Swami Vivekananda captivated audiences at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 with his call for religious tolerance and universal acceptance, introducing Hindu philosophy to the American public on an unprecedented scale. The speech marked the first time a Hindu monk had addressed a major Western audience in the United States. He built on that momentum by helping establish the Vedanta Society of New York in 1894, one of the earliest permanent Hindu institutions in the United States, laying the foundation for the enduring presence of Vedanta and Hindu thought in American religious life.
