Agnes Baldwin Alexander

Agnes Baldwin Alexander was born July 21, 1875, in the Kingdom of Hawaii. She was the youngest of five children born to William De Witt Alexander and Abigail Charlotte née Baldwin Alexander. The Alexanders were a scion of two of Hawaii's most illustrious Christian missionary families—the Alexanders and the Baldwins. Her father was one of Hawaii's most famous men as President of Oahu College, author of "A Brief History of the Hawaiian People," and first Surveyor-General of the Hawaiian Islands.

Alexander graduated from Oahu College in 1895, later doing undergraduate work at Oberlin College and U.C. Berkeley.[1] After teaching for a few years, she fell prey to chronic illness. In 1900, she joined a group of Islanders who were going on a tour of Europe. In November 1900, she was in Rome where she encountered an American Baháʼí woman and her two daughters who were returning from a Baháʼí pilgrimage in the Holy Land, then called Syria. As the result of an epiphany one night, which she described as “neither a dream nor vision”, she embraced the Baháʼí Revelation and accepted it as God's new message to humanity, proclaimed by Baháʼu'lláh, whose name means 'the Glory of Godʼ.

At the request of Baháʼu'lláh's eldest son, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Miss Alexander pioneered the Baháʼí Faith in Japan in 1914. In 1921 she became the first to introduce the New Gospel in Korea. Except for extended vacations in Hawaii, Agnes spent over thirty years in Japan.

Alexander became an early advocate of Esperanto and used that new international language to spread the Baháʼí teachings at meetings and conferences.

At the request of Baháʼu'lláh's great-grandson Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha'i Faith, Agnes Alexander wrote two histories: "Forty Years of the Baháʼí Cause in Hawaii: 1902-1942" and "History of the Baháʼí Faith in Japan: 1914-1938". Both of these volumes were published posthumously.

In 1957, Shoghi Effendi appointed Agnes Alexander a Hand of the Cause of God, the highest rank one may hold as an individual Baháʼí. In 1964, Alexander represented the Universal House of Justice, the supreme administrative body of the Baháʼí Faith, at the election of Hawaii's first National Spiritual Assembly in Honolulu. After suffering a broken hip in 1965, and spending two years in a Tokyo hospital, Agnes Alexander returned home to Honolulu in 1967. Ironically, the Arcadia residence where she passed her last four years was adjacent to her birthplace on Punahou Street.

On January 1, 1971, Alexander died. She was buried behind Kawaiahao Church with her missionary forebears.

Agnes Alexander is related to several notable people including: Amos Starr Cooke, David Dwight Baldwin, William Owen Smith, Samuel T. Alexander, Henry P. Baldwin, Annie Montague Alexander, and others. Her parents were William D. Alexander and Abigail Baldwin and grandparents William P. Alexander and Mary Ann McKinney from her father, and Dwight Baldwin and Charlotte Fowler through her mother.

Alexander wrote one book on the history of the Baháʼí Faith in Japan and was covered in detail by a number of other books.

• Alexander, Agnes Baldwin (1977). Barbara Sims (ed.). History of the Baháʼí Faith in Japan 1914-1938. Osaka, Japan: Japan Baháʼí Publishing Trust.

• Baháʼí Faith in Japan

• Troxel, Duane K. (1984)"Agnes Baldwin Alexander"'in Notable Women of Hawaii Ed. Barbara Bennett Peterson University of Hawaii Press.
• R. Sims, Barbara (1989). Traces That Remain: A Pictorial History of the Early Days of the Baháʼí Faith Among the Japanese. Osaka, Japan: Japan Baháʼí Publishing Trust.
• R. Sims, Barbara (1992). Japan Will Turn Ablaze! Tablets of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Letters of Shoghi Effendi and the Universal House of Justice, and Historical Notes About Japan (Revised Edition). Osaka, Japan: Japan Baháʼí Publishing Trust.
• R. Sims, Barbara (1994). Selected Communications from the Universal House of Justice Concerning the North East Asia Area Including Japan. Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo: Japan Baháʼí Publishing Trust.
• R. Sims, Barbara (1998). Unfurling the Divine Flag in Tokyo: An Early Baháʼí History. Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo: Japan Baháʼí Publishing Trust. ISBN 4-938975-06-8.

• Agnes Alexander at Find-a-Grave.com