Saturday, January 28, 2012

16- 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Blakeslee I

What was the series of event that culminated in a visit from 'Abdu'l-Bahá to Worcester?  How did Prof. Blakeslee meet The Master?

At first I wondered whether Blakeslee was Baha'í or whether he had any Baha'í friend in Worcester.  After all the National Convention was held in Worcester in 1924, and Florence Morton, a Worcester Baha'ís, was then elected treasurer of the NSA, therefore there must have been a thriving Baha'í community in Worcester, right?  Wrong!

According to Roger M. Dahl, archivist at the National Baha'i Archives,  
"The earliest membership lists are from 1916 but George Blakeslee was not found on any of the early membership lists. We also do not have any Bahá’ís listed as living in Worcester in 1916." 

The first Baha'is are not recorded in the membership files of National until 1920, these were (again, from Roger Dahl)  
"Mr. and Mrs. Howard C. Struven, Arthur Hathaway. The following Bahá’ís are listed in Worcester in the 1922 membership list: Arthur A. Hathaway, Mr. and Mrs. Howard C. Struven, Mr. and Mrs. Henry L. Green, Ellen M. Burt."

1910-Charles Mason Remey, seated second from left and
Howard Struven,second from right, with some eastern believers.
I don't want to imply that these people barely became Baha'is in 1920. Howard C. Struven, along with Mr. Charles Mason Remey, had been traveling around the word in 1909 visiting Baha'i communities in Hawaii, Japan, India, Burma, etc. and even visited The Master in Acca (Star of the West, vol. 2 #1).  More on these early Baha'is in a latter post.





A very significant clue came from a friend in Spain (Amín Egea), he told me:

"Regarding Blakeslee, as you probably know he was a pacifist. He launched the Journal of International Relations and launched a series of conferences at Clark university at which he invited personalities of his time to speak about social and peace issues. He was quite famous for this and his conferences, after the Lake Mohonk Peace Conference, were second in importance in the USA in what regards the peace movement.

At the Universal Races Congress (London 1911) one of the speakers spoke of him and his work for peace. And when the proceedings were published Blacksleee briefly mentioned ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s tablet to that congress in a review of it. So he knew the  Faith before the Master visited the USA."




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