The 1934-1936 Bahá'í Historical Record Survey (also called "cards") was an early demographic review of the Bahá'í Faith in the United States and Canada. The backgrounds of Bahá'ís were later studied in a number of ways - racial and ethnic heritage, previous religious background, geographical spread and sometimes how these have changed over the years. Complimentary data sources have also been used to add to some of the reviews including US Census publications and Bahá'í directories published in periodicals of Bahá'í literature.
A couple of these studies look specifically at the burgeoning black population of Bahá'ís amidst the wider society practice of continuing era of social segregation in the American society of the time which was against the Bahá'í teaching of the unity of all humanity. The vast majority of the Bahá'ís were white and mostly elder women, but the black segment of those states Bahá'ís were in responded more to the religion than the white population of those states did. The religion was also initially attracting Protestants, especially Unitarian Universalists and also among other more mainstream liberal denominations, but as history approached 1936 and beyond it attracted a greater diversity of religious backgrounds as it continued to grow more by conversion than by migration. However intentional migration had been undertaken shortly after this time - the religion had only been present in a few states mostly in the Northeast to North Central and West Coast coming up to 1936 but a goal was set to spread the religion to every state by 1944. As it spread inward from the West coast this mere presence established recognizable proportional membership in the population while in the higher population of the South it did not. But there it did take root too, more so among the black communities along the coastal regions of the South. Indeed, this wave of activity was undertaken during the first Seven Year Plan established by Shoghi Effendi which had the intranational goal of establishing a community in every state as well as establishing the religion in the countries of Latin America.
Development, context, and reviews of the Survey The 1934 American national convention affirmed the request of the national race amity committee for a survey of the racial makeup of the community affirming the request of the national amity committee work asking for localized amity committees and consolidation with concerned groups like the NAACP and Urban League. The same year the national youth committee including Marion Holley recommended a census be taken of youth as well. The Survey developed included historical information of the respondent - the date and place they were born, the date and place they joined the religion, and where they were living at the time of the Survey as well as their national and religious background.
The Survey was widespread by the summer of 1935. The complete collection of respondents is a little unclear. There have been four reviews of the Survey: In 1980 Arthur Hampson did a geography PhD using the Survey as one of his main sources of information to review the development of the Bahá'í community using more demographic information. In 1982 Gayle Morrison included an analysis of the black community from the 1936 Survey in her biography of Hand of the Cause Louis G. Gregory. In 1982 Peter Smith used the Survey via a selection of every third respondent to review the religion and examined the depth of religious backgrounds that could be perceived in anecdotes of the backgrounds of the Bahá'ís by then. Smith did a second review of the data published in 2004 mostly looking at comparisons with other surveys in other times and places. Robert Stockman included a review of the Survey especially for members of three communities in his PhD in 1990 including transcribing all of the physical cards into a computer file. In 2004 Gerome Green finished a senior thesis at Dartmouth College also reviewing the Survey for a look at the black community. Hampson counted 1784 respondents of which 1729 were from the United States proper. Morrison and Stockman counted 1813 by 1936–7. Smith's sample approach would have totaled about 1803. Stockman collected the Bahá'í population up to about 1936 finding about 4000 people had joined the religion up to then. Unasked for, but some respondents included multi-page autobiographies.
Hampson was able to compare the community Survey with the Census of Religions of the United States for 1936 and early datesFor similar information see US Federal Census referenced the Bahá'í community in summery for 1936 and briefly of earlier dates: which counted 2584 Bahá'ís in the continental US in 1936. The census information was gathered from the respective religious communities - no additional censuses were done. So the national assembly's survey represented about 70% of the community of the US and Canada as understood by the national assembly. Still the Survey had the lowest percentage of responses in New York(mostly the city) and Illinois(mostly Chicago) and highest in the whole West.
The overall community Stockman estimated, partly on the basis of the Survey, that roughly 50-100 people identified as Bahá'ís during the time 'Abdu'l-Bahá was in America in 1912.
