Lucy Jane Rider Meyer (September 9, 1849 – March 16, 1922) was an American social worker, educator, physician, and author who cofounded the Chicago Training School for City, Home, and Foreign Missions in Illinois.

Meyer's book offered numerous practical examples of experiments that could be carried out with everyday materials like candles and vinegar.

For Victorians like Meyer, there was no contradiction in using fancy to present fact, for the natural world was full of wonders just as marvelous as those of the imagination.

[2][5] This led to attacks from those who believed women did not need this level of education to do Christian missionary work.

[2] Meyer became interested in reviving within American Methodism an ancient tradition of female deacons (also known as deaconesses) in the Christian church.

[2] In the summer of 1887, Meyer began preparing some of the women students of the Chicago Training School to become deacons, with a mission of working in tenement communities.

[2] Within the school, she set up the Methodist Deaconess Home and appointed her former student Isabella Thoburn as the first house mother and superintendent.

[2] In 1930, the Chicago Training School merged with the Garrett Biblical Institute in Evanston, Illinois (later known as the Garrett–Evangelical Theological Seminary).