# The Baha'is of Baltimore, 1898-1990

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Deb Clark, The Baha'is of Baltimore, 1898-1990, Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1992, bahai-library.com.
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> BAHA’IS OF BALTIMORE
> holding a framed copy of the Greatest Name in front, July 1909.
> THE BAHA’IS OF BALTIMORE, 1898-1990
> 
> by Deb Clark
> 
> In 1899, Hazel Clarke was six months old and deathly ill. Her
> mother, Kate Kidwell Clarke, had been to the doctors at Johns
> Hopkins Hospital, but they were unable to do anything for the
> baby. She would not eat. One day, as Kate was returning home
> from the doctor’s on the streetcar, a woman sitting next to her saw
> her sobbing and said, “You seem to be upset.”
> “Yes,” answered Kate. “My baby is dying and nothing can be
> done.”
> “Have you tried praying?” asked the woman.
> Kate Clarke was a devout Christian. “Yes, I have,” she re­
> plied. “Nothing helps.”
> The woman said, “I know a remarkable woman who may be
> able to help you. You must go see her at 895 Park Avenue.” The
> woman wrote down the address and handed Kate the piece of
> paper.
> Kate got off the streetcar near Park Avenue and found 895,
> where a sign in the window read “Battee Institute of Self Knowl­
> edge.” She went up the front steps and knocked on the door. When
> she was let inside, she explained the problem. Pearle Doty held
> the baby and prayed for her. When she was finished and had
> handed the child back to her mother, Kate thought she saw a
> slightly healthier glow in the child. By the time Kate got home,
> Hazel wanted to eat.
> The next day she was fully recovered.1
> 
> 112   Deb Clark
> 
> The Beginnings of the Baltimore Community: The early
> Baha’is of Baltimore remembered Pearle Doty as the first
> Baha’i in the city and the unofficial leader of the community
> during its first years. Bom Pearle Battee in Alexandria, Ohio,
> in 1868, she moved to Mulberry Street in the Mount Vernon
> area of Baltimore, the city where her father, Elisha Battee
> had been born in 1835.2 She found work as a professor in
> 1892, but her calling was as a faith healer.
> Pearle Battee began her practice as a phrenologist, treat­
> ing people’s infirmities by reading the markings and bumps
> on their heads. At the time, this was a fairly common alter­
> native form of healing, based on the belief that the mind and
> body are a whole entity. This practice opened in about 1893,
> at 111 Franklin, where Battee resided during her first year
> in Baltimore. It was a neighborhood of artists. The Charcoal
> Club on the comer of Howard and Franklin was frequented
> by artists, musicians, and writers, who would also meet in
> each other’s homes to discuss the events of the day.3
> Henry (Harry) Archer Doty, born September 18, 1874, to
> Aristippus Doty and Josephine Charlotte Carpenter in
> Charleston, South Carolina, was the fifth of eleven children,
> and the first son to survive. His father was a military man
> and a school principal, a descendant of Edward Doty who
> arrived on the Mayflower in 1620.4 At the age of twenty,
> Harry Doty moved to Baltimore to work in a laboratory. He
> lived on Greenmount Avenue in the Old Town area, which
> would have been central to both Mount Vernon and Johns
> Hopkins Hospital, where he may have been employed.5
> While he may have been planning a career as a physi­
> cian, he did not pursue this. After about a year in Baltimore,
> he moved to 111 Franklin, the same house—probably a board­
> ing house—where Pearle Battee lived, and he was employed
> as a bookkeeper. Doty must have been fascinated by Battee,
> an older woman with an exotic healing practice; and, appar-
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990        113
> 
> ently, she by him. In April of 1896, only a year and a half
> after Doty came to town, Pearle Battee gave birth to their
> son, Henry Battee Doty.6 Harry Doty let his family know, at
> that point, that he and Pearle were married and that he was
> publishing a magazine called Self Knowledge.’’ By 1897, Hany
> was working as a phrenologist along with his wife, and the
> two of them had incorporated their business as Doty and
> Doty.8
> Elisha Battee moved in with Pearle and Henry Doty some­
> time during 1897, and the Battee Institute of Self Knowledge
> became official. It was located at 895 Park Avenue, a very
> fashionable street of brownstone houses with finely worked
> dark wood interiors and marble steps.9 Clearly, the Doty fam­
> ily was doing well. The neighborhood was inhabited by pro­
> fessionals: doctors, judges, and lawyers. There were several
> bookstores nearby, including one owned by a poet, and a comer
> drugstore where young couples could go to drink a soda.10
> Harry Doty managed the Institute, Pearle Doty was the
> principal, and Elisha Battee was healer and teacher. The
> Institute touted its monthly magazine, Self Knowledge, as a
> publication “devoted to the unfolding of the Divinity in hu­
> manity.”11 A half-page advertisement for it read: “The aim of
> this Institute is to unfold the highest possibilities on all planes
> of consciousness. All diseases of mind or body successfully
> treated by right understanding of the laws of being and proper
> application to individual needs. Phrenology and mental sci­
> ence healing taught and practiced.”12
> A year after Pearle Doty had healed her baby, Kate Clarke
> tried to return to the Institute of Self Knowledge, but it was
> no longer there.13 She did not realize that the Dotys had
> moved a block away to 808 North Howard Street.14 Sometime
> during 1900, both Harry Doty and Elisha Battee either died
> or moved out, and the child, Henry Battee Doty, who was
> then only five years old, was living with his father’s parents.
> 114   Deb Clark
> 
> Pearle Doty continued as a metaphysician until she died in
> about 1903.15
> Pearle Doty may have attended Baha’i classes in New
> York delivered by Ibrahim Kheiralla, an important Baha’i
> teacher, as early as 1897. Her name appears on a list put
> together that year of people who were to be invited (or had
> previously attended) these classes.16 Her name and the name
> of her father, Elisha Battee, also appear on a list of those
> who completed Baha’i lessons in Baltimore in 1898. But the
> fact that Doty’s name is on a similar list for New York sug­
> gests that she originally took the classes there.17
> By 1901, fifty persons had been attracted to the Faith in
> Baltimore. The majority of these Baha’is were women, and
> most were from a working-class or professional middle-class
> background.18 Those who became Baha’is during this period
> formed the nucleus of the early Baltimore Baha’i Commu­
> nity. However, most of them do not appear to have remained
> active in the community for long after Pearle Doty’s death.19
> Baha’is moved to Baltimore from other localities, which helped
> to sustain the community in its early years.
> 
> Some Early Baha’is of Baltimore: Charlotte Brittingham Dixon
> of Princess Anne, Maryland, began a spiritual quest which
> took her to Chicago in 1896. She had a feeling that there was
> something in that city that she should know about. So when
> it was time to return to Maryland in 1897, and she still had
> found nothing, she resisted. She later wrote: “I besought God
> most earnestly, often lying on my face on the floor, that I
> should not be allowed to leave Chicago, without finding some­
> one who knew of this Revelation.”20 One day, while she was
> praying, a woman rang the doorbell asking for something,
> and Dixon let her in. As they talked, the woman suggested
> that she seek out a Mrs. Reed, who was teaching the gospel
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990     115
> 
> in the slums. That afternoon, Dixon tried to find Mrs. Reed,
> but was told that she was out of town. She returned the next
> day, and the day after, only to be turned away again. On the
> third day, a neighbor heard her asking for Mrs. Reed and
> said, “Woman, God sent you here; you are not seeking Mrs.
> Reed. We have the greatest message since Christ.”21
> The neighbor told Charlotte Dixon that she had recently
> accepted the Baha’i Revelation and directed her to Ibrahim
> Kheiralla, who was giving lessons on the new religion. She
> attended his classes in Chicago, accepted the Faith, and re­
> turned to Maryland, believing herself to be the first Baha’i
> there. She wrote to her brother and sister-in-law in New
> Jersey about the Baha’i teachings and convinced them to
> travel to New York to take Kheiralla’s classes. She also taught
> the Faith to at least six other relatives in Maryland, as well
> as her daughter and sister in Philadelphia.22
> Dixon’s sister, Evalina Brittingham, lived in Baltimore,
> and it may have been through her that the Faith was intro­
> duced into that city. Her name appears among the fifteen
> Baltimore Baha’is listed in the Supplication Book for the year
> 1898, while Charlotte Dixon’s name appears in 1897. The
> Supplication Book records the names of those who completed
> Kheiralla’s classes and who wrote letters of “supplication” to
> Abdu’l-Baha confessing their faith. A checkmark placed af­
> ter Dixon’s name indicates that she received the Greatest
> Name from Kheiralla, his final initiation into Baha’i mem­
> bership. However, there are no check marks after the names
> of the Baltimoreans whose names appear in 1898.23 Britting­
> ham was an active Baha’i in Baltimore during 1900.24
> Edward Struven is also listed on the 1898 list. His par­
> ents were from Bremen, Germany, a city with close ties to
> Baltimore throughout the nineteenth century. Baltimore was
> the largest tobacco export harbor in America, and Bremen
> was the largest tobacco import harbor in Europe.25 Edward
> 116   Deb Clark
> 
> lived with his parents, Rosa and Dietrich Struven, on Thames
> Street in Fells Point, until he left to study at Cornell Univer­
> sity in Ithaca, New York. His younger brother, Howard
> Struven, learned to make things with his hands and built a
> greenhouse when he was only eleven years old.26 Later, he
> worked as a shipbuilder and lost a finger in an accident.27
> Edward Struven learned of the Baha’i Faith in Ithaca
> from Lua Getsinger, an important Baha’i teacher. He consid­
> ered himself to be a Baha’i immediately, and his brother
> accepted the Faith in 1899. The Struven brothers remained
> active Baha’is for many years.
