The following timeline is designed to put Mary Baker Eddy’s life and discovery of Christian Science in historical context by showing Eddy’s achievements along with medical advances and historical events of the day. Bolded events are of importance to the Christian Science movement, and the context in which they occur should be taken into account.

This is by no means an exhaustive timeline, merely a starting place for further exploration.


1810s

1820s

1830s

1840

1850s

  • 1853: Eddy marries her second husband, Daniel Patterson, a dentist.

1860s

1870s

1880s

1890s

  • 1890: Emil von Behring discovers antitoxins and uses them to develop tetanus and diphtheria vaccines.
  • 1890: Woodbury scandal.
  • 1890: The Christian Science Quarterly is first published.
  • 1892: Church reorganized as The First Church of Christ, Scientist; Eddy moves to Pleasant View in Concord, New Hampshire.
  • 1894: Original Mother Church Edifice is completed.
  • 1894: The Bible and Science and Health are ordained as the pastor of The Mother Church.
  • 1895: The Bible and Science and Health are ordained as the pastor of Christian Science branch churches.
  • 1897: Eddy publishes Miscellaneous Writings 1883 – 1896.
  • 1898: Christian Science Weekly, later to be named The Christian Science Sentinel is first published.
  • 1899: AMA appoints a committee to report on the nature of tuberculosis, means of control, public education and advisability of establishing national and state sanitariums. AMA urges that local boards of health adopt laws requiring compulsory smallpox vaccination.
  • 1899: Massachusetts Metaphysical College is re-opened as an auxiliary to the Church.

1900s

1910s


Additional Timelines: