‘A graceful, magnetic speaker’: How Susie Sorabji captivated US audiences in early 20th century

On a cold December day in 1901, a crowd gathered at the Cathedral of St Paul in Boston to listen to a speaker described by The Boston Post as “one of the most distinguished women in all the length and breadth of King George VII’s royal Indian domain”. That speaker was Susie Sorabji, an educator from an illustrious Parsi Christian family.

Sorabji was touring the US to raise funds for Christian education in Pune. But to her audiences, and the media, as interesting as her cause was her ethnic background.

“She is neither Hindoo, nor English, nor Brahmin,” The Boston Post wrote. “She is a Parsee, daughter of that wonderful people who are the disciples of Zoroaster and whose morality puts to blush the boasted virtues of Christian nations. But Ms Sorabji, though a Parsee by birth, is not a Parsee in faith. It is because of this that she has come to American shores. Her profound learning, her keen intellectuality, her sweet womanliness and charm of personality – all these she has dedicated to the faith of Christianity that has brought her across the ocean 8000 miles to a new and strange land, where she sees not one familiar face.”

Americans visiting India at the turn of the 20th...

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