Emma Curtis Hopkins

Emma Curtis Hopkins is called the "teacher of teachers" because virtually all of the New Thought founders studied with her. Born in Killingly, Connecticut in 1849, Josephine Emma Curtis was a high school teacher during and after the Civil War. She married George Hopkins and was required to end her career. In 1883, her family was cured of a lingering illness by a student of Mary Baker Eddy, and so Hopkins went to study the principles of Christian Science. After editing their journal for some time, she was released for continuing to refer to other teachers, and moved to Chicago, where she established a seminary and proceeded to work with 11,000 patients, 110 of whom became ordained ministers. The founders of Unity, Religious Science, and Homes of Truth studied with her, and the founders of Divine Science were regular correspondents. She closed the Seminary in 1896, working independently around the world, was the president of the International New Thought Alliance in 1918, and passed on in April, 1925.