Baháʼí Faith in the United States
Open-knowledge reference entry
The Baháʼí Faith was first mentioned in the United States in 1893 at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. Soon after, early American converts began embracing the new religion. Thornton Chase was the most prominent among the first American Baha'is and made important contributions to early activities. One of the first Baháʼí institutions in the U.S. was established in Chicago and called the Baháʼí Temple Unity, incorporated in 1909 to facilitate the establishment of the first Baháʼí House of Worship in the West, which was eventually built in Wilmette, Illinois and dedicated in 1953. As of 2020 the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies noted the Baháʼí Faith was the largest non-Christian religion in the majority of US counties.
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá became head of the Baháʼí Faith after his father Baha'u'llah (Founder of the religion) died in 1892. He visited the United States and Canada in 1912, ultimately reaching some 40 cities from April to December. He promoted his father's teachings on peace and unity and consolidated the fledgling western Baháʼí community. After returning from his journey, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá continued corresponding with American Baháʼís, eventually addressing to them a series of letters, or tablets, charging the believers with the task of spreading the religion worldwide. These letters were compiled in Tablets of the Divine Plan.
“Baháʼí Faith in the United States” enters the record as open-knowledge reference entry. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Baháʼí, Faith and United can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Baháʼí Faith in the United States” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.