Newer research by Jill Watts, based on census data, finds evidence for a George Baker Jr. of appropriate age born in an African-American enclave of Rockville, Maryland, called Monkey Run.

In a 1906 trip to California, Father Divine became acquainted with the ideas of Charles Fillmore and the New Thought movement, a philosophy of positive thinking that would inform his later doctrines.

[12][13] Father Divine attended a local Baptist Church, often preaching, until 1907, when a traveling preacher named Samuel Morris spoke and was expelled from the congregation.

Morris, originally from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, had a soft-spoken and uncontroversial sermon until the end, when he raised his arms and shouted "I am the Eternal Father!"

Harris, who wrote a biography about the Peace movement and its leader said that Father Divine had met Peninah in Georgia and came North with her and that they bought the house in Sayville as a married couple.

[17] In addition to lending her dignified look to Father Divine, Peninniah served to defuse rumours of impropriety between him and his many young female followers.

The integrated environment of Father Divine's communal house and the apparent flaunting of his wealth by his owning a Cadillac infuriated neighbors.

[5] Members of the overwhelmingly white community accused him of maintaining a large harem and engaging in scandalous sex, but the district attorney's office in Suffolk County found the claims baseless.

Contrary to the charges of Sayville residents, Angels claimed that Father Divine prohibited singing after 8 p.m., and by 10 p.m. had closed all windows and blinds.

The trial, not as speedy as the neighbors wanted, was scheduled for late fall, allowing Father Divine's popularity to snowball for the entire Sayville vacation season.

Cars clogging the streets for these gatherings bolstered some neighbors' claims that Father Divine was a disturbance to the peace and was hurting their property values.

Forty-six pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace and incurred $5 fines, which Father Divine paid with a $500 bill, which the court was embarrassingly unable to make change from.

His lawyer, Ellee J. Lovelace, a prominent Harlem African American and former US attorney had requested the trial be moved outside of Suffolk County due to potential jury bias.

Ignoring the jury's request, Smith lectured on how Father Divine was a fraud and "menace to society" before issuing the maximum sentence for disturbing the peace: one year in prison and a $500 fine.

[22] The movement also opened several budget enterprises, including restaurants and clothing shops, that sold cheaply by cutting overheads.

By 1934, branches had opened in Los Angeles and Seattle, and gatherings occurred in France, Switzerland, Canada, and Australia, but the membership totals were drastically overstated in the press.

Time magazine estimated nearly 2 million followers, but the true figure of adherents was probably a few tens of thousands and a larger body of sympathizers who attended his gatherings.

For example, New York City mayoral candidates John P. O'Brien and Fiorello H. LaGuardia each sought his endorsement in 1933, but Father Divine was apparently uninterested.

Based on a rumor of police killing a black teenager, it left four dead and caused over $1 million in property damage in Father Divine's neighborhood.

However, it occurred sometime in 1943, as her last known appearance was at a banquet in New York in 1942 [20] and biographers believe Penninah's death rattled Father Divine, making him aware of his own mortality.

"[12][13] On his return to Hollywood, he got together with songwriter Harold Arlen ("Over the Rainbow"), and together they wrote "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive", which was recorded by Mercer and the Pied Pipers in 1945.

After his first wife died, Father Divine married a white Canadian woman named Edna Rose Ritchings in Washington, D.C. on April 29, 1946.

To prove that he and Ritchings adhered to his doctrine on sexual abstinence, Father Divine assigned a black female follower to be her constant companion.

For example, light-hearted stories ran when Father Divine announced Philadelphia was capital of the world and when he claimed to inspire invention of the hydrogen bomb.

However, he did not participate in the burgeoning American civil rights movement because of his poor health and especially his dislike of the use of racial labels, denying he was black.

Although a few members of the Mission joined the Peoples Temple after Jones made his play for leadership of the movement, the power push was, in terms of its ultimate objective, a failure.

"[23] Father Divine ended every sermon or article with the following statement, "Sincerely wishing that you and those with whom you are concerned might be even as I AM for I AM well, healthy, joyful, peaceful, lively, loving, successful, prosperous and happy in spirit, body and mind and in every organ, muscle, sinew, joint, limb, vein and bone and even in every atom, fibre and cell of MY bodily form.

[5] Some biographers, such as Robert Weisbrot, speculate that Father Divine was a forerunner to the civil rights movement during the 1950s and 1960s, heavily influenced by his upbringing in the segregated South.

Watts asserts that Rockville was less oppressive than the South or even Baltimore, Maryland, and believes his civil rights positions are unintelligible without evaluating them in the context of the Doctrine of Father Divine.

[26] In 2000, the Divine Lorraine Hotel near Temple University on North Broad Street was sold by the international Peace Mission movement.