Pittsburgh

Mahmúd's Diary records the spring of 1912 when 'Abdu'l-Bahá travelled west of the Alleghenies for the first time, holding meetings in Cleveland and Pittsburgh and then continuing to Chicago. In Pittsburgh the smoke of the steel mills hung over the talks; in Cleveland the believers gathered in private homes.

Mahmúd's Diary records 'Abdu'l-Bahá's reception at the Schenley Hotel in Pittsburgh on May 7, 1912, where the Pittsburgh Bahá'í community had organised an afternoon gathering of friends and inquirers that included a number of the city's prominent industrialists and ministers.

At the Hotel Schenley in Pittsburgh on May 7, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá set out six of Bahá'u'lláh's principles in a single sustained address: independent search after truth, the oneness of humanity, the harmony of religion and science, the abolition of prejudices, the equal education of women, and the necessity of a spiritual rather than merely material foundation for universal peace.