The following article is a decade-by-decade look at our story as told in the pages of Scarboro Missions magazine and its precursor China magazine from the inaugural issue in 1919 to the 1990s. Written by Grant Maxwell, this article appeared in two instalments in the January and February 1993 issues of Scarboro Missions magazine as part of the Society’s 75th anniversary celebrations.
Through the Years: 1919-1999
By Grant Maxwell
More than 800 issues of the Scarboro Foreign Mission Society’s monthly voice preceded the issue you are now reading. Since 1919 the continuing story of this made-in-Canada missionary community has been told in thousands of articles, regular features, photographs, maps and other items covering some 20,000 pages. Given these mammoth numbers, is an adequate report and analysis possible in two articles? Perhaps, if we limit ourselves to a bird’s-eye view of what China and Scarboro Missions reported and commented upon in one typical year of each decade. I promise to be as objective as possible in selecting typical examples of magazine content. So join me for this flying visit, first to the inaugural issue published in 1919 and then to more than 70 editions published since the middle 1920s.
The Inaugural Issue
The Boom to Bust 20s
The Threadbare 30s
War and Peace
The Complacent 50s
The Turbulent 60s
The Indulgent 70s
The Uneasy 80s
The Uncertain 90s