- 1925-03-20 —
The Palace Hotel, the city's first premier luxury hotel, was the site for the first World Unity Conference in San Francisco. The three day event was organized by Leroy Ioas, Ella Goodall Cooper and Kathryn Frankland in cooperation with Rabbi Rudolph Coffee. Dr. David Starr Jordan, founding president of Stanford University, served as the honorary chairman of the conference. Those who addressed the conference were Rabbi Coffee and Dr. Jordan but also the senior priest of the Catholic Cathedral, a professor of religion, a Protestant minister of a large African-American congregation, distinguished academics, and a foreign diplomat. The last one to address the conference was the Persian Bahá'í scholar, Mírzá Asadu'llah Fádil Mázandarání, the only Bahá'í on the program.
- LefoynIoas provided the National Spiritual Assembly with a report, and he suggested that similar World Unity Conferences be held in other communities. The National Assembly enthusiastically agreed and established a three-person committee, including two of its officers, to assist other localities in their efforts to hold conferences. The committee members were Horace Holley, Florence Reed Morton, and Mary Rumsey Movius. World Unity Conferences were organized for Green Acre-August, Philadelphia-September, Cleveland-October and Chicago in November. [LIHC45-51]
During 1926 and into 1927, eighteen communities held World Unity Conferences using the San Francisco model. These included Worcester, Massachusetts; New York, New York Oct 10-12; Montreal, Canada; Cleveland, Ohio; Dayton, Ohio; Hartford, Connecticut; New Haven, Connecticut; Chicago, Illinois; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and Buffalo, New York. [BN No 12 Jun-Jul 1926 p6-7; The Cause of Universal Peace: 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Enduring Impact by Kathryn Jewett Hogenson; LI45-49; BN No 20 Nov 1927 p5]
- See BA117 for Shoghi Effendi's comments and recommendations.
- 1927-01-13 —
- 1927-10-00 —
The first issue of the monthy called World Unity Magazine. Its editors were John Herman Randall, John Herman Randall Jr. and Horace Holley. The concluding volume of the magazine stated its unique character proceeded from the outlook of its founders, who "realized the inter-dependence of religion, science and sociology in the movements simultaneously destroying the past and forming a new era in human history." During its last years of publication, it was openly a Bahá'í journal. [The Cause of Universal Peace]
- All subsequent issues are available at Baha'i Works.
- In 1935 it was decided to merge World Unity with another publication, Star of the West (renamed The Bahá'í Magazine in its later volumes) to become a new entity, World Order. This magazine was published from 1935 to 1949, revived in 1966, and ran until 2007. Like World Unity, its erudite articles covered a wide range of topics aimed at the educated public, but it was unmistakably a Bahá'í organ under the auspices of the US National Spiritual Assembly and never acquired as broad a readership as World Unity. [BN No 90 Mar 1935 p8]
- 1928-01-00 — A charter was granted by the State of New
York to World Unity Foundation, a
body of trustees administering the
Conferences, the Institute of World
Unity, and also assisting in the promotion of World Unity Magazine.
The purpose of the Foundation, as
set forth in the Charter, is "to maintain facilities for promoting those ethical, humanitarian and spiritual ideals
and principles which create harmony
and understanding among religions,
races, nations and classes; and for cooperating with established educational,
scientific and religious bodies working
ior these ends." The Charter was
granted to the following as trustees:
John Herman Randall (a Christian Minister), Mary Rumsey
Movius, Melbert B, Cary, Florence
Reed Morton, Alfred W. Martin, Horace Holley and Mountfort Mills. [BN No 20 Nov 1927 p8; BN No 22 Mar 1928 p8]
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