page_title: Mary Hanford Ford
section_title: 1901 - a year of changes
hierarchical_section_title: Mary Hanford Ford / Finding the Baháʼís / 1901 - a year of changes
caption_attribution_description: This is a map of the Greater Boston Metro area I made using U.S. Census Bureau data as of 2006. The light gray shading indicates urbanized areas with Greater Boston as defined by urbanized areas outlined in red. The Metropolitan Statistical Area is shown in yellow. The Combined Statistical Area includes the MSA plus those counties that are partially shaded. The Providence metro area was added to the Boston CSA in 2005.
context_page_description: Mary Hanford Ford was an American lecturer, author, art and literature critic and a leader in the women's suffrage movement. She reached early notoriety in Kansas at the age of 28 and soon left for the Chicago World's Fair. She was taken up by the society ladies of the Chicago area who, impressed with her talks on art and literature at the Fair, helped launch her on a new career, initially in Chicago and then across some States. Along the way she was already published in articles and noticed in suffrage meetings. In addition to work as an art critic and speaker she wrote a number of books, most prominently a trilogy Message of the Mystics. Circa 1900-1902 Ford found the Baháʼí Faith through Sarah Farmer, Green Acre, and Mirza Abu'l-Faḍl, and helped form the first community of Baháʼís in Boston where Louis Bourgeois, future architect of the first Baháʼí House of Worship in the West, then joined the religion. In 1907 Ford went on Baháʼí pilgrimage, in 1910 she started writing Baháʼí books such as The Oriental Rose, and traveled with ʻAbdu'l-Bahá during some of his journeys in various places in Europe and then America.
context_section_description: Like the recent Januaries, Ford's ghost-story home was referred to by another newspaper story; this time someone was seeking to live in one like hers. It turned out that Ford's family was no longer living there. Her household was noted as an eclectic mix of family and boarders - her three children, Roland, Lynette and Gareth; a Germon woman and her young child; of an American woman and her son; of a young African or African American student of Shakespeare.
  In the Winter of 1900-1901 Ford took a comparative religion class and encountered the Baháʼí Faith. This could have been, for example, through the University of Chicago, through "Vesper Services" lectures, or academic classes (for example "Religions of ancient India and Persia"). John Henry Barrows was a staff member and had been deeply involved in the 1893 World Parliament of Religions, where the Baháʼí Faith was mentioned, and that winter Charles Cuthbert Hall had been hired by the university, being appointed to an endowed lectureship based on the enthusiasm of the Parliament of Religions. It wouldn't be the only such series to be undertaken. However, in addition, whether Ford knew it or not, Baháʼís had arrived in Chicago who were sent by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and began public presentations on the religion in December 1900 and January 1901.
  Ford's ex-husband, Smith Moses Ford, died April 10.
  The New York Times noted her selling an apartment in New York to her son in July.
  
  After the comparative religion class in Chicago, Ford heard that more about the religion was to be learned at Green Acre at the northern fringe of Greater Boston. Sarah Farmer, founder of Green Acre, was publicly linked with the religion in June after she had found truth in various religions and quasi-religious groups. But of the Baháʼí Faith, it was explained, "... she has found the common faith in which all devout souls may unite and yet be free." It was then announced Green Acre would be a place to learn of the religion, run in parallel with the other classes already established, but for free. James T. Bixby, who had written previous on the religion's history, (which Ford herself would soon write differently), was presenting on the religion, but Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl, among the most scholarly trained Baháʼís of the time, was there. Ali Kuli Khan, to serve as his translator, arrived in the United States in June. A Baháʼí publication notes Fadl's talk titled "Utterances of Baháʼu'lláh" and Ford herself giving a talk "Lectures in Literature". Green Acre closed for the season in September.
   Abu'l-Faḍl had accompanied Anton Hadded, the first Baháʼí to live in the United States, on his return trip to America. They too had been sent by then head of the religion, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. The later well known Baháʼí Agnes Baldwin Alexander was there. It was at these classes with Abu'l-Faḍl Ford is considered to have joined the religion, at the age of 44.
  In Arches of the Years Alice Breed's granddaughter Marzieh Gail recalled: "When (Ali Kuli Khan) was translating for Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl at Green Acre, Mary Hanford Ford introduced him to Alice Breed". Gail also noted Ford was the "spiritual mother" of Alice Breed - that Ford lead her to the religion. Ford was visible in the Boston area in October for one talk on color, then a series of talks, and in early November where she gave a talk at Chickering Hall, Boston, with subjects like "Christ's message and its relation to his time" "The Primitive Church, or the Ideal of Brotherhood Love", and "The significance of the Holy Grail" in early December, and talks planned into January the next year. In addition Ford also participated in an animal rescue league meeting speaking on "The value of humane education for the young" in mid-November.
  In November there was also more coverage of Baháʼís in New York highlighting Lua Getsinger.
caption: Green Acre is on the southern border of Maine and New Hampshire
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