Smith broke down the respondents who were Bahá'ís by 1919, a total of 197 individuals still alive and members of the community by 1936: 90% were northern European (British, German, Scandinavian, generally “white” without ethnic background specified,) 6% African-American, but absent any Southern or Eastern European and Irish. This population was previously 33% of mainstream Protestant Christian background (Episcopal, Methodist, Congregationalist, Presbyterian and Baptist,) 11% Lutheran, 5% Unitarian/Universalist, followed distantly at 3% by metaphysical denominations (Swedenborgian, Christian Science, Theosophy and New Thought,) while a definite if small overall presence was of those raised in Bahá'í homes. Or, put another way by Smith in 2004: 56% Protestant of any stripe, 17% "Christian", 5% Catholic, 2-3% Jewish, and 4-5% Bahá'í. The overall pattern of a few percent raised Bahá'í was shown to be the case in a number of other surveys, (outside the Persian community in the West that arrived later.) It was also 66% women.
Stockman broke down the communities of New York city, Chicago, and Kenosha, and across time, for what details they provided. Those three communities were significantly different: Kenosha was mostly Scandinavians and Germans, with mostly early converts being 1st generation immigrants, Chicago started with half American followed by English and German and added a significant black proportion of the community after 1921, and in New York the community identified as mostly American then English, and then added a proportion of German. His analysis also showed broadly similar patterns in the communities of Christian or Protestant groups which started out a dominant group and dropped percentage-wise approaching 1936 while those raised as Bahá'ís kept increasing with a couple small groups non-Protestants, (Catholics, Jews, or metaphysical groups) adding in as well: it started out more Protestant than the US in general but became more diverse than the US in general.
Hampson analyzed the Survey and Census results relative to the states that had a Bahá'í population, a minority of the states mostly in the upper mid-West to the Northeast and California, and compared the racial and religious groups for just those states. He argued that the rate of black declarants in those states was much higher than being proportional to the black population of those states, indeed their rate of affiliation with the religion was above that of the rate of white presence in those states, and, though fewer of the Survey respondents were sufficiently particular about their religious background, agreed they were mostly from a Protestant background with the refinement that the contribution of the Unitarians was well above that of their proportion of their presence in those states and above that of all other Protestant denominations though Episcopalian and Congregational were nearly tied for a distant second. The lowest rate of religious backgrounds relative to their population in the states with significant Bahá'ís presence were those of Jewish and Catholic backgrounds. However Stockman characterizes these groups as contributing significantly to the religious diversity of the Bahá'í community, and Smith also that in other surveys at other times Jews showed a significantly higher percentage of some communities.
Hampson was able to do a county-by-county analysis including of earlier times. By 1919 most Bahá'í communities had less than two dozen adults and many were an isolated group or individual. By 1925 the Faith was in about 50 counties - about 2% - and almost all major urban centers in the Northeast and West Coast excepting Denver, Omaha, Atlanta, Augusta, Miami, and St. Augustine. Hampson argued that unity struggles to accept leadership circa 1921-1925 showed some areas lost membership compared to before - only the early cores of communities by 1906 maintained their community populations. From 1925 Bahá'ís diffused into nearby regions with infilling and coalescence which favored local spread of the religion while the First Seven Year Plan was the one that established wider diffusion than just in the Northeast and West. Those national goals were fulfilled in major urban centers. From 1944 the local diffusion process remained in place since there was no regional goals. In the earlier period the focus of Shoghi Effendi was to raise administrative structure and initial work raising the Temple out of which, for example, rose a single national budget, while afterwards from 1937 almost the exclusive goal was on dispersal of the community.
Hampson generated maps of relative presence of communities and migrations up to 1936. He noted a number of points. While some of the growth in California was from immigration from the rest of the country more was actually by local conversion. The state of New York held its population of Bahá'ís steady even with the heaviest emigration out of the state of the Bahá'ís of the country. Illinois and Wisconsin also held steady with both had heavy immigration and emigration. Hampson also observed that most of the migration that occurred was far and westward and little close and southward. Interestingly rates of conversion in a state paralleled rates of migration to a state for most states, and for a time migration became the principle mechanism of the spread of the Faith where it had not been present before. The domestic goal of First Seven Year Plan included reaching an assembly status of every state whether the entire state had 110000 people (Nevada,) or over 6 million, (Texas.) Raising one assembly per state in the South did not rise to proportionality with the state population while to the West it did.
Two individual's cards have been published in biographies: Louis Gregory and Alain Locke.
The black community In Hampson's analysis, within the group of respondents in view of the total population of the country, the percentage of black Bahá'ís is lower than in the general percentage of blacks across the whole of America but they were also relatively sparse in those states with most of the Bahá’í population, but this might also be an effect of urban vs rural concentrations - there were also more cities in the North with Bahá’ís than more rural regions in the South.