{"id":434,"date":"2014-12-23T11:32:37","date_gmt":"2014-12-23T16:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/?page_id=434"},"modified":"2019-02-06T10:19:24","modified_gmt":"2019-02-06T15:19:24","slug":"magazine-history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/scarboro-missions-magazine\/magazine-history","title":{"rendered":"Historical overview"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following article is\u00a0a decade-by-decade look at our story as told in the pages of\u00a0Scarboro Missions\u00a0<\/i>magazine and its precursor\u00a0China<\/i>\u00a0magazine 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\u00a0Scarboro Missions magazine<\/i>\u00a0as part of the Society’s 75th anniversary celebrations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Through the Years: 1919-1999<\/h3>\n

By Grant Maxwell<\/strong><\/p>\n

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<\/em> and Scarboro Missions<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

The Inaugural Issue<\/a>
\nThe Boom to Bust 20s<\/a>
\nThe Threadbare 30s<\/a>
\nWar and Peace<\/a>
\nThe Complacent 50s<\/a>
\nThe Turbulent 60s<\/a>
\nThe Indulgent 70s<\/a>
\nThe Uneasy 80s<\/a>
\nThe Uncertain 90s<\/a><\/p>\n


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The Year 1919: The Inaugural Issue<\/h3>\n

Fr. John Mary Fraser, the Society’s founder and first editor of China, set a lively editorial pace for his successors. His buoyant confidence and dramatic flair are seen in the main news story published in the inaugural issue of October 1919: “China Mission College Meets With Universal Approval” the headline proclaimed. The story reported that Fr. Fraser had “traversed the length and breadth of Canada, preaching in the churches and lecturing in the seminaries, colleges and schools; and everywhere finds the people prepared and eager” to support the proposed college, which first opened in Almonte, Ontario.<\/p>\n


\n<\/a><\/p>\n

The Year 1926: The Boom-to-Bust 20s<\/h3>\n

Now it’s 1926. The Boom-to-Bust Twenties are half over. The stock market crash that triggered the Great Depression is only a few years ahead. During most of the decade W.L. Mackenzie King is Canada’s prime minister. Sun Yat-sen, founder of China’s first republic, has died. Two of his associates, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung, are rivals. George V reigns as monarch of the British Empire. Pope Pius XI occupies the Chair of St. Peter.<\/p>\n

Fr. William C. McGrath is editor of China. In its seventh year the magazine has 15,000 subscribers. An annual subscription costs .50 cents.<\/p>\n

Glowing reports from the Society’s first mission band to China was the predominant theme in 1926 issues. Typical headlines:<\/p>\n