Rahme Haider

Rahme Haider or Rahme Haidar (1880s – November 13, 1939), sometimes billed as "Princess" Rahme Haider, was an educator and lecturer based in Los Angeles, California.

Rahme Haider in a 1917 publication.

Early life

Rahme Haider was said to be from Baalbek, in the Mount Lebanon region. She attended a Presbyterian mission school in Sidon, and then Denison University in Ohio.^[1][2] Other accounts, including her death certificate, gave her hometown as Damascus, and her parents as Joseph Abou Haidar and Younise Abou Haidar.^[3][4] She was assigned as a missionary to Syrians in Los Angeles in 1909, by the Northern Baptist Convention.^[5]

Career

Haider started a school for the children of Arabic speakers in Los Angeles.^[6] She also ran a Baptist Sunday school for children, and an evening school for young men and women, in the Syrian community there.^[7] With some backing from a local Syrian businessman, Phares Behanessey, she raised funds with a 1909 gala event in which Los Angeles society women, dressed in their "picturesque" interpretations of Middle Eastern attire, performed in a pageant.^[8]

After her mission commitment ended, Haider toured from the mid-1910s to the mid-1930s as "Princess Rahme" (a self-created royal),^[9] in the United States and Canada,^[10] giving lectures about Syrian history and culture to church and community groups.^[11] For many of her travels,^[12][13] she traveled with H. Lucille Burgess, who joined her in dramatic and musical portions of her presentation.^[10][4] Later in her career, she added a slide show and short film to her presentation. Haider and Burgess sometimes offered acting classes too, and directed local children in Biblical pageants while they were visiting a town for an extended run.^[14]

Rahme Haider's autobiography and travelogue, Under Syrian Stars, was published in 1929.^[15][16] In 1931 she declared her intention to seek American citizenship.^[17] One of her last publicized appearances was in Cortland, New York in January 1936.^[18]

Personal life

Haidar and Burgess traveled and worked together for years;^[19] Burgess was usually described as Haidar's secretary,^[20] assistant, or companion.^[21] Rahme Haidar died in 1939, in Philadelphia, in her fifties.^[3]