Mary Hanford Ford (née Finney; November 1, 1856 – February 2, 1937) was an American lecturer, author, art and literature critic and a leader in the women's suffrage movement.

Also in this period she was censored off a radio broadcast, helped develop the religion's community both in meetings she supported and literary efforts, before reducing her travels and speaking engagements in the early 1930s.

[7] That would make her father Asahel Clark Finney, who spent the last working decade of his life as a partner in a Pennsylvania lumber company before moving to Kansas City.

Circa 1880, Ford was among a circle of women who formed the Friends Council Club in Kansas City, of an intentionally limited number of members, and focused on reviewing the history, literature, philanthropy, and art of early civilizations.

... "[38] The book was dedicated to the Farmers' Alliance and covers life on farms and the effect mortgage systems had on it,[39] and specifically examined the ways a woman's inheritance could be taken away.

Her education is thorough to a remarkable degree ... Aside from her literary ability, Mrs. Ford is a practical newspaper woman, and can pen a political editorial with the crisp conciseness of a vertebral chief-of-staff.

When that historical attempt to run all the emancipated slaves into Kansas was made, Mrs. Ford accepted a commission from the New York Tribune to investigate the matter, and her series of caustic and exhaustive letters attained a national importance.

[50] A week later, replacing a previously announced speaker, Ford gave an hour-long address at a mass meeting of the local suffrage movement to encourage women's interest in the upcoming municipal election.

She also hosted an exhibition in her home in December that was well received in the news[62] and announced a series of lectures for the coming year for the "Arché Club"[63] suggesting she had already traveled in Europe.

"[67] A month later she was doing a talk for the benefit of the University Creche (Day care) of the Children's Aide Society that featured Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones.

[137] At least by the end of the year she was living at 3747 Langley Ave.[138] In January, Ford introduced a weekly lecture series via the Chicago Culture Club on the subject of French literary figures, Flaubert and Goncourt brothers,[139] that continued into February,[140] and "A Talk on Dickens" for a benefit.

[169] However, in early October Ford appears in Kansas City - giving a talk on "Russia" (with front page coverage)[170] and someone wrote a letter to the editor proclaiming her success in Chicago.

[184] During this year, Ford published her three books, The Holy Grail: The Silent Teacher, Goethe's Faust: Its Ethical Symbolism and Balzac's Seraphita: The Mystery of Sex, a series known as Message of the Mystics.

[186] She delivered a series of six lectures, based on the books, titled The Universal Ministry with the aim of "...pointing out the unanimity with which the great poets and teachers of the world have preached the same ethical and spiritual truth."

[253] She gave a series of talks in Topeka, Kansas before mid-May, the first program of the federated clubs,[254] before returning to Chicago, just days later, speaking on James Whitcomb Riley and Eugene Field.

[286] By late February a series was run in Dixon, Illinois, for the Phidian Art Club,[287] but ended the month in Fort Wayne, Indiana, (noting in three days she did three talks in two cities).

[376] In September a talk of hers, amplified by quotes translated by Ali Kuli Khan from Mirza Abu Fazl, was profiled in the Boston Journal - it reviewed spirituality and history as a call for a new religion.

January 1908 began with notice that Ford's talks were the first priority of the federated clubs of Topeka,[404] while she was visible in Kansas City,[405] but it was still an open question in early February what would happen.

[439] Before ʻAbdu'l-Bahá left America he commented in the progress of women's equality, noting "Demonstrations of force, such as are now taking place in England, are neither becoming nor effective in the cause of womanhood and quality".

[452] Later in June she was noted speaking on "Abdul Baha's teaching on Immortality", her first known talk on the religion to a general audience, to the "Negro Society for Historical Research" cofounded by John Edward Bruce and Arturo Alfonso Schomburg.

[458] This was followed by a Baháʼí meeting during Ridván at the home of Helen S. Goodall in Oakland, California Ford attended and reported on in Star of the West, among the earliest national publications of the religion.

[479] In January 1917 Ford was back in Washington, D.C.,[480] and in March she was in Boston speaking before the "Free Religious Association of America",[481] and contributed an article to Star of the West on "The economic teaching of Abdul-Baha",[482] which was later included in the first Baháʼí World volume.

Meanwhile, Ford was locally visible in mid-April at St. Mark's-in-the-Bouwerie, another New York church with a close affiliation with Bahá'ís,[511] mixing explicitly Baháʼí oriented talks and music or art topics.

[520][521] By late September Bolden had received a letter from 'Abdu'l-Bahá apparently accepting his declaration as a Bahá'í,[522] because he and his church we all proclaimed as Bahá'ís in the DC Washington Bee mid-month.

[570] In March Baháʼís sponsored a dinner in New York City as an instance of its teaching on race unity – Ford spoke at the event along with Louis G. Gregory, Horace Holley, W. E. B. DuBois and others.

[626] In May Ford was on radio station WGL (later bought by WADO) and she was cut off the air while speaking to a banquet audience of the All Nations Association, an international peace organization,[627] in praise of Amelia Gade Corson because the manager declared it a pacifist talk, which, according to him, "was not in line for the occasion".

And she was noted renting an apartment from lower 2nd Ave.[662] In June she was listed starting a series of talks in London,[663] as well as submitted a paper to an Esperanto conference in August there.

[520] In February Ford spoke at another reception held by the Baháʼís in honor of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the New York Urban League as well as at Esperantist conferences.

"[454] At a memorial for her a few days later in New York Ali Kuli Khan read a cable from then head of the religion, Shoghi Effendi: Her unique and outstanding gifts enabled her to promote effectively the best interests of the Faith in its new-born and divinely-conceived institutions.

"[362] Ford's 1889 critique, A Feminine Iconoclast, originally published in The Nationalist was reprinted in Carol Farley Kessler's 1995 book, Daring to Dream: Utopian Fiction by United States Women Before, 1950.