McClure, Samuel Sidney (1857-1949) (“S.S.”). Irish-born American publisher. McClure immigrated to the U.S. at age nine, living with his family in Indiana. Despite poverty and the limited education he had received in Ireland, he graduated from high school and then Knox College in Illinois. He then moved to Boston, MA, where from 1882 to 1884 he edited the Wheelman, a bicycling magazine. Despite opposition from her parents, he married his Knox College classmate Harriet Hurd in 1883. The couple had four biological children (Eleanor, Bess, Mary, and Robert), and adopted one (Enrico). In 1884, S.S. started McClure’s Syndicate, which placed fiction in newspapers across the country. In 1893 with his college classmate John Sanborn Phillips he started McClure's Magazine, which was best-known for the "muckraking" exposés by writers such as Ida Tarbell and Lincoln Steffens, but which also published literature. After his cousin H.H. McClure, who worked for the McClure Syndicate, brought Cather to S.S. McClure’s attention, McClure, Phillips & Co. brought out Cather’s first book of fiction, The Troll Garden (1905). When most of the editorial staff, including Steffens and Tarbell, resigned from McClure’s in 1906, he hired Cather as an editor; she later became managing editor. After she left her position at McClure’s in 1912 and when S. S. McClure had lost control of the magazine still bearing his name, Cather ghost wrote his autobiography (McClure’s serial 1913-1914, book publication 1914). McClure made repeated—and ultimately failed—attempts to reestablish himself in journalism and magazine publishing, often trying to enlist Cather in these enterprises. She almost went with him to Europe in 1915 to report on the war for the Evening Mail, and she remained personally loyal to her mercurial and often-irresponsible former employer. He served as the prototype for Marcus O’Mally, editor of the Outcry, in her story “Ardessa” (1918), and it has been suggested that Cather modeled the courtship and marriage between Myra and Oswald Henshaw in My Mortal Enemy (1926) on that of the McClures.

Eddy, Mary Baker (1821-1910). American religious leader. Born in New Hampshire, Mary Baker Eddy was married three times, first to George Washington Glover (married 1843, died 1844), then to Daniel Patterson (married 1853, divorced 1873), and finally to Asa Gilbert Eddy (married 1877, died 1882). After being treated by Phinneas Parker Quimby and after Quimby’s death, in 1866, she experienced a revelation about spiritual healing of the body and in 1870 began teaching others about what became known as Christian Science. Her influential book Science and Health was first published in 1875. Both Eddy and the Christian Science Church she founded had long and complex histories, involving multiple conflicts and lawsuits. Cather was assigned to fact check and revise Georgine Milmine’s exposé on Eddy and the church for publication in McClure’s Magazine and spent a great deal of time in New England in 1907 and 1908 interviewing people about and checking legal records pertaining to Eddy.

Baker, Martha Dew Rand (1824-1909). Sister-in-law of Mary Baker Eddy. Born in New Hampshire, daughter of Samuel Rand and Sarah Waldron Hanson Rand, Martha Rand married George Sullivan Baker, brother of Mary Baker Eddy, in 1849; they had one son, George Waldron Baker, born in 1853. The family returned to Tilton, NH, from living in Wisconsin not long before George S. Baker died in 1867; she continued to live in the Mark Baker house, which George had inherited, for another twenty years. Although she had been a friend of Mary Baker Eddy, they were estranged by the mid-1880s, and Martha Rand Baker wrote to McClure’s supporting the publication of the Life of Mary Baker Eddy; she may also have been a source for the series, as she was for a later biographer of Eddy.

Best, Mary Agnes (c. 1867-1942) (“Mollie”). American writer. Born in New York, Mollie Best became a reader at McClure’s Magazine as early as 1902 where she eventually met and worked with Cather. Throughout the early twentieth century, Best contributed several articles to both McClure’s and the American Magazine. She also wrote Rebel Saints (1925), a history of the Quakers, and Thomas Paine: Prophet and Martyr of Democracy (1927).

Burkmar, Lucius C. (1825-after 1850). American spiritualist. Born in Belfast, ME, son of Samuel Burkmar and Susanna Ulmer Burkmar, Lucius Burkmar was discovered by local mental healer Phineas P. Quimby, who found that Lucius, then in his late teens, was easily hypnotized. From 1843 to 1845, Lucius kept a journal of his travels with Quimby, giving lectures and demonstrations on healing the sick. Quimby believed that Lucius, in a trance state, could see inside another’s body and communicate its problems. Later, Quimby came to believe that Lucius was only reading the minds of the people in the room and stating what they believed, and went on to develop a solo practice of mental healing. Lucius became a clerk. Cather hoped to use his journals as background material for the February 1907 article on Mary Baker Eddy in McClure’s.