Did Mary Baker Eddy and Booker T. Washington ever meet?

Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) and Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) never met personally. We have an April 1910 letter in our archive that the famed black educator and author wrote to Eddy, soliciting a donation for Tuskegee Institute.¹ He had founded the school, now Tuskegee University, in 1881.

In 1896 a Christian Scientist sent Washington a copy of Eddy’s book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. His reply was published that September in The Christian Science Journal: “We have received the copy of Science and Health, and we are indeed grateful. We shall place it in our library after handing it to our resident physician and feel certain that thorough circulation will be given it.”²