Louisa May Alcott and "mind cure"

 

In the mid-1870s Mrs. Eddy befriended one of the leading and aging figures in the transcendentalism world, Bronson Alcott, who in turn provided a level of support to her when she very much needed it. However today he is perhaps better known as the father of Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women and other books. By 1885 Louisa Alcott's opinions had become a matter of interest, so when she wrote to the Woman's Journal on April 18, 1885, on her experience with "mind cure," that was an observation that mattered in certain circles. It certainly mattered to Mrs. Eddy and her followers, who did not see themselves as "mind curers" but nonetheless knew that they would be lumped in with them in the public's eye. Here is what Alcott wrote, followed by the extremely rare published response from Calvin Frye and Arthur T. Buswell, representing different arms of Mrs. Eddy's church in Boston.

  Frye and Buswell reacted quickly to this "imposition" (to use a later word) by issuing this response:

   

Comments

[Tim Leech]

Interesting. It is especially interesting in context of Peel's early book dealing with Mrs. Eddy's encounter with B. Alcott; I wonder if he was also aware of this exchange. It would also be interesting to search the archival records to see if there are any communications from Frye or Buswell in preparation for their published responses. CoP work 13 years before there was a CoP.

[Keith]

Thanks, Tim. You make a good point, that this this one of the earliest example of Committee on Publication work (meaning a response by someone other than Mrs. Eddy). It is also interesting that they believed it warranted two names at the bottom—one was not sufficient.

[Linda Bargmann]

Skip,
Where was the reply published by CAF and Buswell? Was it also in the Woman's Journal?

[Keith]

I don't know if it was ever published in Woman's World. It was published in the June 1885 Journal with a note that it had "been copied into the leading papers of the
country" but I don't know which ones.

[Keith]

I need to add a PS to my last comment. I forgot that the Frye|Buswell notice also appeared in the Mental Science Magazine, Vol. III, No. 3 (December 1886), p. 56. That is what my note says. Why it appeared so late, I do not know but will try to find out.