Mary Baker Eddy

Mary Baker Eddy (July 16, 1821 – December 3, 1910) was the founder of the Christian Science movement and the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, founder of an international newspaper The Christian Science Monitor, and author of the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Poor and homeless (dwelling with various friends and relatives) for the first half of her life, by the end of her life, she had become wealthy and a property owner, and was one of the most controversial and powerful women of her time. More than two dozen biographies have been written about her life, beginning in 1907 (three years before her death), and including a new one as recently as 2014.

Her first husband moved her 1400 miles away from family and soon died, leaving her pregnant and with no money, needing to make her way back to family in time for the birth. Lacking a home or money of her own, she relegated her infant son to relatives and moved frequently among the households of various friends and relatives. A few years later, she married for a second time, but this husband turned out to be a philanderer and financially unsuccessful, and she divorced him. She later married a third time, a happy marriage union lasting only a few short years until his death. She bought property at a time when very few women had rights to land or house ownership. She accumulated wealth, managed a rapidly growing mega-church, self-published an influential book, and founded a newspaper which over the next century would win seven Pulitzer prizes.