> Baltimore has always been a city of divided neighborhoods,
> separated by class, race, or ethnicity. In 1890, with a popula­
> tion of about 430,000, Baltimore was more than two-thirds
> white and about one-sixth black. About 12,000 foreign immi­
> grants arrived between 1879 and 1900. Sixty percent of the
> new arrivals were German, between twenty and twenty-five
> percent were Irish; and Britons, Russians, Poles, and Austri­
> ans made up five percent each.28
> The chief industries were canning and the production of
> men’s clothing. Trade, transportation, and service industries
> were also important.29 Industrialization brought more jobs,
> but many of them were in sweatshops full of low-paid work­
> ers, mostly recent immigrants and their children—Jews,
> Lithuanians, and Bohemians.30 The sweatshops, particularly
> the coat tailors, were usually found in houses in East Balti­
> more.31
> The Baha’i community was comprised of people from a
> variety of backgrounds who lived in different parts of town.
> Several Baha’is lived in South Baltimore, which was inhab­
> ited mostly by working-class blacks and whites. William B.
> Stoffel, a railroad inspector, and Charles Lampe, a machin­
> ist, lived there. Catherine A. Anderson, also lived in South
> Baltimore near the Camden Station.32
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990    117
> 
> Fells Point, in East Baltimore, was a docking area, as
> well as a home for the sweatshops, and many new immi­
> grants were to be found there. Baha’is in Fells Point in­
> cluded Winnifred Watson, and Elizabeth Emmell, who worked
> in a lunchroom and was married to a musician. Nellie C.
> Babbit, who lived in Mount Clare in southwest Baltimore,
> was married to a painter. On the other side of town, in an
> area known as Goose Hill in west Baltimore, were Ann E.
> Stansbury and Mary E. Powell, the wife of a conductor. Later
> on, Howard Struven had a home in this area where he enter­
> tained ‘Abdu’l-Baha during his trip to Baltimore.33
> Although the Baha’i's of Baltimore were not in favor of
> any formal organization at this time, they held meetings and
> were in contact with ‘Abdu’l-Baha.34 They were addressed by
> ‘Abdu’l-Baha in several Tablets (letters) written to America
> and mentioned in others. In one Tablet translated around
> 1900, Abdu’l-Baha praised Mrs. Emmell and Mrs. Powell for
> having meetings in their homes.35
> Although Baltimore was a large Baha’i community dur­
> ing the first few years of the century, nearby Washington,
> D.C., appears to have been the center of more Baha’i activ­
> ity. Several prominent Baha’i teachers lived there, including
> Lua Getsinger, Laura Barney, and Charles Mason Remey.
> Abdu’l-Baha wrote often to the Baha’is of Washington and
> urged them to assist the Baltimore community. In one Tab­
> let, addressed to Remey, he said that “every week, two or
> three of the Washington friends should go to Baltimore and
> endeavor to help and encourage the friends there.”36
> Whether or not such regular contact was established is
> unclear, but there is evidence that Baltimore Baha’is received
> some support from the Washington believers. When Sarah
> Jane Farmer was staying with Washington Baha’is and hold­
> ing Baha’i meetings there in 1901, for example, she also met
> with the Baha’is of Baltimore.37
> 118   Deb Clark
> 
> At least one Baltimore Baha’i, Frederick Woodward, moved
> to Washington, D.C., in 1902. Abdu’l-Baha instructed him to
> “receive proofs from Mirza Abul Fazl [Mirza Abu’l-Fadl],” the
> famous Baha’i scholar he had sent to America to instruct the
> believers in the teachings.38
> Abu’l-Fadl’s visit to Baltimore received a great deal of
> press coverage. One article, in the Baltimore Sun of Febru­
> ary 1, 1902, announced the visit and styled him the “High
> Priest of Behaism.” The Sun reporter had visited Abu’l-Fadl
> in Washington, where he was living at the time. In Balti­
> more, Abu’l-Fadl spoke to over one hundred people at a
> public meeting held at 1041 North Eutaw Street, “the head­
> quarters of the cult.” Colonel Nathan Ward Fitzgerald, of
> Washington, D.C., conducted the evening lesson and quoted
> scripture to support the “Beha’i claim that Christ had re­
> turned.” The article reported that Mirza Asadu’llah, another
> Persian teacher, and his interpreter, Niaz Effendi Kermani,
> had held a conference in Baltimore two weeks before. When
> the reporter saw them in Washington, they were speaking to
> two inquirers from Virginia.39
> The article went on: “Washington has recently become a
> seat or center of the new religion in this country, and several
> prominent believers and teachers are now there. Among these
> is Mrs. Lua M. Getsinger, a well known resident of the capi­
> tal.” It recounted a short history of the Baha’i Faith, starting
> with the Bab, and explained that the Baha’is use a “remark­
> able” method of “propaganda.” First they agree with you that
> your religion had divine origins, but then they add that “ev­
> ery perfect man comes to the point where he is no longer in
> complete harmony with the surroundings which his forefa­
> thers prepared.” The article reported that there were about
> seventy professed believers in Baltimore. However, the cen­
> sus reported only twenty-eight Baha’is in 1906, and that fig­
> ure may be high.40
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990    119
> 
> Transition and Organization: Pearle Doty, remembered by
> the Baha’is as the “leader” of the community in Baltimore in
> the early days, died sometime in 1903. ‘Abdu’l-Baha wrote a
> consoling Tablet to the Baha’is of Baltimore saying that they
> should not sigh in grief over her death: “I hope her noble son
> may seek the Path wherein his mother walked and may be­
> come better and more illustrious; nay, rather, the lights of
> his love may also take effect in his grandparents.” He went
> on: “As to ye who are friends of that bird of the meadow of
> guidance, ye must, after her, have such unison, love, associa­
> tion and unity that it may make things better and more
> favorable than they were during her days.”41
> Another Tablet from ‘Abdu’l-Baha, addressed to Mason
> Remey, says: “Thou hast written concerning Baltimore. Con­
> vey respectful greetings on my behalf to Miss . . . and say,
> ‘Exert thyself as much as thou canst in order that thou mayest
> illumine Baltimore, lay there an eternal foundation and ig­
> nite a lamp whose rays may shine through cycles and ages.’”42
> In 1904, much of the city of Baltimore burned down in a
> great fire that lasted two days and spread over one hundred
> and forty acres. Something caught fire in a dry goods firm
> that stood between Hopkins Place and Liberty Street. Most
> of the reconstruction of the city was finished by 1906.43 How­
> ever, the disruption may have contributed to a decline in
> Baha’i activity.
> It was Edward Struven who lived in Catonsville in Balti­
> more County, outside the city limits, who held the Baha’i
> community together after Doty’s passing. The believers con­
> tinued to meet in each other’s homes, as before. They re­
> ceived correspondence from other Baha’i communities, but
> avoided any organization and kept no records. They did, how­
> ever, send Struven to Chicago as a representative for the
> first Bahai Temple Unity convention held March 22-23, 1909.
