More than 50 people came to Harvard Book Store on a beautiful summer evening to hear Cindy Safronoff discuss Crossing Swords: Mary Baker Eddy vs. Victoria Claflin Woodhull and the Battle for the Soul of Marriage — as featured in the Boston Globe Sunday “Story Behind the Book” column article “Tracing the 19th-Century Culture War Over Marriage.”
The Tuesday August 2, 2016, in-store event, which included reading, discussion, and book signing, was part of Harvard Book Store’s well-known author events at the landmark independent book store in Cambridge, just across Massachusetts Avenue from Harvard University campus.
Harvard Book Store event staff introduced Cindy Safronoff to the audience as the author of Climbing Mount Rainier with the Chicks and as having a professional certificate in Genealogy & Family History from the University of Washington. Crossing Swords was introduced as an award-winning book, having won first place in Regional Literature from New England Book Festival and in Religious Nonfiction from Next Generation Indie Book Awards, among other awards.
Safronoff selected readings that showed a variety of pundits responding to Eddy’s and Woodhull’s career activities, making waves and making headlines in nineteenth-century America. Safronoff explained that these sections were added to the book after early manuscript readers found it hard to believe that Eddy and/or Woodhull were among America’s most famous and influential women. The readings included commendation and criticism about Eddy’s religious career by humorist Mark Twain, women’s rights leader Susan B. Anthony, and journalist Author Brisbane, and attack’s on Woodhull’s political career by author Harriet Beecher Stowe, political cartoonist Thomas Nast, and others.
In addition to the 50 or more people packed into the event room seating area at the store, staff throughout the store and shoppers browsing the book aisles could see and hear Safronoff’s presentation through the in-store video broadcast system.
Harvard Book Store offered paperback copies of Crossing Swords at a special 20% discount for the event. More than 30 copies of the book sold at the Aug. 2 event. In addition, more copies sold in the days leading up to the event in the store or by phone order.
After the book talk, Safronoff met with people individually and signed copies of books. Later Harvard Book Store asked Safronoff to sign copies of books for people who were unable to attend the event but ordered book by phone to be picked up in the store or shipped.
The several remaining copies purchased by the store for the event will be sold in the store as autographed copies. So run, don’t walk to Harvard Book Store to pick up one of the last autographed copies of Crossing Swords: Mary Baker Eddy vs. Victoria Claflin Woodhull and the Battle for the Soul of Marriage by Cindy Safronoff.
Thank you Harvard Book Store for a wonderful event!