Laura Clifford Barney

Alice was of French, Dutch and German-Jewish[citation needed] ancestry, and was a socially prominent artist from Washington, D.C. Laura and her elder sister Natalie Clifford Barney were educated by private tutors.

While continuing her studies in Paris, Laura met May Bolles (later Maxwell), a Canadian Baháʼí, and was converted to the faith in about 1900.

[2] Laura Barney financed the visit of the Persian Baháʼí scholar Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl to the United States in 1901-04, in order to propagate the religion there, and helped to publish the translation of his Ḥojaj al-bahīya.

[3] In 1904 she visited ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in ʿAkkāʾ, Palestine, where she remained for about two years, acquiring a working knowledge of Persian and becoming a functioning member of his household.

Their intimate and personal relationship with him is unquestioned, even though Hippolyte accompanied ʻAbdu'l-Bahá more so than Laura and translated many of his speeches to French.

Nonetheless, Laura's role is unique in the special bond she developed through her travels to Akka during her youth and later hosting ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in Paris.