> That same year Struven reported to the Bahai Bulletin (pub-
> 120   Deb Clark
> 
> lished in New York) that: “Due to this lack of numbers and
> the many duties and family cares and ties of our brothers
> and sisters, our regular Tuesday meetings average between
> 6 and 9 in attendance. Then because of our proximity to
> Washington and principally for the reason that none of us
> have arisen to the actual work of teaching, our progress has
> been very slow.”44 In 1906, the Washington Baha’i commu­
> nity paid the train fare for Baltimore Baha’is to travel to a
> lecture given by Lua Getsinger in Washington.45
> When Struven returned from the Chicago convention, he
> brought a new spirit with him. It was then that the Balti­
> more community decided to “form an organization to help
> the Cause along, believing that as a body more work could be
> done, and correspondence attended to properly, besides keep­
> ing a record of meetings.”45 Acting as temporary chairman of
> the newly formed Baltimore “Assembly,” as it was known,
> Edward Struven appointed a committee of four: Joseph
> Hope, Gertrude Stanwood, Howard Struven, and Maud
> Thompson, and Edwin B. Eardley as secretary, to frame a
> new constitution and by-laws for the community. The by­
> laws were approved on May 4, 1909. It was then decided to
> write to ‘Abdu’l-Baha telling him that Baltimore had orga­
> nized in this way, and that it was intended as a temporary
> organization until the laws of the Kitab-i Aqdas (Baha’u’llah’s
> “Most Holy Book”) were adopted. The letter expressed the
> community’s appreciation that unity in Baltimore was
> achieved through the efforts of the Washington friends, whom
> ‘Abdu’l-Baha had instructed to support the Baha’is of Balti­
> more. They asked ‘Abdu’l-Baha to be Honored Head of their
> assembly and to select other honorary members if he so de­
> sired. The letter was signed by twenty-five believers.47
> The by-laws called for spiritual meetings of the commu­
> nity to be opened by the members repeating the Greatest
> Name, followed by a prayer read by the chairman of the
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990    121
> 
> meeting. Unity feasts were to be held every nineteen days,
> and other meetings held on Tuesday evenings and Sunday
> afternoons. At the end of each meeting, those present would
> decide who would lead the next meeting. Parliamentary pro­
> cedure was to be followed when business was conducted. Com­
> munity officers were to be elected every six months, in March
> and September. All the meetings were to close either with
> the recitation of a passage from the Hidden Words of
> Baha’u’llah or a prayer, or both, and then all should repeat
> the Greatest Name. It seems that the community tried hard
> to prevent any one person from assuming leadership and
> that they adhered to the procedures they had adopted.48
> A few weeks after organizing their group, the Baltimore
> community wrote to other Baha’i assemblies to inform them
> of the names and addresses of their own officers. Believers
> from Washington continued to support activities in Baltimore.
> For example, Fanny Knobloch was a regular visitor who read
> lessons by ‘Abdu’l-Baha at her meetings. Pauline Hannen,
> another Washingtonian, frequently attended Holy Day cel­
> ebrations and spoke at other Baha’i gatherings. The commu­
> nity used booklets on the Baha’i teachings written by Hooper
> Harris, Isabella Brittingham, and Paul Dealy.49
> In 1909, Baltimore Baha’is included: Edward Struven,
> who now worked for the Maryland Viavi Company and lived
> in Catonsville; Margaret (Maud) E. Thompson, the wife of a
> clerk, who also lived in Catonsville; Estelle Lowndes was the
> associate manager of the Maryland Viavi Company. One of
> her neighbors, Anna McKhust, was also a Baha’i. Gertrude
> Stanwood, an artist, and Sadie C. Ambrose, a dressmaker,
> lived only a few blocks from Pearle Doty’s old home, and may
> have become Baha’is as a result of her efforts.
> Other Baha’is were: Edwin H. Eardley, and his wife
> Louisa, and his sister, Beatrice (Eardley), all of whom lived
> together. The women ran a hat shop (L & B Eardley Com-
> 122   Deb Clark
> 
> pany) from their home on O’Donnell Street in Highlandtown.
> Edwin Eardley worked as a draftsman and served as the
> secretary for the community, recording the minutes in a beau­
> tiful script. Charles W. Mann was a clerk living near Patterson
> Park, and Joseph W. Grant ran a grocery store in the same
> area. Charles L. Lampe was a pipefitter living in South Bal­
> timore. Winnifred E. Watson was still in the community,
> employed as a buyer and living in fashionable Bolton Hill.
> Mary E. Lane lived there also. Joseph Hope, a stenographer,
> lived just east of the Jones Falls, near the Old Town Mall,
> formerly Jones Town, the oldest settled area of Baltimore.50
> The Baha’i community established three funds: The
> Kappes Fund, to send to Miss Lillian Kappes, a Baha’i from
> northern New Jersey, living in Iran at the request of ‘Abdu’l-
> Baha to assist the Baha’is there; the Temple Fund; and a
> fund for traveling expenses (railway fare for visiting del­
> egates) the disbursement of which was left to the treasurer’s
> discretion.51
> The Bahai Temple Unity was, at that time, the national
> executive committee elected by delegates from local Baha’i
> communities. The raising of funds for the construction of the
> Temple was the subject of much local discussion. Various
> means were devised to raise money, such as the donation of
> a quilt made by a Baltimore Baha’i. A room was donated by
> Miss Dorr in Washington where visiting Baltimore friends
> could pay a contribution, in lieu of rent, to be turned over to
> the Temple Fund. Also, Cincinnati sent twenty-five “blessing
> boxes” in which money could be put for various blessings “as
> they come to mind,” like wishing wells. This money was also
> sent to the Temple Fund.52
> Howard Struven was twenty-seven years old in 1909 when
> ‘Abdu’l-Baha asked him to travel around the world with Ma­
> son Remey to visit Baha’i communities and teach the Faith.
> The Assembly in Baltimore gave him a letter, signed by
> twenty-three believers, to deliver to ‘Abdu’l-Baha when he
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990        123
> 
> arrived in ‘Akka. He left on July 20, and the community
> invited Washington believers to a farewell gathering for him.
> About this trip, Shoghi Effendi later wrote: “Mason Remey
> voyaged to Russia and Persia, and later, with Howard
> Struven, circled, for the first time in Baha’i history, the globe,
> visiting on his way the Hawaiian Islands, Japan, China, In­
> dia and Burma.”53
> In early September, Howard Struven wrote from Denver
> to tell of teaching successes, and from San Francisco to say
> he would be sailing on November 17. Both he and Mason
> Remey sent letters with news of their trip which were pub­
> lished in Star of the West and Bahai News, and which Remey
> later compiled into a book. By February 1910, the two had
> visited Japan, China, and Singapore, and were teaching in
> Burma.54 Struven later told some Baltimore Baha’i's that he
> had prayed while Remey lectured, and that when they ar­
> rived in the Holy Land, ‘Abdu’l-Baha had embraced him and
> praised him for his efforts.55
> ‘Abdu’l-Baha gave Struven a letter to carry back with
> him to Baltimore. It read: “O Ye Merciful Assembly ... He
> became the cause of the glory of the believers of Baltimore
> and imparted happiness and joy to the friends and maid­
> servants of the Merciful. He sacrificed everything in the Path
> of the Kingdom and imparted life to many souls.”56
> Before leaving on his global trip, Struven had spoken
> enthusiastically about the Washington Sunday School, and
> urged the Baha’i's to start a similar one in Baltimore. Other
> believers took up the task. Grace Mann offered her home at
> 1920 Orleans Street, and Maud Thompson offered her ser­
> vices in gathering children. Pauline Hannen also helped. One
> thousand invitation cards were printed up to advertise the
> Sunday School, which had its first meeting September 19,
> 1909. Five children attended, aged five to twelve, as well as
> one sixteen-year-old youth.
> The community also planned a public meeting for which
> 124   Deb Clark
> 
> a newspaper advertisement was prepared. The ad read: “Can
> the religions of the world be united? If so, on what basis?
> Free lecture by Howard MacNutt of Brooklyn, New York,
> Sunday afternoon, Oct. 24, 1909, 3 P.M., Florist Exchange
> Hall, Franklin and St. Paul Streets.” Two hundred invita­
> tions were printed for Baha’is to give to friends who “would
> be likely to attend.”
> Also in 1909, the Assembly noted that Mrs. Carline,
> originally from Baltimore but now living in Washington, had
> reported on her “successful meeting of colored people held
> during the week.”57
> Howard Struven returned to Baltimore in September of
> 1910, and he and Edwin Eardley were elected as delegates to
> the Bahai Temple Unity convention held in Chicago. The
> Assembly supplied them with letters of credential, and Edwin
> left with a number 9 chalked on his suitcase.58
> In 1910, the Baha’i funds were again divided into catego­
> ries: general use, the Temple Fund, a translator, and for the
> convention in Chicago. During the summer, a series of out­
> door meetings were planned at the home of Rose Struven,
> Howard and Edward’s mother, on Sundays. The speakers
> were to be Pauline Hannen, Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, Hooper
> Harris, Mons. H. Dreyfus, Joseph Hannen, Lua Getsinger,
> Ameen Ullah Fareed, Howard MacNutt, and Mason Remey.59
> All except Fareed were members of the Washington or New
> York communities.
