Content preview - You need a premium account to view this content.

Liahona the Elders' Journal

Arnold K. Garr

When we consider the significance of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the state of Missouri, our thoughts naturally turn either to the historic occurrences that took place in the 1830s, or to the glorious events that are prophesied for the future. Yet some important episodes in the history of the Church in Missouri since the 1830s have gone largely unnoticed. One of these is the story of the Liahona the Elders' Journal.

The Liahona, as it was usually called, was the official publication for all the North American missions of the Church from 1907 to 1945. It arose from a merger of The Elders' Journal, published by the Southern States Mission from 1903 to 1907, and The Liahona, a multimission publication begun by the Central States Mission in Independence, Missouri on 6 April 1907.

When the journal was founded, it filled a publishing void which had existed in the LDS missions of America for almost a half-century. The Church had not published a periodical of significant tenure and circulation in the American missions since the Utah War in 1857. By the time The Liahona ceased publication in 1945, it had been in existence longer than any periodical ever published in the Church's American missions. In its prime it had a circulation of about 20,000 readers, and from 1907 to 1917 it was the only mission periodical the Church published in America. After 1917, even though several missions began publishing their own distinct bulletins, The Liahona remained the only mission publication to serve all the American missions until 1945. The journal will be "a great help to missionaries," the First Presidency declared in 1907, "and will add to the value of any man's library." In fact, the periodical assisted in the conversion process on many occasions, and in some cases it was even the primary instrument of conversion. The purpose of this paper is to recover the memory of The Liahona's outstanding contributions by reviewing the history of its publication.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, when The Liahona first appeared, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Latter-day Saints were all attempting to adjust to important trends in society that affected their respective histories. The Protestants were divided over fundamentalism, the Catholics were struggling with Americanizing their church, and the Jews were quibbling over their position on zionism. In the meantime, the LDS Church was redefining its position on such issues as plural marriage and its role in politics. At the same time, the Church was striving diligently to pay off the debt which the severe antipolygamy crusade had created.