James Henry Wiggin | |
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| Born | 1836 |
| Died | 1900 (aged 63–64) [1] |
James Henry Wiggin (May 14, 1836 - November 3, 1900) was a Unitarian minister. He also worked as an editor and proofreader.
James Henry Wiggin | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Born | 1836 |
| Died | 1900 (aged 63–64) [1] |
James Henry Wiggin (May 14, 1836 - November 3, 1900) was a Unitarian minister. He also worked as an editor and proofreader.
Wiggin studied at Dwight Grammar School [2] and Tufts College, [3] and was well traveled in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, [2] he graduated in 1861 from Meadville Theological School, becoming a Unitarian minister in 1862. After serving a number of pulpits in Massachusetts for a few years he left the ministry, "believing that his radical opinions did not justify a longer continuance in his chosen work" [2] (although there may have been financial reasons as well [4] ), and chose a career in writing and editing, which included editing for the Liberal Christian . [3] He often worked with his friend John Wilson of University Press as a proofreader, [4] [5] [6] and was well known in Boston literary circles. [7]
Wilson at the time was the publisher for Mary Baker Eddy's book Science and Health , and introduced Wiggin to Eddy as a possible literary advisor to help her as she rewrote the book while at the same time teaching at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College and serving as pastor for the Church of Christ, Scientist. [5] Eddy also wanted Wiggin to proofread her book as a result of criticism that it was hard to understand. [6] She once wrote him to "never change my meaning, only bring it out."[sic.] [4] [5] However, Eddy ended up not using many of his revisions, or taking them out in later editions, such as the "trendy references to Eastern religions" as author Gillian Gill called them. [4] He helped her prepare the index which appeared for the first time in the sixteenth edition, but was removed in later editions, and helped prepare the book for the printers. [7] Wiggin also worked as an editor of The Christian Science Journal on and off from 1886 to 1889. He wrote articles in volumes three and four of the Journal under the pseudonym "Phare Pleigh" during that time; many of them defending Christian Science from attacks from various clergymen. [4] [7] He issued a pamphlet called Christian Science and the Bible in response to one clergyman in California. [4]
He never became a member of the religion however, [7] and began to be privately critical of Christian Science around 1891, around the time when Eddy severed their business relationship, although she remained in occasional friendly contact with him. Gill writes that it is likely he was embarrassed at being let go of by a woman at a time when it was rare for men to work under women in the first place, and was upset at being seen as an "intellectual advisor, rather than a copy editor" whose advice was so often ignored. He remained very respectful towards her in public however, even after leaving her employment. [4]
At some point, probably after Wiggin had left Eddy's employ, rumors began to appear that he was a "ghostwriter" for Eddy, but Gill argues this was a "willful misrepresentation of the truth." [4] Livingston Wright, a friend of Wiggin's, was likely the source of the rumors, which were extremely popular with critics of Eddy. After Wiggin's death, Wright published his claims in the New York World , which was running articles attacking Eddy at the time. [4] William B. Reid, Wilson's clerk and a close friend of Wiggin, who was intimately involved in the printing of the editions which Wright claimed Wiggin had written, called the accusations "a lie." [5] William Dana Orcutt, who was also involved in the printing of those editions, said "It would have been impossible for any of [the pages] to be in Mr. Wiggin's handwriting or of his authorship without having it apparent to everyone in the proofreading department." He said farther that he remembers Wiggin complaining to him on many occasions of "the difficulty he had in trying to persuade Mrs. Eddy to accept his suggestions, and he seemed to be somewhat chagrined by that fact," and that in his years of knowing Wiggin there was never "the slightest suggestion on his part that he was entitled to any credit beyond faithful service to an author in assisting her to keep the manuscript consistent and clear." [5]
In 1864, Wiggin married Laura Emma Newman of Brattleboro, Vermont. [1] [3] They had two sons: Albert H. Wiggin, a noted banker; and Langley Wiggin. [8]
Phineas Parkhurst Quimby was an American clockmaker, mentalist and mesmerist. His work is widely recognized as foundational to the New Thought spiritual movement.
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is, along with the Bible, the central text of the Christian Science religion. Mary Baker Eddy described it as her "most important work." She began writing it in February 1872 and the first edition was published in 1875. However, she would continue working on it and making changes for the rest of her life.
Mary Baker Eddy was an American religious leader and author who founded The Church of Christ, Scientist, in New England in 1879. She also founded The Christian Science Monitor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning secular newspaper, in 1908 and three religious magazines: the Christian Science Sentinel, The Christian Science Journal, and The Herald of Christian Science. She wrote numerous books and articles, the most notable of which was Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which had sold over nine million copies as of 2001.
Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices belonging to the metaphysical family of new religious movements. It was founded in 19th-century New England by Mary Baker Eddy, who argued in her 1875 book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures that sickness is an illusion that can be corrected by prayer alone. The book became Christian Science's central text, along with the Bible, and by 2001 had sold over nine million copies.
