The Mary Baker Eddy Library is a research library, museum, and repository for the papers of

Mary Baker Eddy Mary Baker Eddy (née Baker; July 16, 1821 – December 3, 1910) was an American religious leader and author, who in 1879 founded The Church of Christ, Scientist, the ''Mother Church'' of the Christian Science movement. She also founded ''The C ...

, the founder of

Christian Science Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices which are associated with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes in ...

. The library is located on the

Christian Science Center The Christian Science Plaza is a site on the corner of Massachusetts Avenue (metropolitan Boston), Massachusetts Avenue and Huntington Avenue in the Back Bay, Boston, Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The plaza, which is owned by ...

, Massachusetts Avenue,

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, and housed in a portion of the 11-story structure originally built for the

Christian Science Publishing Society The Christian Science Publishing Society was established in 1898 by Mary Baker Eddy and is the publishing arm of The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts. Origin and purpose The Christian Science Publishing Society and ...

. While the library holds the archive for the letters and manuscripts of Mary Baker Eddy which have been open to the public and scholars since 2002, it also contains other exhibits, including the

Mapparium The Mapparium is a three-story-tall globe made of stained glass that is viewed from a bridge through its interior. As of August 2021, it is part of the "How Do You See the World?" exhibit of the Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, ...

, a three-story stained-glass globe that allows visitors to stand inside a globe depicting the world of 1934.

Christian Science Publishing Society building

The

building is one of several structures on the Christian Science Plaza. The plaza was expanded in the 1970s with a design by

Araldo Cossutta Araldo Cossutta (January 11, 1925 – February 24, 2017) was an architect who worked primarily in the United States. He worked at the firm I. M. Pei & Partners from 1956 to 1973. I. M. Pei has been among the most honored architects in the world. ...

, Architect-in-Charge, for I. M. Pei & Partners. The building was created of limestone and granite, and designed by a local architect, Chester Lindsay Churchill. It originally housed all publishing-related activities of the Church, including massive printing presses and bindery equipment. Engravings on the exterior of the building include the words Purity and Mercy (facing Massachusetts Avenue), Peace and Faith (facing the Mother Church extension), and Hope and Love (facing Clearway Street), as well as verses from the Bible.

Mapparium

The

is the main exhibit at the library. It is a three-story, inverted globe consisting of 608 stained-glass panels. Visitors walk through the globe via a thirty-foot glass bridge from which they can stand in the middle of the world. Standing in the center of the bridge, a person can see the entire globe with none of the distortions most maps cause. The Mapparium's other notable features were actually completely unintentional: its spherical shape and glass construction create multiple unique acoustic effects. Standing in the center of the globe, directly under the North Star, one can hear their voice in surround sound, as though they were speaking into their own ears. At either end of the bridge, visitors can also whisper from one doorway and be heard perfectly from the opposite side, 30 feet away, in a "whispering gallery" effect. Since the Mapparium was built in 1935, none of the panels have been updated, although one was replaced after being damaged. Visitors to the Mapparium may notice such historic differences as Africa depicted as a patchwork of colonies and the USSR united as one nation. In 2002, LED lights were installed around the globe and, together with an original composition of words and music, highlight these and other major changes since its creation in 1935.

Archive and collections

Historic Bible collection

The Library houses over 460 Bibles including a rare

Coverdale Bible The Coverdale Bible, compiled by Myles Coverdale and published in 1535, was the first complete Modern English translation of the Bible (not just the Old, or New Testament), and the first complete printed translation into English (cf. Wycliffe's ...

(1535) and

Tyndale Bible The Tyndale Bible (TYN) generally refers to the body of biblical translations by William Tyndale into Early Modern English, made . Tyndale's biblical text is credited with being the first English-language Biblical translation to work directly ...

(1550); as well as first editions of the

Matthew Bible ''The Matthew Bible'', also known as ''Matthew's Version'', was first published in 1537 by John Rogers, under the pseudonym "Thomas Matthew". It combined the New Testament of William Tyndale, and as much of the Old Testament as he had been abl ...

(1537),

Great Bible The Great Bible of 1539 was the first authorized edition of the Bible in English, authorized by King Henry VIII of England to be read aloud in the church services of the Church of England; it precedes the more renowned Authorized Version (AV) co ...

(1539),

Bishops' Bible The Bishops' Bible is an English edition of the Bible which was produced under the authority of the established Church of England in 1568. It was substantially revised in 1572, and the 1602 edition was prescribed as the base text for the King Ja ...

(1568),

Geneva Bible The Geneva Bible, sometimes known by the sobriquet Breeches Bible, is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into English, preceding the Douay Rheims Bible by 22 years, and the King James Version by 51 years. It was ...

(1560), and

King James Bible The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by ...

(1611). The collection is available at the Library and on the web.

Mary Baker Eddy papers

Since 2014 the Library has started putting their collection of Eddy's letters, sermons, drafts of writings, notes, and more online at mbepapers.org. The collection includes over 28,000 letters written by Eddy throughout her life, and over 35,000 letters addressed to her.

Research & Reference Services

Since its opening in 2002, the church archives have been open to scholars, and have helped produce works in a variety of fields.Squires, L. Ashley. �
Christian Science and American Literary History
” Literature Compass 13.4 (2016): p. 228. Web. Research & Reference Services is located on the fourth floor of the Library and provides access to original materials that document the life of Mary Baker Eddy, the church that she founded, and more. The collections include letters, manuscripts, organizational records, photographs, artifacts, books, periodicals, audiovisuals, and other materials available for in-depth research. Specific collections include the Calvin A. Frye diaries,

Georgine Milmine Georgine Milmine Welles Adams ( 1871 – 27 August 1950) best known as Georgine Milmine, was a Canadian-American journalist most known for writing about Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. Milmine, along with Willa Cather and othe ...

collection, and organizational records for the church and publishing society. Short term research fellowships are available to scholars to support original research.

External links

The Mary Baker Eddy Library websiteMary Baker Eddy papers, a project of the LibraryMBELibrary Youtube ChannelSeekers and Scholars podcast

References

{{Authority control Libraries in Fenway-Kenmore Christian Science in Massachusetts Museums in Boston Religious museums in Massachusetts

Eddy Eddy may refer to: * Eddy (surname), surname used by descendants of a number of English, Irish and Scottish families * Eddy (given name), male given name * Eddy (fluid dynamics), the swirling of a fluid and the reverse current created when the fl ...

Women's museums in Massachusetts Fenway–Kenmore Christian libraries Mary Baker Eddy