Sarah Jane Farmer
{{Infobox person
| image = Sarah J. Farmer (Mind, 1899).png
| alt = 19th-century B&W portrait photo of a woman with her hair in an updo, wearing a white blouse.
| caption = (1899)
| birth_date = July 22, 1847
| birth_place = Dover, New Hampshire, U.S.
| death_date = November 23, 1916 (aged 69)
| death_place = Eliot, Maine, U.S.
| father = Moses G. Farmer
| mother = Hannah Tobey Farmer
| known_for =
- Founder, Greenacre Conferences (1894)
- Founder, Monsalvat School of Comparative Study of Religion (1896)
}}
Sarah Jane Farmer (1847-1916) founded the Greenacre Conferences in Eliot, Maine, U.S. After her death, Greenacre became the Green Acre Baháʼí School.{{cite web |title=Early History |url=https://www.greenacre.org/about/early-history/ |website=Green Acre |access-date=28 April 2024}}
Early life and education
Sarah Jane Farmer was born in Dover, New Hampshire, on July 22, 1847, the only child of Professor Moses G. Farmer and Hannah Tobey (Shapleigh) Farmer. Her New England family practiced Unitarianism.{{cite book |last1=Tumber |first1=Catherine |title=American Feminism and the Birth of New Age Spirituality: Searching for the Higher Self, 1875-1915 |date=2002 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-8476-9749-6 |pages=123–24 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ml_hDQBP6tMC&pg=PA123 |access-date=28 April 2024 |language=en}}
She graduated from Salem, Massachusetts High School, in 1868, followed by instruction by private tutors, 1868-81. She lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Newport, Rhode Island, in young adulthood.
Career
Having moved to Eliot, Maine, with her parents in 1887, she worked on establishing a public library in that city.
File:Swami Vivekananda in Green Acre August 1894.jpg (Green Acre, 1894)]]
After attending the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago in 1893 with her father, Farmer decided to establish Greenacre, with the support of her acquaintances in the New Thought, women's clubs, and women's suffrage movements, as well as several Ralph Waldo Emerson societies. In 1894, she founded Greenacre Conferences at Eliot, Maine, which resembled a Chautauqua. Two annual schools anchored the Greenacre Conferences: the Monsalvat School of Comparative Study of Religion (established by Farmer in 1896){{cite book |last1=Lamm |first1=Julia A. |title=The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism |date=6 February 2017 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-119-28350-8 |page=464 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cBKcDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA464 |access-date=28 April 2024 |language=en}} and the (revived) Concord School of Philosophy. In addition, the Greenacre Conferences offered lectures by instructors in various fields. These afforded annual assemblies for lectures by leaders of advanced thought, American, European, and Oriental.
The Greenacre Colony attracted wide attention because of its free discussion of religious subjects. Many members of the clergy and writers identified with it. It was almost disrupted, however, by factional differences.{{cite news |title=SARAH J. FARMER DEAD.; Founder of the Greenacre Religious Colony in Maine Was 70. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1916/11/24/archives/sarah-j-farmer-dead-founder-of-the-greenacre-religious-colony-in.html |access-date=28 April 2024 |work=The New York Times |date=24 November 1916 |page=13 |language=en}} {{Source-attribution}}
Farmer engaged in European travel in 1886, 1893, 1900. It was during her trip in 1900 that she met ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and became a member of the Bahá’í faith.{{cite web |title=Sarah Jane Farmer (1844-1916) Founder of Green Acre Baha'i School |url=https://centenary.bahai.us/photo/sarah-jane-farmer-1844-1916-founder-green-acre-bahai-school |website='Abdu'l-Bahá in America |access-date=28 April 2024 |language=en}}
Later life
Sarah Farmer made her home at Greenacre.{{cite book |title=Who's who in Pennsylvania: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporaries |date=1909 |page=351 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yk8DAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA351 |access-date=28 April 2024 |language=en}} {{Source-attribution}} In 1910, she was declared insane and sent to an asylum. Subsequently, her mental condition became the subject of litigation. She died at the family homestead in Eliot, Maine, on November 23, 1916.
Selected works
- {{cite book |ref=none |editor1-last=Dresser |editor1-first=Horatio Willis |title=Chapter 2 - The Spirit of the New Thought, by Sarah J. Farmer |date=1917 |publisher=Thomas Y. Crowell Company |location=New York |pages=29–36 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jbp7hrFnFMYC |language=en}} {{Source-attribution |chapter=II. Sarah J. The Abundant Life}}
References
{{reflist|30em}}
External links
- [https://centenary.bahai.us/photo/sarah-jane-farmer-1844-1916-founder-green-acre-bahai-school Sarah Jane Farmer (1844-1916) Founder of Green Acre Bahá’í School], via bahai.us
- [https://239days.com/2012/08/22/battles-sarah-j-farmer/ "The Battles of Sarah J. Farmer"], Jonathan Menon, August 22, 2012, via 239days.com
- [https://239days.com/2012/08/23/sarah-j-farmer-american-religious-innovator/ "Sarah J. Farmer: One of America’s Great Religious ..."], Jonathan Menon, August 23, 2012, via 239days.com
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Farmer, Sarah Jane}}
Category:People from Dover, New Hampshire
Category:People from Eliot, Maine