> One day in 1911, Eusibia Day Dorrida and her neighbor
> went shopping at a public food market in the city. For Dorrida,
> this day was to be a turning point in her life. When she
> returned home to unload her purchases, she discovered among
> her vegetables a little printed pamphlet, one inch square,
> announcing that the Lord of Ages had come and inviting her
> to a meeting. She went to the meeting and that same day
> accepted the truth of the Baha’i Faith.60
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990   125
> 
> In 1911, Edwin Eardley was the delegate to the Bahai
> Temple Unity convention.61 Howard Struven was the alter­
> nate. While in the Chicago area, Eardley visited the Baha’is
> in Kenosha, Wisconsin.62 The convention sent greetings to
> the Peace Congress which was held in Baltimore on May 6,
> 1911. In August, Howard Struven was sent as a delegate to
> the first annual conference of the Persian-American Educa­
> tional Society in Washington, and was on the Hall Commit­
> tee. His brother Edward attended also. Perhaps beginning to
> demonstrate its independence from Washington, the Assem­
> bly told Joseph and Pauline Hannen, who had been asked to
> come to Baltimore to conduct Bible studies, that they need
> not come any longer.
> Both Struven brothers married in 1912. Edward married
> Estelle Lowndes, his former coworker, and they moved to her
> house on North Avenue. He was now employed as a me­
> chanical engineer. Howard married Ruby (Hebe) Moore, Lua
> Getsinger’s sister.
> 
> Abdu’l-Baha in Baltimore: Although ‘Abdu’l-Baha visited Bal­
> timore only briefly, his stay there was extremely important
> to the Baha’is there, and anecdotes about his visit became an
> important element of the community’s heritage. When the
> Baha’is heard of‘Abdu’l-Baha’s planned trip to America, they
> began to prepare for his arrival. Five days before his ship
> was to arrive in New York, the Baltimore Baha’is were ex­
> pecting his imminent visit to their city. The Baltimore Sun
> announced: ABDUL BAHA COMING. The article stated that he
> would speak on Sunday, April 21, at the First Independent
> Christ’s Church (Unitarian).63 They must have been disap­
> pointed.
> ‘Abdu’l-Baha apparently made his plans day by day. When
> the believers realized that he would not be coming immedi­
> ately to Baltimore, some of them traveled to New York to see
> 126   Deb Clark
> 
> him. According to an oral tradition in the community, Ed­
> ward Struven rode the rails to get there. When he arrived,
> he was dishevelled from his trip. ‘Abdu’l-Baha had him sit
> down and offered him a bowl of Persian rice. When he fin­
> ished eating it, ‘Abdu’l-Baha gave him another one.64
> The biggest day in the life of the Baltimore Baha’i com­
> munity began at Camden Station on November 11, 1912,
> when, accompanied by a party of seven—including two trans­
> lators and a secretary, ‘Abdu’l-Baha arrived at 11:00 a.m.
> from Washington, D.C. He went to the fashionable Hotel
> Rennert at Saratoga and Liberty Streets, where he met the
> press and took a short rest.
> When he got to the Unitarian Chapel on Hamilton Street
> at noon, “the hall had been filled for a while before the hour
> set for his address, with followers, Johns Hopkins professors,
> and many business and professional men.” ‘Abdu’l-Baha stood
> on the platform, “enveloped by a long black robe, with an
> oriental cap upon his head.” The interpreter was Dr. Fareed,
> a Persian Baha’i.65
> The News American account of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s talk included
> a three paragraph summary which focused on the parts of
> the talk concerned with the unity of religion and the differ­
> ence between its essentials and accidental aspects. However,
> his remarks in their entirety, as recorded by Jack Solomon, a
> stenographer, also specifically referred to the lecture he had
> delivered the day before to a largely Jewish audience in a
> Washington synogogue.66
> The report in the Sun included illustrations depicting
> ‘Abdu’l-Baha in five different aspects, under the headline:
> PERSIAN PHILOSOPHER IN STRIKING POSES. The accompa­
> nying article was entitled: WOMEN KISS HIS HAND. Although
> the headlines seem rather sardonic, the contents of the ar­
> ticle appear to be accurate. ‘Abdu’l-Baha was escorted from
> the train station to a waiting automobile by six people, sur-
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990         127
> 
> rounded by a crowd of well-dressed women. He greeted each
> of his followers as they were presented to him by his inter­
> preter, Dr. Fareed. The article continues:
> At the lecture he wore a robe of black with triangular insert of
> light tan in front reaching from hem to neck.
> A striking-looking man of about 70 years, he’s of average
> height, with a strong rugged face covered with a short white
> beard. His cheekbones are high, his eyes bright and flashing.
> 
> The article explained that ‘Abdu’l-Baha was distinguish­
> able from his companions in that he wore a white turban,
> while they wore black ones.
> The lecture was delivered in Persian in an impressive manner.
> His voice was low-pitched, but at times increased in volume. He
> spoke a few minutes before pausing to let the interpreter trans­
> late.
> He used frequent gestures, the favorite one being an inclu­
> sive swing of both arms to show the universality of the doctrine
> he propounded. He also frequently leaned over the reading desk
> and looked at his hearers.
> “God is one, we are his children, submerged in the sea of his
> kindness,” was his theme. He said all divine religions had two
> parts, the essentials, which dealt with morality and ethical stan­
> dards, and the non-essentials which change with time and place.
> In proof of this, he compared the teaching of Moses and Christ,
> both of whom he styled “His Holiness.” He declared that the
> penal code announced by Moses was necessary for the Israelites
> travelling through the wilderness, but was repealed by Christ.
> Theological dogmas which, he said, had crept into religions were
> useless and should be forsaken. Those differences, he declared,
> were the cause of the world’s bitterness and strife, and their
> elimination would bring about universal peace and love. . . .
> After the lecture he declared that the nations of the world
> looked to America as the leader in the world-wide movement and
> declared the situation of this country not being a rival of any
> other power and not considering colonization schemes or con­
> quests, made it an ideal country to lead in the movement.
> 128     Deb Clark
> 
> The article reported that there were six thousand Baha’is
> in the United States (almost certainly an exaggeration) and
> that there were a dozen or so believers in the doctrine in
> Baltimore.67
> There is a story told by the Baha’is of Baltimore that
> relates how two Catholic priests had sneaked into the chapel
> during ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s talk. They are supposed to have hid­
> den themselves in a doorway behind the stage where he was
> speaking. As he lectured, so the story goes, ‘Abdu’l-Baha
> walked over and shut the door on the priests.
> After the talk, ‘Abdu’l-Baha went to Howard and Hebe
> Struven’s home, at 1800 Bentaloo Street in West Baltimore,
> a row house facing a courtyard. ‘Abdu’l-Baha stood in the
> courtyard with his arms outstretched and said, “Many friends
> have I in Baltimore.”68
> Maud Thompson missed ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s talk because she
> had spent the morning walking out to a farm east of Balti­
> more to get a fresh, live chicken to make for lunch. When all
> the visitors were at the Struven house, Maud was in the
> kitchen busily preparing the meal. ‘Abdu’l-Baha called to her
> from the living room. She went into the living room and saw
> that everyone was seated, and no chairs were empty. She
> thought she saw a twinkle in ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s eye when he
> pointed to the floor near his feet and motioned her to sit
> down there. Not only was Maud Thompson a stout woman,
> but she was tightly laced in a corset, and sitting on the floor
> was no small task.69
> Ursula Shuman Moore was living with the Struvens in
> 1912, also serving as community treasurer.70 In a letter to
> her sister, Louise Shuman Irani, composed the day after
> ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s visit, she wrote:
> Yesterday, the 11th he came over to our house in Baltimore and
> had dinner with us at our table! Did you ever dream that this
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990           129
> 
> would come to pass. He came to Baltimore about twelve o’clock
> and spoke at the Unitarian Church, and then they came out to
> our house and we had dinner for him. Many of the Washington
> believers came over too and many of the Baltimore believers
> came up. We had about 55 or 54 to feed. Had a grand chicken
> dinner, with rice and celery, peas, ice cream and cake, and veg­
> etable soup. He said we had given him a good dinner, a fine
> dinner, and that he ate much. When I brought in the big platter
> of chicken and set it before him at the table he said, “Oh, chicken!”
> and seemed to be much pleased with it. He said everything was
> cooked well. We had him and the Persians in his party sit down
> first, 12 at the table, and served them, and then we had four
> relays and every body had something. They all seemed so glad to
> be there and enjoyed themselves so much. I was so glad for Mother
> could be near him and see him. I introduced Mother to him, and
> he took her hand and said, “Oh, your Mother!” and looked at her
> very kindly. I told him she had been and was sick, and that we
> asked that she might be well. He said “In Shalah.” [God willing.]
