From the Papers: North Bennet Street School letter
Victoria M. Goss was the librarian of the North Bennet Street Industrial School, located in Boston’s North End neighborhood.
On March 6, 1885, Gross penned an appeal to Mary Baker Eddy on the school’s letterhead: “There is a Library of (1200) twelve hundred volumes,” she wrote, “connected with this institution…. We greatly desire to have your book ‘Science and Health’ added to the Library.” Eddy’s secretary Calvin Frye wrote at the top of this letter, “Eddy sends a copy of 12th ed.”
Now called the North Bennet Street School, the institution had been founded in 1881, with the mission of enabling immigrants to learn the skills needed for gainful employment. Early programs taught women such skills and also provided social services, including classes for young children and recreational activities for older ones, such as reading groups.
It’s interesting to note that around the time The Mary Baker Eddy Library opened in 2002, graduates of the school’s bookbinding and preservation program restored several of Eddy’s personal copies of Science and Health.
Click below to access annotated transcriptions of this letter:
