"This is woman's hour..."

At the time of the First Woman's Rights Convention in 1848, Mary Baker Eddy was in her late 20s and living in her native New Hampshire. While Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Mary Ann M'Clintock were fighting for women's rights, Mary Baker Eddy was fighting for her very survival. She was a single mother, a widow who had lost rights to her own property, and a victim of chronic ill health. In 1848, there was little in Eddy's life that spoke of hope for the "enlarged sphere" of achievement proclaimed by the women at the Convention. Yet, at her death in 1910, Mary Baker Eddy's life exemplified what was possible for women to achieve.

Mary Baker Eddy contributed to the reform movement as... Pioneer in the field of mind-body medicine. Author of a book that challenged conventional models of theology, medicine, and the emerging empirical sciences. ( Explore Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures at spirituality.com. ) Public speaker who drew crowds in cities like Boston and Chicago at a time when women were restrained from speaking in public. President and Founder of a college that trained women and men in the practice of prayer-based healing. Pastor and Founder of a church where women participated as co-equals with men at all levels of ministry and government. Founder of a daily newspaper whose object in that era of yellow journalism was "to injure no man but to bless all mankind."

Click for more information on The Christian Science Monitor.