> So I hope she will get well soon now. They did not stay very long,
> as they left on the (3 o’clock) train. It surely was a great privi­
> lege to have him in our house, and something that we will al­
> ways remember.71
> 
> Consolidation, 1912-1934: Laura L. Drum was Baltimore’s
> delegate to the sixth annual Bahai Temple Unity convention
> in 1914, although she was a member of the Washington Baha’i
> community. She reported at the convention on Baltimore’s
> response to the newly inaugurated system of monthly contri­
> butions to the Temple Fund.72
> In 1919, when the American Baha’is received the Tablets
> of the Divine Plan from ‘Abdu’l-Baha, they learned that he
> had grouped the various states into regions. These Tablets
> charged the American Baha’is with spreading the Baha’i Faith
> all over the country, and all over the world. Maryland, being
> a southern state, was part of the southern region, whose
> headquarters were established in Washington, D.C.73
> 130   Deb Clark
> 
> After the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Baha, the Baltimore commu­
> nity wrote to the new Guardian, Shoghi Effendi, on March
> 31, 1922, expressing love, gratitude, and their willingness to
> serve the Faith.74
> In 1926, there were thirteen adults and seven “junior”
> Baha’is in Baltimore.7'5 They met steadily in one or two of the
> believers’ homes until they decided to rent Maccabees Hall at
> 522 Park Avenue, for ten dollars a month. Their meetings
> were open to “strangers” and believers. Among their visitors
> was at least one black man, John Chase.76
> Louis Gregory, a prominent black Baha’i teacher, spent a
> week in Baltimore in 1927, from January 11 to 17. He fin­
> ished up his visit at Morgan College, a black institution,
> where he spoke to a group of black ministers.77 It was around
> this time that Aleen Lock, in Washington, D.C., made it known
> that she thought black Baha’is would be happier if they orga­
> nized their own separate Nineteen-Day Feasts. There were
> some blacks who either withdrew from the Faith or hesitated
> to join it because of this. The repercussions were felt years
> later in Baltimore. In the 1950s, the president of Morgan
> College, which had been established as a school for blacks,
> told a friend who was investigating the Baha’i teachings that
> his wife had been interested during the 1920s, but had
> changed her mind when she heard about these remarks in
> the Washington community.78
> Several public meetings were held in 1930. On January
> 26, Albert Vail, a Baha’i teacher who was also a Unitarian
> minister, spoke to some two hundred people at the First Uni­
> tarian Church on the topic “What is the Kingdom of God?”
> On March 19, Ali Kuli Khan, a well-known Persian Baha’i
> teacher, visited the Assembly and spoke on the relation of
> the Baha’i Faith to other religions. Meetings and study classes
> usually featured readings from recent translations of the
> Baha’i scriptures, letters from the Guardian, reports of Baha’is
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990      131
> 
> who had attended conferences, and notes of travelers who
> had been to the Holy Land. Sometimes the Baha’i's studied
> biblical proofs, or held classes on public speaking techniques.79
> The community followed set procedures for all of its meet­
> ings, following agendas that were similar to the order of
> church services. A “Program for a Public Meeting” and a
> “Program for the Spiritual Board Meeting” were kept in the
> back of the Baltimore Minute Book, and seem to have been
> established in 1929. The public meeting was to open with a
> hymn, the Invocation found on page 3 of the blue Baha’i
> prayer book, then another hymn. There followed a short his­
> tory of the Cause, a prayer for Guidance (page 37 of the blue
> prayer book), a lecture, and then questions. After that came
> announcements of future public meetings and a healing prayer
> (from page 28 of the prayer book). The meetings closed with
> the Benediction, a widely used Baha’i song.80
> The Spiritual Board meetings were supposed to open with
> the prayer on page 99 of the blue Baha’i World volume. Then
> the minutes were to be read, followed by committee reports
> and the evening prayer on page 23 of the Baha’i prayer book.
> This was followed by new business, a prayer for protection
> (page 45) and a healing prayer (page 28). During the 1930s,
> many of the meetings were held in East Baltimore, perhaps
> at the home of the Mann family or of Beatrice Eardley.
> In February of 1931, during the Great Depression, the
> Baltimore Assembly took an audacious step: They took out a
> bank loan in order to pay for Howard Colby Ives to come on a
> teaching trip to their community. He conducted “deepening”
> classes for the Baha’is and probably was invited to their homes
> for private gatherings with friends and relatives.81 Baha’i
> classes continued to be held twice a week in 1932, on various
> Baha’i books, including Some Answered Questions, Bahd’u’lldh
> and the New Era, The Dawn-Breakers, and the Kitab-i-Iqan.
> These efforts appear to have been intended to prepare the
> I
> !
> 
> i
> I
> 
> SIXTH ANNUAL BAHA’I WORLD YOUTH SYMPOSIUM
> c. 1930. Standing (1. to r.): Unknown, Hilda Seidman, Bill Dorrida, Birdie Eardley, Lois Revell,
> Maude Thompson Amendt, Raymond Rouse, Anne Hatter, Mrs. Rouse, unknown, Harrison Langrell,
> Mildred Elmer. Seated (1. to r.): Jessie Mann Stallings, Mildred Hipsley Long.
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990      133
> 
> community for reorganization in accordance with new guide­
> lines from the National Spiritual Assembly. This reorganiza­
> tion was taking place in a number of Baha’i communities at
> about this time.
> The new Assembly elected in April of 1932 consisted of
> seven women and two men. Local committees, comprised of
> one or two Baha’is each, were formed to oversee study classes,
> Feasts and publicity, and attendance. On April 28, Ives pre­
> pared a report for the National Convention on the progress
> the Baltimore community had made since his stay there.82
> On May 3, 1932, there were then fifteen Baha’is in the city.
> The Assembly began to require that new believers study
> the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Baha and Bahd’u’llah and
> the New Era and acknowledge their understanding and com­
> plete acceptance of the tenets of the Baha’i Faith. This was
> in compliance with new procedures suggested by the Na­
> tional Spiritual Assembly. For the first time, on February 1,
> 1933, the local Spiritual Assembly of Baltimore voted on and
> recorded the enrollment of a new member: It was Hazel Clarke
> Langrall, whose mother had taken her to Pearle Doty for
> healing when she was a baby, back in 1898.83
> Langrall had serious health problems and had been told
> by her doctors that she only had a brief time left to live. This
> was the second major health crisis in her life, and it spurred
> her on a religious quest that would lead her to the Baha’is
> again. She learned of the Faith through Eusibia Dorrida, her
> neighbor on the 2800 block of Allendale Street, where Mar­
> guerite Dorrida Hipsley also lived.84 At the time she entered
> the Faith, she did not know that her mother had taken her
> to a Baha’i for healing when she was an infant. When she
> learned about the incident, she liked to say that she had
> been a Baha’i all her life.85
> Marguerite Dorrida Hipsley, whose mother had been a
> Baha’i since 1911, had always been a strong-minded person.
> 134   Deb Clark
> 
> She was a women’s suffrage activist and an advocate of
> women’s rights. She was a member of the Methodist Church
> before becoming a Baha’i, but she was dissatisfied with it.
> Besides her mother, her sister and brother were all Baha’is,
> and they posed questions to her that she would carry to her
> minister. Once she asked him about the return of Christ.
> The minister replied, “Oh, he isn’t going to come in our day.”
> “But he has to come in somebody’s day! Why not our
> day?” Hipsley exclaimed. When the minister could not pro­
> vide a satisfactory answer, she left his church and was soon
> actively involved in the Baha’i community.86
> The diversity of the Baha’i community increased during
> the 1930s. Ann Hatter, a descendant of Menno Simon, founder
> of the Mennonites, and Paul Sadowitz, a Jewish man who
> had been interested in the Faith since the 1920s, became
> Baha’is. The community also developed good relations with
> the Theosophists and the World Federalists.87
> Grace Mann was appointed by the Baltimore Assembly
> as a committee of one in March of 1933, to order sixty copies
> of The Goal of a New World Order, the Guardian’s recent
> letter to the Baha’is of America. The letter was to be made
> known to every believer. The number of copies purchased
> suggests that there were many persons in Baltimore who
> considered themselves Baha’is, or who had at one time been
> affiliated with the Faith, but who were not included on the
> membership list under the new and stricter standards that
> had been adopted in 1932.
> The year 1933 was the first for which minutes were re­
> corded in Baltimore during the summer months. Previously,
> the Assembly had only met from September through spring.
> A youth committee was formed during this year. Further,
> the Assembly had a stamp made which read: “This is au­
> thentic Baha’i literature” which they stamped in all Baha’i
> books, including those they donated to libraries. An attempt
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990      135
> 
> was made to have the public library in Baltimore file Baha’i
> materials under the heading “Baha’i Faith,” rather than un­
> der “Bahaism.”88
> Much of the effort of the community was directed towards
> the recruitment of new believers. In March 1934, the Baha’i's
> rented a regular hall to be used for lectures and as a reading
> room. It was located on North Avenue, near St. Paul Street.
> The community furnished it with a new leather living-room
> suite and lamps. They placed a painted sign in the window
> which read: “Baha’i Centre and Reading Room, open from 11
> to 4 P.M. excepting Saturday and Sunday” and held public
> meetings about every other month in an effort to reach the
> public. Visitors were reported at the meetings, some of whom
> seemed interested. The official community membership list
> was sixteen strong.89
> Martha Root, the internationally known Baha’i teacher,
> visited Baltimore in 1936, and she stayed at the YMCA. The
> title of her lecture at the University Club at 800 Charles
> Street was “My World Travels in the Interest of Universal
> Peace.”86
> Mildred Elmer took a trip to Chicago to visit her relatives
> there and attend the World’s Fair in 1936. While there,
> she saw the Baha’i Temple under construction in Wilmette.
> Returning to Baltimore, she found that her brother was
> acquainted with the Baha’is. He took her to a fireside (an
> informal introductory meeting) at the home of Hazel Langrail
> on a Friday evening. She continued to attend firesides every
> Friday for a few years. At last, she wrote a letter to the
> Assembly in Baltimore saying that she would like to become
> a Baha’i. On the evening that the Assembly met to consider
> her enrollment, Mildred nervously waited outside the room,
> wondering what the outcome would be. She was accepted
> into the community, and two years later she was elected to
> the Assembly.91
> f
> V-A '■
> Ica
> 
> I
> 
> 9$^
> 
> BALTIMORE BAHA’I CENTER
> is seen behind Mildred Elmer (1.) and Marguerite Dorrida Hipsley.
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990      137
> 
> Hazel Langrall’s son, Clarke, declared his acceptance of
> the Baha’i Faith in 1940, at the age of sixteen. He had spent
> much time at Green Acre Baha’i School, where he had worked
> at Stanwood Cobb’s camp. He was one of only about six Baha’i
> youth on the entire East Coast.92
> Also in 1940, the Baltimore Assembly decided to find a
> larger Baha’i Center in a more central location. Mildred Elmer
> and Clarence Percival located a site at 527 North Charles
> Street, on the first floor of a fashionable brownstone build­
> ing. Volunteers renovated the flat that became the new Center.93
> A Jewish woman, Faith Amberg, became a Baha’i in 1942.
> She had been a Baha’i for only a year or two when she died,
> leaving her estate—two buildings on Gwynn Oak Avenue
> and a large sum of money—to the Baha’i community. Gwynn
> Oak was a broad, tree-lined street, and the two houses were
> only a few blocks from the county line, across which was the
> exclusively white Woodlawn area.94 In the 1940s, the area
> where Amberg lived was predominantly Jewish.
> In order to inherit the estate, the local Spiritual Assem­
> bly of Baltimore had to incorporate, and it did so in 1945. As
> stipulated in Amberg’s will, a sum of money was sent to the
> Guardian of the Faith to be used for the completion of the
> Shrine of the Bab in Israel. The Guardian wrote to the com­
> munity in his own hand, thanking them. He said: “Your re­
> sponsibilities are great as you now are more independent
> than most Baha’i communities from a financial point of
> view.”95 The Assembly also gave two thousand dollars to the
> Green Acre Maintenance Committee, probably from the
> Amberg estate.96
> 
> Growth and Diversity, 1934 to the present: Since slavery times,
> Baltimore had been a segregated city. Jim Crow laws adopted
> after the Civil War excluded blacks from public facilities that
> whites used and segregated the schools, jobs, stores, restau-
> 138   Deb Clark
> 
> rants and neighborhoods. Albert James became a Baha’i in
> 1934, in Tennessee and moved to Baltimore in 1937, where
> he remained the only black Baha’i until after World War II.
> Roland Mann, a Baha’i who lived in all-white Highlandtown,
> helped James find a job.97
> Still it was very difficult for the Baltimore Baha’is to
> make contact with the black community. In February of 1936,
> they had made an effort to do so by sponsoring an illus­
> trated lecture on the Baha’i Temple, entitled “The Temple of
> Light,” at Morgan College, and also at the Enoch Pratt Free
> Library.98 Fred Amendt and Maud (Thompson) Amendt
> made aggressive efforts to teach the Faith to African-Ameri­
> can people. They also lived in Highlandtown, on Kenwood
> Avenue.99
> It was not until after the war, however, that the strict
> barriers of race and class began to weaken. More diverse
> types of people entered the Baha’i community, which until
> then had been fairly homogeneous. The early believers were
> a closely knit group, like a family, still “enamoured with
> ‘Abdu’l-Baha—thrilled with having met him. . . . The Admin­
> istration was important, but not as important as later on.”100
> During the 1950s, a few Persian Baha’is came to study in
> Baltimore, especially at Johns Hopkins University. There were
> also some black women, nurses, who came into the Faith. A
> women with an orthodox Jewish background, Betty Feldman,
> moved into Baltimore County, and she was the only Baha’i
> there during this period.101
> In the summer of 1958, Eugene Byrd, a dentist who prac­
> ticed in Baltimore, started out for Chicago with his wife.
> They stopped in Pittsburgh on the way to pick up their sons
> who had gone to the YMCA camp there that summer, be­
> cause the one in Baltimore was for whites only. When the
> family arrived in Chicago, they found that their motel reser­
> vations would not be honored because they were black. Even-
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990    139
> 
> tually, they found accommodations at the Sheridan Hotel in
> Evanston. Their Chicago friend, Herbie Nipson, the execu­
> tive editor of Ebony magazine, suggested that they drive up
> to visit the newly completed Baha’i House of Worship in
> Wilmette, not far from where they were staying.102
> Back in Baltimore the Byrd family continued to investi­
> gate the Faith. They regularly attended Friday night fire­
> sides at the home of Alma Heise, who lived in an all-white
> neighborhood in Baltimore where blacks might be arrested if
> found on the streets after dark. After a year and a half, they
> entered the Faith.103
> The Friday fireside conducted by Alma Heise and Bill
> Burgess resulted in seven enrollments in 1956, four in the
> city of Baltimore and three outside. Heise and Burgess were
> the only Baha’is present, and conducted the fireside as a
> team inviting two or three friends to their gathering every
> Friday night. Sometimes seekers heard of the meetings on
> their own and asked to be invited. The firesides were very
> informal occasions. The Baha’is would prepare in advance
> the point that they wanted to cover, but their delivery was
> conversational, seemingly spontaneous, and not overly serious.
> In 1960, the first functioning Baha’i group was formed in
> Baltimore County. Two years later, an Assembly was elected
> in the county, with Howard Struven as one of its members.
> The county Assembly was active and helped organize Baha’i
> events in the city.
> In 1963, the Supreme Court overturned state laws that
> sanctioned racial discrimination. The Baltimore Sun ran a
> series of articles interviewing prominent Americans on their
> views on race and prejudice. Taking advantage of the oppor­
> tunity, the Baltimore Baha’is organized a proclamation week,
> with four public meetings and publicity on radio, on televi­
> sion, and in the newspapers. This resulted in much interest
> in the Faith.104
> 140   Deb Clark
> 
> The Byrds attended the National Baha’i Convention in
> Wilmette, as delegates in 1963. They were planning to par­
> ticipate in Martin Luther King’s march on Selma, Alabama,
> in protest of racial segregation. They found a group of Baha’is
> at the convention who also intended to join the march, but
> they were waiting for the approval of the National Spiritual
> Assembly before going ahead. At the last minute, the Na­
> tional Assembly gave its blessing, and the Byrds participated
> in the march.105
> The Baha’is of the county and city of Baltimore jointly
> secured the first official proclamation of World Peace Day as
> the third Sunday in September, designated by the mayor.
