The
Caravan of East and West was established in 1929 by Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, Lewis
Stuyvesant Chanler and his wife Julie.
The Caravan was a
foundation that had a quarterly magazine called The Caravan in 1929. They also
had a quarterly magazine called The Children’s Caravan in 1935, which ‘helps to
keep children in touch with each other’. (Educational Digest). They also
apparently published some other works.
Originally a part of the
Bahá’í Faith, that relationship ended shortly after the New York administration
was denied oversight by its founders. Sohrab refused and was ex-communicated in
1939, which then led Julie to also refuse to appear to answer questions. The
foundation severed ties, but continued to do work for the Bahá’í cause, without
official sanction.
“At its height, just after
World War II, the Caravan had grown to a membership of almost 250,000…. and its
business soon overshadowed the New History Society.”
Chapter 15 An article in the
New York Times, states that in 1949 the German contingent alone had 100,000
members.
Two of the members of the
Board of Directors were Syud Hossein, ambassador from India to Egypt and
Minister to Trans-Jordan; and Basant Koomer a lecturer and educator.
A Foundation Fund directed
by a Board of Directors with attorney Jacob Greenwald as Chairman was set up to
continue the work of The Caravan, planning for the day when Sohrab and Julie
were no longer around.
In 1953, the Bahá’í
materials the group had collected had grown so immense that Julie hired
architect, John J. McNamara to design a library within the garden space of the
Caravan House. Julia Chanler stated that ….”as part of the construction [of the
library] was a block of white marble that `Abdu’l-Bahá had sent to become the
corner-stone of the Bahá’í Temple in Wilmette which Sohrab had come to
possess.” This stone was not forwarded to the temple site. The actual
cornerstone used in the Temple was procured and donated by a Chicago-area
Bahá’í, Ester “Nettie” Tobin.
The group’s librarian was
Vera Russell.
An ad for a special meeting
of the corporation was placed in The New York Times November 21, 1958 naming
Ronald K. Bayford as Executive Secretary. On October 29, 1961, an announcement
of “Two horticultural lectures presented by the Caravan of East and West, an
educational, nonprofit organization” appears in the New York Times. The Caravan
of East and West still existed as late as 1967 when Peter Bloch was director.
Read the complete magazine, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment