Laura Clifford Barney
Laura Clifford Barney (born November 30, 1879 in Cincinnati , Ohio , † August 18, 1974 in Paris , France ) was an American author and follower of the Baha'i religion.
Life
Laura Clifford Barney was the youngest daughter of the wealthy railroad owner Albert Clifford Barney (1855-1902) and his wife Alice Pike (1857-1931). Her older sister was Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972), who later became a successful author and openly lived her lesbian relationship ( Polyamory ). Together with her sister she visited the French internant Les Ruches in Fontainebleau run by Mademoiselle Marie Souvestre .
Laura came into contact with the Baha'i Revelation in Paris through the Canadian May Ellis Bolles (later Maxwell) and became a Baha'i around 1900. Shortly afterwards, Laura introduced the faith to her mother, who also converted to the Baha'i Faith. Laura became known through her interviews with Abdul-Baha between 1904 and 1906 in Acre , which were published as Answered Questions . In 1905 Laura and her mother visited Abdul-Baha together. The Answered Questions were first published in English in London in 1908 . Also in English , she published a five-act drama in 1910 entitled “God's Heroes” about Qurrat al-ʿAyn (mainly known as Tahirih among Baha'i ). Laura herself worked with her future husband, the French scholar and Bahai Hippolyte Dreyfus (1873–1928), on the French translation of the Answered Questions. They married in 1911 and together took the surname Dreyfus-Barney. They undertook many other joint activities in the service of their faith. For example, visits to the Maku fortress in Iran , in which the Bab was imprisoned, and in other parts of Persia, at the First House of Worship in Ashgabat in the Russian part of Turkestan , in Indochina and other parts of the Far East .
During the First World War she served in the "American Ambulance Corps" (1914-1915) and the American Red Cross (1916-1918) in France and helped found the first children's hospital in Avignon (1918). The rest of her life was devoted to international humanitarian and philanthropic activities, mostly related to the League of Nations and the United Nations . For her services she was awarded the title of knight in 1925 and the title of officer of the French Legion of Honor in 1937 . She died on August 18, 1974 and was buried at the Cimetière de Passy in Paris.
literature
- Laura Clifford Barney: 'Abdu'l-Bahá - Answered Questions . Bahai-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1954.
- Laura Clifford Barney: God's Heroes . Ed .: K. Paul London. Lippincott Philadelphia, 1910.
- Hugh C. Adamson: Historical Dictionary of the Bahá`í Faith (2nd edition) . The Scarecrow Press, Lanham (Maryland), Toronto, Oxford 2007.
- Bahai World Center (Ed.): The Bahai World, Vol.XVI . Haifa 1978, p. 535-538 .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Barney, Laura Clifford |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American author and follower of the Baha'i religion |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 30, 1879 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cincinnati , Ohio |
| DATE OF DEATH | 18th August 1974 |
| Place of death | Paris , France |