# Registry of Early Canadian Believers

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Will C. van den Hoonaard, Registry of Early Canadian Believers, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> Registry of Early Canadian Believers
> 
> Will C. van den Hoonaard
> 
> 1987-03
> 
> The project grew out of a need by researchers, biographers, and laypeople
> to develop a master list of all early Canadian Bahá'ís from 1893,
> the inception of the Faith in Canada, to 1944, marking the first Centenary of
> the Bahá'í Faith. The Registry contains the names of 333
> individuals.
> 
> The Registry is organized around information most likely to be sought on
> early Bahá'ís. The paper discusses the nature of sources
> consulted and a number of unique methodological problems.
> 
> Finally, the paper presents some initial findings of the Registry and
> discusses the relevance of the Registry for Bahá'í scholarship
> and historical writing.
> 
> Background
> 
> The growing interest in Canadian Bahá'í scholarship since
> the establishment of the Association for Bahá'í Studies in 1975
> has not been matched with the development of empirical and historical materials
> on the early Canadian Bahá'í Community. We conceive the years
> between 1893, when the Bahá'í Faith was introduced into Canada,
> and 1944 which marked the first Centenary of the Faith, as constituting the
> "early" years of the Canadian Bahá'í Community.
> The lack of such materials has become particularly acute when the author,
> as Social Science Editor of A Short Encyclopedia of the Bahá'í
> Faith, tried to compile a series of about 35 articles on Canadian
> Bahá'í history. While the institutional aspects of this history
> has been somewhat documented already, the human hand of Bahá'í
> Canadian history remains known only to the few remaining individuals who had
> played a part in that history. Even for these individuals, however, there are
> many lapses of memory and detailed knowledge of their own company.
> As Social Science Editor of the Encyclopedia I saw the absolute
> need to compile a Registry of these early believers which scholars and
> biographers could profitably explore with the knowledge that only the best
> possible sources were used to collect the information for the Registry. The
> project got underway in October 1986 and is expected to be completed during the
> Summer of 1987.
> Parameters of the data
> 
> While I strove to include as much information of each individual as
> possible, I realized that the following components should constitute the
> minimum amount of information:
> 1. Names (first, maiden, last);
> 
> 2. Titles (Dr., Miss, etc.);
> 
> 3. Place and date of declaration of his or her Faith, or enrollment in the
> Bahá'í community;
> 
> 4. Earliest and last known date in Canada (which may or may not coincide
> with date of declaration or of death);
> 
> 5. Name of foremost community associated with that individual;
> 
> 6. Annotations provided mainly by interviews with early believers;
> 
> 7. A listing of sources consulted for each of the above items of
> information to guide researchers and biographers.
> More recently, I have started to collect occupational data on the early
> believers.
> 
> Sources Consulted
> 
> The Registry is notable for the wide range of sources consulted, many
> hitherto unknown or relatively unexplored. These include archival materials,
> unpublished documents, published accounts, and oral histories.
> The Bahá'í National Archives of the United States in
> Wilmette, and those of Canada in Thornhill have yielded approximately 10,000
> pages of primary materials. The most important of these include the Corinne
> True Papers, the Alfred E. Lunt Collection, the Windust Papers, and scores of
> regional histories written before 1944. Mr. Roger Dahl who also has an
> interest in the development of a Registry, has provided a good measure of
> assistance in the project.
> While the archival materials are found in a few restricted areas,
> unpublished documents come from a great variety of sources, both institutional
> and individual. In some instances, early believers have been asked to present
> talks at Bahá'í Summer Schools and the like; we are fortunate
> that some have taken the effort of putting their talk to paper. With the
> renewed interest in Bahá'í scholarship, Canada, and the United
> States in particular, has seen the rise of local historians who possess at
> least a great deal of enthusiasm, often a rare ability to feret out improbable
> facts, and only occasionally an inability to understand the use of documented
> facts. All this will develeop in good time.
> Many Bahá'ís are most familiar with published accounts. The
> Registry is consulting approximately 300 titles for all references to early
> Canadian Bahá'ís. This category includes biographies, published
> letters from Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith, and
> certainly Bahá'í journals: Bahá'í News,
> Bahá'í Canada (and its predecessor, Canadian
> Bahá'í News), Star of the West,
> Bahá'í Magazine, to list some of the more important
> ones.
> 
> Oral histories constitute the fourth source of information. The author
> has already begun a process of seeking out early believers, to secure not only
> oral histories, but also to direct specific questions related to a tentative
> Registry. While only a very few were able to provide a great deal of fresh
> information, virtually all of these believers provided some new data which,
> together with other such believers, will constitute a fairly complete Registry.
> When the Registry achieves a niveau of accuracy and reliability, the revised
> list will once again be sent to all of these believers for additional
> comments.
> 
> Methodological Problems
> 
> Methodological problems in developing the Registry center around two chief
> areas: (1) individual biography, and (2) the varying conditions of the early
> Canadian Bahá'í Community.
