Rahme Haider

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]

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]

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]