Historical background - 1896

  

Image of Dresden during the 1890s, before extensive World War II destruction. Landmarks include Dresden Frauenkirche, Augustus Bridge, and Katholische Hofkirche.

Our book “Christian Science in Germany” begins in 1896 and concludes in 1903. 

·       1866 had seen Mary Baker Eddy experience a physical healing after a severe fall on the ice. 

·       1875 saw the publication of her major work “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures”.
·       In 1892, Mary Baker Eddy had settled on her title as “Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science”, and of which she wrote in a letter to Julia Field-King “I beg of you to be temperate in using it.” (See p. 37 Years of Authority by Robert Peel.)
·       In 1894 The Mother Church was completed and in 1896 Mrs Eddy paid her third and final visit to that church in Boston.

Meanwhile, around the world

in 1896, technology was well underway with such “firsts” as x-rays, motion pictures, the motor vehicle, dial telephones.  1896 highlights included:

January 4	Following Mormon abandonment of polygamy, Utah admitted as 45th state
January 5	German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen's discovers x-rays
January 29	Emile Grubbe is 1st doctor to use radiation treatment for breast cancer
March 25	Modern Olympics began in Athens, Greece
April 23	Premier of motion pictures (Koster and Bial's Music Hall, New York City)
May 26	Dow Jones begins an index of 12 industrial stocks (closing is 40.94)
May 26	Last Czar of Russia, Nicholas II, crowned
June 2	Guglielmo Marconi patents the radio
June 4	Henry takes his 1st Ford through streets of Detroit
June 15	Tsunami strikes Shinto festival on beach at Sanriku Japan 27,000 are killed, 9,000 injured, with 13,000 houses destroyed
June 16	Temperature hits 127 degrees F at Fort Mojave, California
June 26	1st movie theater in U.S. opens, charging 10 cents for admission
August 20	Dial telephone patented
September 22	Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather King George III as the longest reigning monarch in British history.
October 30	Martha Hughes Cannon of Utah becomes 1st female senator
November 3	William McKinley (R) defeats William Jennings Bryan (D) for president

The story by Frances Thurber Seal takes us from the USA to beautiful Dresden in Germany so perhaps it would be useful to read a little background to that part of the world.

Wikipedia article:

“The concept of Germany as a distinct region in central Europe can be traced to Roman commander Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania, thus distinguishing it from Gaul (France), which he had conquered. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (AD 9) prevented annexation by the Roman Empire. Following the fall of the Roman Empire, the Franks conquered the other West Germanic tribes. When the Frankish Empire was divided among Charlemagne's heirs in 843, the eastern part became East Francia. In 962, Otto I became the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the medieval German state.

“In the High Middle Ages, the dukes and princes of the empire gained power at the expense of the emperors. Martin Luther led the Protestant Reformation against the Catholic Church after 1517, as the northern states became Protestant, while the southern states remained Catholic. They clashed in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which was ruinous to the twenty million civilians. 1648 marked the effective end of the Holy Roman Empire and the beginning of the modern nation-state system, with Germany divided into numerous independent states, such as Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony.

“After the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), feudalism fell away and liberalism and nationalism clashed with reaction. The 1848 March Revolution failed. The Industrial Revolution modernized the German economy, led to the rapid growth of cities and to the emergence of the Socialist movement in Germany. Prussia, with its capital Berlin, grew in power. German universities became world-class centers for science and the humanities, while music and the arts flourished. Unification was achieved with the formation of the German Empire in 1871 under the leadership of Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The Reichstag, an elected parliament, had only a limited role in the imperial government.

“By 1900, Germany's economy matched Britain's, allowing colonial expansion and a naval race. Germany led the Central Powers in the First World War (1914–1918) against France, Great Britain, Russia and (by 1917) the United States. Defeated and partly occupied, Germany was forced to pay war reparations by the Treaty of Versailles and was stripped of its colonies as well as Polish areas and Alsace-Lorraine. The German Revolution of 1918–19 deposed the emperor and the kings, leading to the establishment of the Weimar Republic, an unstable parliamentary democracy.”

By the way, Science and Health was not translated into German until 1910.

Julie Swannell