senses was that mysterious call repeated...

"My mother, as she bathed my burning temples, bade me lean on God's love, which would give me rest if I went to Him in prayer, as I was wont to do, seeking His guidance. I prayed; and a soft glow of ineffable joy came over me. The fever was gone and I rose and dressed myself in a normal condition of health. Mother saw this and was glad. The physician marveled; and the 'horrible decree' of Predestination — as John Calvin rightly called his own tenet — forever lost its power over me."

She became convinced that illness could be healed through a clearer perception of God and the explicit rejection of doctors, hygiene, and medicines based upon her reading of the Bible, where Jesus did not need these suspicious modern-day innovations for healing: "It is plain that God does not employ drugs or hygiene, nor provide them for human use; else Jesus would have recommended and employed them in his healing."

Nearly 90, Mary Baker Eddy died on December 3, 1910 at her home at 400 Beacon Street, in the Chestnut Hill section of Newton, Massachusetts.

About this blog

In colonial America, men were considered superior to woman in all ways. In a strict patriarchal hierarchy, men controlled not only wealth & political power but also how their children were raised, religious questions, & all matters of right & wrong.

In the early part of the 19Cy, however, many Americans experienced a revolution in gender. The doctrine of “separate spheres” maintained that woman’s sphere was the world of privacy, family, & morality while man’s sphere was the public world -– economic striving, political maneuvering, & social competition. But women were interested in equality.

In 1848, New York passed the Married Woman’s Property Act. Now a woman wasn’t automatically liable for her husband’s debts; she could enter contracts on her own; she could collect rents or receive an inheritance in her own right; she could file a lawsuit on her own behalf. She became for economic purposes, an individual. By 1900, every state has passed legislation modeled after this, granting married women some control over their property and earnings.

In 1870 after the Civi War, the 15th Amendment was ratified, saying, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” African-Americans could vote, but women could not.

But it was not until 1920, that the 19th Amendment was ratified granting women the right to vote. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”