Six Things You Didn't Know About The First Lebanese Americans

There is a song by the legendary singer, Wadih El Safi, whose title literally translates into, "Lebanon, oh piece of heaven." To the millions of Lebanese-Americans, even those who haven't stepped a foot on the country's versatile terrain, Lebanon is just that. As the image of this tiny, 10, 452 km squared piece of paradise comes to mind, one is forced to ask the questions: Is there something truly otherworldly about Lebanon and its people? How did the first Lebanese Americans fare away from their divinely gifted nation? In honor of Lebanon's 71st year as an independent state, here is an attempt to revive some of the most unmissable, (and arguably beatific), stories of America's first Lebanese settlers.

The first documented Lebanese immigrant arrived at Boston Harbor in 1854.

phgcdn.com / Via fas.harvard.edu

Antonios Bishaalany was sent by Maronite missionaries to America to study theology in New York, where he would also teach Arabic to others. He landed by boat at the Boston Harbor in 1854, before moving to Brooklyn shortly afterwards. Nothing is known of Antonios except for the day he arrived and the day he transpired. He would die in his newly proclaimed home two years after his arrival, on his 29th birthday.

The Lebanese/ Syrian community donated roughly $300,000.00 in today's money toward the completion of the Cathedral of Learning.

upload.wikimedia.org / Via nationalityrooms.pitt.edu

In 1921, the University of Pittsburgh's Chancellor, John G. Bowman, was faced with a problem. The first World War had come to an end and many returning soldiers had registered at the university, which didn't have enough instructional space for the spike in enrollment. To solve this problem, Bowman planned to build a tall building that would not only house the growing student population, but would symbolically reflect Pittsburgh's diverse culture. As ill fate would have it, America would enter the Great Depression during construction. In an effort to continue building, the chancellor took to the immigrants of the community, promising to dedicate a nationality room for each of the helping groups. The building would come to be known as the Cathedral of Learning, the highest academic building in the world at the time.

Among the 17,000 men and women and 97,000 school children who contributed to the building was Pittsburgh's Lebanese community, who would have their six year effort dedicated on June 28, 1941. Their room is the replica of an 18th Century Damascus library and is one of only two nationality rooms in the cathedral that cannot be entered, due to the fragility of its marble and furniture.

The first ice cream waffle cone was accidentally created by a Lebanese immigrant at the St. Louis World Fair in 1904.

pixel.nymag.com / Via doumars.com

During the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, a charming 16 year old Lebanese immigrant, dressed in an Arab robe, persuaded fair-goers to buy his paperweights filled with water from the River of Jordan. His stand was placed near a Greek waffle vendor and an ice cream stand that sold ice cream to-go on paper plates. One night, Abe Doumar, the Lebanese immigrant, noticing his neighbor had stopped selling ice cream because he ran out of paper plates, thought of an idea. He bought a waffle, rolled it from end to end, and decided to test if a scoop of ice cream would hold in its center. It did, and Abe became the first person to eat ice cream out of a cone! A born businessman and innovator, he would create a waffle machine that would allow him to make more than one waffle at a time and began selling ice cream in a cone at Coney Island starting that year. By the following world fair, Abe and his brothers would sell 23, 000 ice cream cones in one day alone!

A Lebanese immigrant secured the rights to sell Ford Motors in the Middle East at the age of 18.

Via charlescorm.info

In 1912, an 18 year old Charles Corm, reluctant to go back to his home country of Lebanon without a business deal, sat for weeks outside of Henry Ford's Detroit office for a meeting with the world's richest man at the time. For the entire month leading up to that, he attended a play in NYC every night in order to somewhat master the English language. When he finally convinced Henry Ford in broken English to sit with him, he left the meeting as the youngest sole proprietor of Ford Motors, given exclusive rights to sell the vehicles in the Middle East. Without prior architectural education or experience, he drafted the blueprints of the headquarters in Beirut, which would be named "The Corm Building." He became a self-made millionaire by his mid-twenties and retired to a life of writing and philanthropy at the age of 40.

Many Lebanese immigrants were given their father's first name as their surname because of language confusion.

wordpress.com / Via fultonhistory.com

Because the Lebanese culture was a patriarchal one that gave much respect to the father of the family, most children would refer to themselves as ibn (son of) or bint (daughter of) their father, so-and-so, when asked for their names. Similarly, fathers and mothers would refer to themselves as abou (father of) and umm (mother of) their eldest son. (e.g., Abdullah's daughter would call herself "bint Abdullah" and Charbel's father would call himself "Abou Charbel).

During immigration documentation, the Lebanese would verbally add these titles after their own names, leading the immigration processors to mistake their father's first name as their last. Strangely enough, because the Americans knew about this title system, they would disregard immigrants' first names for their title and write down their last names as their first. If you're confused, this is how John Mansour Ibn Elias's name would have been documented during immigration filing: Mansour Elias. For this reason, the end of the 1880's/ early 1900's saw many immigrants take their last name as their first and their father's name as their last. Tough luck if you were a non-English speaking girl in those days!

The patriotism and loyalty shown by Lebanese American, Khalil Gibran, inspired President John F Kennedy.

orwelltoday.com / Via 4umi.com

Khalil Gibran, the third most read poet in the world, immigrated to America in 1895 with his mother and siblings, never quite detaching himself from his sense of Lebanese nationalism. Aside from being one of Lebanon's greatest poets and artists at the time (and still now), he was the country's greatest loyalist. He was proud of his roots and wrote essay upon essay on patriotism, in hopes of igniting his exact fervor and love of a homeland in other Lebanese Americans. The most famous of these essays was "The New Frontier," eagerly asking for those to take supportive initiative for their country, rather than wait for their country to meet their wants.

Thirty-six years after its first publication, delivering his famous inaugural speech as President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, impressed at the level of national zeal it conveyed, quoted Gibran's patriotic essay by urging his gathered nation, "Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country."