> Under the direction of the National Spiritual Assembly, the
> communities planned a meeting to commemorate World Peace
> Day on September 15, 1963. Nine hundred people attended
> the event that evening at the Lyric Opera House in Balti­
> more, despite a heavy rainstorm. The audience was both
> black and white, with slightly more blacks than whites in
> attendance.106
> On that same day, in the afternoon, four black children
> had been killed in a racially motivated church bombing inci­
> dent in Birmingham, Alabama. Robert Quigley, then vice-
> chairman of the National Spiritual Assembly, set the tone of
> the meeting when he asked the audience to silently remem­
> ber the slain children. McHenry Boatwright, an eminent Af­
> rican-American baritone, sang the Baha’i prayer “Blessed Is
> the Spot,” “prolonging the closing phrases, repeating one sev­
> eral times, as he felt the hearts of his listeners drawn to the
> prayer.”107 Lerone Bennett, Jr., senior editor of Ebony maga­
> zine spoke at the meeting. Although he was not a Baha’i, he
> quoted from Shoghi Effendi’s Advent of Divine Justice and
> the Baha’i book Race and Man. In an eloquent speech, he
> acknowledged that the Baha’i Faith proclaimed the brother­
> hood of all races. William Sears, the Baha’i Hand of the Cause,
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990    141
> 
> told the history of the Faith and the Baha’i teachings of
> racial unity. Boatwright returned to the stage and accompa­
> nied himself at the piano for the Negro spiritual “He’s Got
> the Whole World in His Hands.” The audience was moved to
> tears.108 During the week after the program, which attracted
> wide media attention, some fifteen hundred phone calls were
> received at the Baltimore Baha’i Center.109
> The ethnic composition of the Gwynn Oak Avenue area,
> where the Baha’i Center was located, changed from predomi­
> nantly Jewish to black during the 1960s. Of the two build­
> ings left by the Amberg estate, one had to be sold to raise
> money to renovate the other which began to serve as the
> Baha’i Center. A Baha’i couple, Bill and Martha Dorrida,
> lived there as caretakers and acted as the social epicenter of
> the community. Martha Dorrida died in 1966, and Bill (later
> known to many Baha’is as Uncle Billy) moved in with the
> Radpour family in Baltimore County. Some of the other early
> Baltimore Baha’is passed away during the 1960s.
> Two days after the assassination of Martin Luther King,
> on April 6, 1968, riots began in Baltimore that lasted for
> three days and resulted in 6 deaths, at least 300 injuries,
> 420 fires, and 350 looted stores.110 Much of the destruction
> took place around Pennsylvania Avenue and Gay Street, and
> the riots discouraged suburban shoppers from coming into
> the city.
> The focus of Baha’i activity in the Baltimore area also
> moved outside the city. Fred Lee, a Baha’i in the county,
> was much involved with youth activities. In the early 1960s,
> he had urged the Baltimore City Assembly to sponsor a Boy
> Scout Troop, and in 1964, he hosted a youth conference on
> his farm, with 123 youth camping out for the weekend. Dur­
> ing the late 1960s, youth began entering the Baha’i Faith in
> the Baltimore area in significant numbers.
> The Baltimore County Baha’is organized a booth at the
> * / 71
> h    "I
> 
> SOME BALTIMORE BAHA’IS
> who attended the St. Louis Bahd’i Conference, 1975. Top row, 1. to r.: Kiser
> Barnes, Pamela Prosser, Michael King, Gordon Jacky, Debbie King (with
> baby). Third row, 1. to r.: Parvis Ighani, Anne Z. Ighani, Barbara Maschal,
> Marlene Jacky, Betty S. Feldman. Second row: W. DuBois Johnson, Mabel
> L. Byrd, Eugene D. Byrd, Kathym A. Cleveland. Front row: Danny Prosser,
> Jacky child (in back), Angela Prosser (in front), Matthew Maschal, Mildred
> Elmer, Marguerite D. Hipsley.
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990       143
> 
> Maryland State Fair in Timonium in September 1968, and
> again in 1969. Called “It Works,” the booth was built of acrylic,
> with panels and counters. It attracted youth from upper-
> middle-class Dulaney High School, who began attending fire­
> sides.111 The firesides were so successful that declarations of
> faith became a regular feature every Friday evening. Young
> people began to enroll in the Faith so regularly that the
> Baha’is would consider the fireside a failure if there were no
> enrollments one week.112
> The county community organized Sunday morning study
> classes to teach the new youth more about the Baha’i Faith
> and actively worked to get them involved in Baha’i activities.
> There were overnight conferences in Baha’i homes, and a
> great deal of energy was expended to make sure that all
> youth could attend. Many of the youth became pioneers (mis­
> sionaries) for the Faith in Mexico, Finland, the Caribbean
> Islands, and other places., and some were among the first
> mass teachers in the Carolinas.113 A strong Baha’i Club de­
> veloped at Towson State University.
> The Baltimore County Assembly incorporated in 1970,
> and three years later the National Spiritual Assembly autho­
> rized the division of the county into east and west communties.
> Baltimore County West incorporated in 1974. Later, the Bal­
> timore County East community split again, forming the
> Cockeysville Baha’i community, which considered itself the
> successor of the original Baltimore County Assembly. The
> Baltimore County Central Assembly did not incorporate un­
> til 1986. The east County split left many believers isolated,
> and the two new communities did not agree on their bound­
> ary for some time. Both communities experienced a decline
> in activities.
> The Baha’i community in the city of Baltimore remained
> weaker than the communities in the county, and more tran­
> sient. Baha’i college students, sometimes four or five at a
> 144   Deb Clark
> 
> time, would live in Baltimore while going to school. They
> were actively involved in the Baha’i community while they
> were in the city, but then would move on after their studies
> were over.
> In 1974, soon after installing cast iron bars on the win­
> dows of the Baha’i Center for security, the local Assembly was
> held up at gunpoint while conducting a late-night meeting.
> After the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, there was
> an influx of Persian Baha’is. The first to arrive were high
> school and college students. Later, their parents and other
> relatives joined them as refugees from the brutal persecution
> of Baha’is in Iran. The older generation, unable to pursue
> their careers, knew little English and had little money. They
> needed the help of the Baha’i community to get settled.
> By the end of the 1980s, there were four local Spiritual
> Assemblies in the Baltimore metropolitan area. Each of these
> Baha’i communities contained a widely diverse ethnic mix.
> The local Assembly in Baltimore was made up of four Per­
> sians, three blacks, and two whites. There were about sev­
> enty believers on the rolls in the city, but most were inactive.
> The Baha’is were largely middle class. The Baltimore County
> Central Baha’i community had achieved a good level of unity
> and participation. Most of the Baha’is were Persian, with
> Persians outnumbering Americans on the Assembly. The west
> County community had about thirty believers—including
> seven Persians and seven African-Americans-—and held con­
> sistent proclamation activities. The Cockeysville Assembly
> was revived in 1987, with a majority of Persians in the com­
> munity, many of whom were refugees.
> The Baha’i community of the Baltimore area has a long
> history which reaches back to ‘Abdu’l-Bahd’s visit to
> America, and before. Originally closely tied to the Wash­
> ington, D.C. Baha’i community, it developed its indepen­
> dence and gave birth to new Baha’i communities in outly-
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990          145
> 
> ing areas. It stands today as an example of racial and cul­
> tural unity that is unusal in Baltimore.
> 
> NOTES
> 
> 1. Interview with Clarke Langrall, December 1987, conducted by
> the author.
> 2. Baltimore City Directory, 1893 (Baltimore: R. L. Polk and Co.,
> 1893). United States Census, Baltimore. Index to the 1860 Federal
> Population Census of Ohio, vol. 1, p. 64.
> 3. Meredith Janvier, Baltimore in the Eighties and Nineties (Bal­
> timore: H. G. Roebuck and Son, 1933) pp. 169-71.
> 4. Ethan Allen Doty, The Doty-Doten Family in America (Brook­
> lyn, NY: n.p., 1897) p. 819.
> 5. Baltimore City Directory, 1894 and 1895.
> 6. United States Census, 1900.
> 7. Doty, The Doty-Doten Family, p. 837.
> 8. Baltimore City Directory, 1898.
> 9. Baltimore City Directory, 1898.
> 10. Janvier, Baltimore, pp. 169-171.
> 11. Baltimore City Directory, 1898, p. 2015.
> 12. Ibid., p. 2014.
> 13. Interview with Clarke Langrall.
> 14. Baltimore City Directory, 1899.
> 15. Ibid., 1900, 1901, 1902, and 1903.
> 16. “List of Persons to be Notified Concerning the Classes,”
> Ibrahim Kheiralla papers, in private hands.
> 17. “Supplication Book—Baltimore,” and “Additional Names for
> the New York List.” Albert Windust papers. National Bahd’f Archives,
> Wilmette, Illinois.
> 18. I am grateful to Richard Hollinger for providing this informa­
> tion. Mr. Hollinger has conducted research on the class origins of the
> Bahd’is: A list of persons who signed a petition sent to ‘Abdu’l-Bahd
> in 1901 (Thornton Chase Papers, National Bahd’i Archives) includes
> the names of 53 from Baltimore. After collating this list, with the
> names of Baltimore Bahd’is on the “Supplication Lists—Baltimore,”
> it was possible to identify the occupations of eighteen persons using
> 146    Deb Clark
> 
> the Baltimore City Directory for 1900. The “List of Persons to be
> Notified Concerning the Classes” was used to identify the addresses
> of some of those on the other lists. In some cases there were no
> listings for Bahd’f women, but their husbands were listed. In these
> cases, the husband’s occupations were used, because these would
> have determined the social status of the women. In several instances,
> there was more than one person of the same name listed in the
> directory, and no address could be located to identify the specific
> person who was the Bahd’f. In these cases, the occupations could not
> be used.