> Every historian has encountered the problem of the traditional position of
> women. The search for the identity of Mrs. John Thomas is universal. Early
> accounts, as was customary in those days, would be satisfied with no more
> detailed description of Mrs. Thomas. Many of the early Bahá'í
> accounts reflect this style of biographical referencing. A remarried woman
> may, in fact, prop up three times in such accounts. First, as a trammeled
> single woman, then as a blushing bride of a first husband, finally as a deadpan
> wife of a second husband after the first husband's demise. Many of those who
> were called in by the author to help with the Registry were asked to identify
> women.
> The second, important, problem concerns the nature of early
> Bahá'í communities in Canada (as elsewhere). It revolves around
> the question of "who is a Bahá'í?" Often, sympathetic friends of
> the Bahá'í Faith took part in almost as many Bahá'í
> functions as Bahá'ís themselves, receiving due credit in
> Bahá'í publications. In addition, the process of declaring
> oneself a Bahá'í was not only less formal than today, but the
> leadtime between "declaration" and "enrollment in the Bahá'í
> community" was also considerably longer. Some believers simply considered
> themselves a believer and criteria were quite loose. Other never felt the need
> to enroll in the Bahá'í community, although they certainly had
> declared.
> Then, as so often happens, the most active members of the community are
> more "newsworthy" than the inactive ones. What possible route can we employ to
> uncover the latter ones? Oral interviews have proven to be one of the best
> ways.
> 
> Some Findings
> 
> Almost from the very beginning of the project, we were forced to recognize
> that much of the accepted knowledge of the early Canadian Bahá'ís
> had to be revised. First, there were a great deal more believers than official
> accounts indicated. A good example is the information which appears in a 1987
> publication of the National Spiritual Assembly, which herebelow is compared to
> the numbers according to the Registry:
> 
> Table 1
> 
> A Comparison of the Number of Early
> Believers in Canada
> 
> Publication Registry Difference
> 1893
> 1902
> 1910
> 1920
> 1930
> 1935
> 1945
> 
> The proportion of the 333 names in the Registry for 1893 and 1944
> indicate the following proportion of men and women (see Table 2)
> 
> Table 2
> Percentage of men and women in
> the Registry and in the contemporary Bahá'í community
> 
> Men Women
> Registry
> Bahá'í Community
> (1987)
> 
> We were also able to give a profile of the civil status of many early
> believers, which is found in Table 3.
> 
> Table 3
> Percentage of believers in various
> Civil Status categories
> 
> Men Women
> Married
> Single
> Unable to determine
> 
> We also determined the residence of the early believers. While it is true
> that some have managed to live in different communities, they have often
> indicated the place where they declared their belief as the "home" community.
> Others did not identify themselves as such and we have therefore, for
> statistical purposes only, divided them across their respective communities.
> Table 4 and 5 indicate residence by community and by province respectively,
> compared to current statistics.
> 
> Table 4
> Percentage Distribution of Early Believers
> by Major "Home" Community
> 
> Registry Bahá'í Community (1987)
> 
> Greater Montreal
> Vancouver
> Saint John, N.B.
> Toronto
> Hamilton
> All other
> 
> Total % 100 % 100 %
> 
> Table 5
> Percentage Distribution of Early Believers
> by Major Provinces
> 
> Registry Bahá'í Community (1987)
> Québec
> Ontario
> B.C.
> New Brunswick
> Manitoba
> Saskatchewan
> Alberta
> Nova Scotia
> Newfoundland
> Prince Edward Island
> 
> Total % 100 % 100 %
> 
> Impact of the Registry
> 
> It is too early to clearly delineate implications of the Registry in the
> study of the Canadian Bahá'í Community. However, the following
> few issues come to our mind. First, various ethnic, language, and regional
> groups in Canada may derive some benefit from exploring the Registry. How well
> is it known that that the first Black Canadian Bahá'í was Eliot
> of Montreal (variously spelled as "Elliott")? Does French Canada
> Bahá'í History begin with the declaration of ........? whose main
> contribution was to the Australian Bahá'í Community in the form
> of a permanent summer school? How well is it known that Bahá'ís
> could be found in Canada's peripheral areas, such as New Brunswick?
> The practical importance of the Registry, however, has already been
> clearly evidenced by the use to which it has been put by the still-living early
> believers. Not infrequently, the Registry has allowed these believers to
> remember and reflect more accurately on the life and works which they have
> built up for us with their erstwhile soulmates. In that sense, the author has
> more than once hoped that such believers will be encouraged to either start
> writing their biographies, or to complete them as quickly as possible, in time
> for the first Centenary of the Faith in Canada in 1993.
> 
> METADATA
> 
> Views10013 views since posted 2003-10-02; last edit 2012;
> 
> previous at archive.org.../hoonaard_encyclopedia_registry_canadian;
> URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org
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> Shortlink: bahai-library.com/450
> Citation: ris/450
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> — *Registry of Early Canadian Believers (Used by permission of the curator)*