The Christian Science Journal is an official monthly publication of the Church of Christ, Scientist through the Christian Science Publishing Society, founded in 1883 by Mary Baker Eddy. The first edition appeared on April 14, 1883, bearing the subtitle, "An Independent Family Paper to Promote Health and Morals". At that time, Eddy was the editor and main contributor to the Journal. The magazine is based in Boston.
Robert Arthur Peel was a Christian Science historian and writer on religious and ecumenical topics. A Christian Scientist for over 70 years, Peel wrote editorials for the Christian Science Monitor, a publication owned by the Church of Christ, Scientist. He was also a counsellor for the church's Committee on Publication, set up by Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), the religion's founder, to protect her own and the church's reputation.
Prose Works other than Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, sometimes called Prose Works other than Science and Health or simply Prose Works, is a single-volume compendium of the major works of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, outside of her main work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Also not included are Eddy's Church Manual, Poems, and Christ and Christmas. The books included in Prose Works were never published together as a single volume during her lifetime but were assembled as a convenience around 1925. When published it became the most popular book printed by the Christian Science Publishing Society besides Science and Health and the Church Manual. The constituent books have historically been published individually in parallel also. It has been issued in both hardcover and paperback.
Christian Science is a 1907 book by the American writer Mark Twain (1835–1910). The book is a collection of essays Twain wrote about Christian Science, beginning with an article that was published in Cosmopolitan in 1899. Although Twain was interested in mental healing and the ideas behind Christian Science, he was hostile towards its founder, Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910).
Augusta Emma Stetson was an American religious leader. Known for her impressive oratory skills and magnetic personality, she attracted a large following in New York City. However, her increasingly radical theories, conflicts with other church members including a well-known rivalry with Laura Lathrop, and attempts to supplant Mary Baker Eddy as the leader of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, led to her eventually being excommunicated from the church on charges of insubordination and of false teaching. Afterwards she began preaching and publishing various works on her theories which she named the "Church Triumphant," and started a controversial radio station to advance her cause.
Horatio Willis Dresser was a New Thought religious leader and author in the United States. In 1919 he became a minister of General Convention of the Church of the New Jerusalem, and served briefly at a Swedenborgian church in Portland, Maine.
The Salem witchcraft trial of 1878, also known as the Ipswich witchcraft trial and the second Salem witch trial, was an American civil case held in May 1878 in Salem, Massachusetts, in which Lucretia L. S. Brown, an adherent of the Christian Science religion, accused fellow Christian Scientist Daniel H. Spofford of attempting to harm her through his "mesmeric" mental powers. By 1918, it was considered the last witchcraft trial held in the United States. The case garnered significant attention for its startling claims and the fact that it took place in Salem, the scene of the 1692 Salem witch trials. The judge dismissed the case.
William Dana Orcutt (1870-1953) was an American book designer, typeface designer, historian, and author.
The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science (1909) is a highly critical account of the life of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, and the early history of the Christian Science church in 19th-century New England. It was published as a book in November 1909 in New York by Doubleday, Page & Company. The original byline was that of a journalist, Georgine Milmine, but a 1993 printing of the book declared that novelist Willa Cather was the principal author; however, this assessment has been questioned by more recent scholarship which again identifies Milmine as the primary author, although Cather and others did significant editing. Cather herself usually wrote that she did nothing more than standard copy-editing, but sometimes that she was the primary author.
Georgine Milmine Welles Adams 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 others, worked on 14 investigative articles about Eddy that were published by McClure's in 1907–1908. One of the only major investigative works on Eddy to be published in her lifetime, besides Sibyl Wilbur's Human Life articles, the articles were instigated by Milmine: S. S. McClure purchased her freelance research before assigning a group of reporters to verify, expand and write it up.
Calvin Augustine Frye was the personal assistant of Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), the founder of Christian Science.
John Valentine Dittemore was director of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, the Christian Science church, in Boston from 1909 until 1919. Before that he was head of the church's Committee on Publication in New York, and a trustee for ten years of the estate of Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), the founder of the church. Dittemore is best known as the co-author, with Ernest Sutherland Bates, of Mary Baker Eddy: The Truth and the Tradition (1932).
Edwin Franden Dakin was an American advertising executive and author.
Sibyl Wilbur O'Brien Stone, best known as Sibyl Wilbur, was an American journalist, suffragist, and author of a biography of Mary Baker Eddy. She was a San Diego Branch Member of the National League of American Pen Women and a member of the New England Woman's Press Association.
Samuel Putnam Bancroft, also known as Samuel P. Bancroft, was an American Christian Scientist and an early student of Mary Baker Eddy.
Mary Baker Eddy: The Truth and the Tradition (1932) is a biography of Mary Baker Eddy by Ernest Sutherland Bates, an American academic, and John V. Dittemore, a former director of The First Church of Christ, Scientist.
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