> The occupations were as follows: bookkeeper, carpenter, clerk,
> conductor, confectioner, draftsman, inspector, laborer, machinist,
> painter, sailmaker, seamstress, student, teacher (3), teamster, and
> waitress. The fact that the names of most of the Bahd’is could not be
> found in the city directory, however, suggests that a significant per­
> centage may have been unskilled laborers, who would not have been
> likely to have a listing.
> 19. In 1909, a letter sent to ‘Abdu’l-Bahd from Baltimore was
> signed by twenty-five believers. This is less than half the number
> who signed the petition to him in 1901. (Minutes, April 1909, pp. 2-9.
> Baltimore Baha’i Archives.)
> 20. Robert Stockman, The Baha’i Faith in America: Origins, 1892-
> 1900 (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahd’i Publishing Trust, 1985) p. 119 quoting
> Charlotte E. Brittingham Dixon, “How I Became a Believer and Was
> Given the Bahai Revelation by and through Visions,” National Bahd’i
> Archives.
> 21. Ibid.
> 22. Ibid. p. 129.
> 23. “Supplication Book—Baltimore.”
> 24. “Minutes of the Baha’i's of Baltimore City,” March 29, 1910,
> p. 23. National Bahd’f Archives. (Hereafter, Minutes, Baltimore)
> 25. Dieter Cunz, The Maryland Germans (Princeton University
> Press, 1948) p. 236.
> 26. Baltimore News American, April 23, 1974.
> 27. Interview with Nancy Lee, conducted by the author in Sep­
> tember 1987.
> 28. Carl Bode, Maryland (New York: W. W. Morton and Co.,
> 1978) p. 152-53.
> 29. Ibid., p. 153.
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990           147
> 
> 30. Ibid., p. 154.
> 31. Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial Statistics of
> Maryland, 1894 (Baltimore: Sun Book and Job Printing Office, 1895)
> p. 80.
> 32. Baltimore City Directory, 1898, 1899, and 1900.
> 33. Baltimore City Directory, 1898 and 1900.
> 34. Page one of the Minute Book (April 27, 1909) reads: “Previ­
> ous to the organization of the Bahd’fs of Baltimore, it was the custom
> to hold meetings at any of the believers’ homes, but since the conven­
> tion held in Chicago, March 22-23, 1909, it was thought best to form
> an organization, believing that as a body, more work could be done . . .
> “In view of the fact that for years, the believers were not in favor
> of any order whatever, this decision [i.e. to organize] was reached in
> perfect harmony.”
> 35. Tablets of Abdul Baha Abbas (Chicago: Bahai Publishing So­
> ciety, 1915) vol. 2, pp. 444-45. Names from Windust notes.
> 36. Tablets, vol. 2, p. 459.
> 37. Sarah Jane Farmer diary, entries for February-March 1901.
> Sarah Jane Farmer Papers. National Bahd’f Archives. I am grateful
> to Richard Hollinger for this information.
> 38. Tablets, vol. 2, p. 250.
> 39. Baltimore Sun, February 1, 1902, p. 7
> 40. Ibid.
> 41. Tablets, p. 444 (translated July 9, 1905).
> 42. Ibid., p. 469.
> 43. Baltimore Magazine, October 1987, p. 53.
> 44. Bahai Bulletin, 1909.
> 45. Financial Statement for December 1906. Records of the Spiri­
> tual Assembly of the Bahd’is of Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C.,
> Bahd’f Archives. I am grateful to Richard Hollinger for this information.
> 46. Minutes, Baltimore, April 1909, p. 1.
> 47. Ibid., May 1909, pp. 2-9.
> 48. Ibid, pp. 3-5.
> 49. Ibid.
> 50. Baltimore City Directory, 1909.
> 51. Minutes, Baltimore, May 1909, p. 7.
> 52. Ibid., June 8, 1909, p. 12; July 6, 1909, p. 14.
> 53. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahd’i Pub­
> lishing Trust, 1944) p. 261.
> 148    Deb Clark
> 
> 54. Star of the West, vol. 1 (1910) no. 2, p. 2.
> 55. Interview with Fred Lee, conducted by the author in Septem­
> ber 1987.
> 56. Star of the West, vol. 1 (1910) no. 9, p. 1 (translated June 17,
> 1910).
> 57. Minutes, Baltimore, October 1909.
> 58. Minutes, Baltimore, 1911, p. 44.
> 59. Star of the West, vol. 1 (1910) no. 6, p. 12.
> 60. Interview with Mildred Elmer, conducted by the author in
> September 1987. Minutes, Baltimore, 1911, p. 44.
> 61. Star of the West, vol. 2 (1911) no. 4, p. 3.
> 62. Ibid., p. 15.
> 63. Baltimore Sun, April 6, 1912.
> 64. Interview with Mildred Elmer, conducted by the author on
> January 29, 1988.
> 65. Baltimore News American, November 12, 1912, p. 13.
> 66. “Talk of “Abdu’l-Baha” (ms.), Dorrida Library, Baltimore
> County.
> 67. Baltimore Sun, November 12, 1912, p. 9.
> 68. Interview with Mildred Elmer, conducted by the author in
> September 1987.
> 69. Interview with Albert James, conducted by the author in
> February 1988.
> 70. Star of the West, vol. 4 (1913) no. 3, p. 52.
> 71. Quoted in Allison Vaccaro and Edward E. Bartlett, “‘Abdu’l-
> BahA in Baltimore,” Baha’i News (February 1982) pp. 3-4.
> 72. Star of the West, vol. 4 (1913) no. 13, p. 52.
> 73. Ibid., vol. 7 (1916) no. 12, p. 113.
> 74. Minutes, Baltimore, Baltimore Collection. National BahA’i
> Archives.
> 75. Minute Book, pp. 150-51.
> 76. Ibid., 1926, p. 56; ibid., 1931.
> 77. Ibid., January 12, 1930, p. 71.
> 78. Interview with Eugene Byrd, conducted by the author in
> January 1987.
> 79. This information was gleaned from the Baltimore Minute
> Book for the years 1930-32.
> 80. Baltimore Minute Book, p. 143.
> 81. Minutes, Baltimore, 1931, pp. 101-102.
> The Baha’is of Baltimore, 1898-1990         149
> 
> 82. Ibid., April 28, 1932, p. 114.
> 83. Ibid., February 1, 1933, pp. 122-23.
> 84. Interview with Clarke Langrail, conducted by the author in
> December 1987. Baltimore City Directory, 1930-1935.
> 85. Interview with Mildred Elmer, conducted by the author in
> September 1987.
> 86. Interview with Penny Trusty, conducted by the author in
> January 1987.
> 87. Interview with Albert James, conducted by the author in
> January 1988.
> 88. Minutes, Baltimore, February 1933, pp. 121-22.
> 89. Ibid., March 1934.
> 90. Baltimore Sun article, n.d. Interview with Penny Trusty, con­
> ducted by the author in January 1987. The Baha’i World, vol. 7, p. 89.
> 91. Interview with Mildred Elmer, conducted by the author in
> September 1987.
> 92. Interview with Clarke Langrall.
> 93. Interview with Mildred Elmer.
> 94. Gwynn Oak Park in Woodlawn was rocked by race riots in
> 1963.
> 95. Shoghi Effendi to Baltimore Baha’i community, February 28,
> 1946, Baltimore Baha’i Archives.
> 96. Baha’i News (1947) no. 196, p. 1.
> 97. Interview with Albert James, conducted by the author in
> January 1988.
> 98. Baha’i News, vol. 9 (1936) p. 4. Morgan State College (now
> University) was established as part of a system of higher education
> in Maryland for African-Americans.
> 99. Interview with Albert James, conducted by the author in
> November 1987.
> 100. Interview with Mildred Elmer, September 1987.
> 101. Interview with Betty Feldman, conducted by the author in
> September 1987.
> 102. Interview with Eugene Byrd, conducted by the author in
> January 1988.
> 103. Ibid.
> 104. Baha’i News (1963) no. 386, p. 12.
> 105. Interview with Eugene Byrd.
> 106. Baha’i News (1963) no. 386, p. 12.
> 150   Deb Clark
> 
> 107. Ibid.
> 108. Ibid.
> 109. Ibid.
> 110. Duane Hickman, “One Hot Fourth of July,” Baltimore Maga­
> zine (October 1987) p. 106.
> 111. Interview with Lynn Fremd, conducted by the author in
> December 1987.
> 112. Interview with Fred Lee, conducted by the author in Sep­
> tember 1987.
> 113. Interview with Lynn Fremd.
>
> — *The Baha'is of Baltimore, 1898-1990 (Used by permission of the curator)*