Angus Smith Hibbard: Scientist and Artist
Angus Smith Hibbard (1860-1945) wrote the text to “Father in Heaven,” #133 in our hymnbook. A chorus from BYU-Idaho sang this hymn at last April’s General Conference (see YouTube link below).
Father in Heaven, In thy love abounding,
Hear these thy children thru the world resounding,
Loud in thy praises, Thanks for peace abiding,
Ever abiding.Filled be our hearts with peace beyond comparing
Peace in thy world, and joy to hearts despairing.
Firm is our trust in thee for peace enduring,
Ever enduring.God of our fathers, strengthen ev’ry nation
In thy great peace where only is salvation.
So may the world its future spread before thee,
Thus to adore thee.
Hibbard wrote music as well as poetry, including one, um, “composition” that you are almost certainly familiar with, but which I’ll bet your children will neither recognize nor understand.
Hibbard was neither a poet nor a musician by profession — he was an electrical engineer, specializing in the development and networking of the telephone. He founded the Wisconsin Telephone Co. almost as soon as the telephone was invented. He later recalled how the phone was received in those early days:
In Wausua in 1881 he demonstrated it to two lumberjacks who were just in front the woods. After connecting with a caller on the other end of the line, he offered the phone to the pair. One of them held it up to his ear, “and said in a gruff unnatural voice, ‘Hello!’ and then dropped the instrument as if it had been red hot, exclaiming, ‘Well, I’ll be damned. Come on out of this, Pete! It said, “Hello yourself!” Can you beat that!’” A Swedish immigrant, amazed at the power of Hibbard’s technology, blurted out, “By yiminiy, she talks Swedish!”
In Milwaukee Hibbard at first employed telegraph messenger boys to connect callers at the switchboard, but he soon found their streetsmart ways were not well-adapted to polite customer service. Greeted by an unhappy phone customer, “the boys sassed back and telephone exchanges became, in many places, exchanges of loud and lurid language … Boys would be boys and they seemed to have in them some kind of uncontrollable deviltry that made them practically unendurable as telephone operators. They became impossible, they blew up — and a cry for help arose in the land. At once from here, there, and everywhere came the girls. Almost at once, before we could realize it, the telephone girls were seated at switchboards in all parts of the country, giving such service as had not been thought possible before, smoothing out the difficulties and bringing down blessings on their heads.” [Wisconsin Historical Society. “Old Wisconsin Archive”]
In 1894, Hibbard connected the branch meetings of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers — one group in New York City, the other in Chicago — by telephone, “so that the subject matter of the evening could be discussed by the two gatherings of electrical engineers. … it is, perhaps, the first time the telephone has been used for such a purpose, at least for so long a distance,” according to report of the New York Times.
The blue bell symbol of the Bell Telephone Co. was his design, and it was his idea to use it to mark the location of payphones. He was one of the first executives to use a company organizational chart. (It was also his idea to pave over the Chicago River in the downtown area … I guess every genius has to be allowed a few brainstorms that go nowhere …)
Hibbard was a parishioner at Chicago’s St. Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church, and most or all of his hymn texts and tunes were written for his own congregation. He was such a beloved, longserving fixture of Presbyterian Episcopal life in Chicago that when he died, no one could remember just how long he had served in this position or that — his obituary writer contented himself with noting that he had served “for years and years.”
Oh, and that other “composition” to his credit? Angus Smith Hibbard invented the telephone “busy signal.”
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Deseret Book has just published a revised and enlarged edition of Karen Lynn Davidson’s uber-classic Our Latter-day Hymns. The story of Angus Smith Hibbard is but one of many examples of new material in this edition. Kudos to Karen Lynn Davidson, and thanks to Deseret Book for its publication — but why, oh, why, does Deseret Book put hard covers on stupid little throw-away gift books, but insist on issuing much-used reference books like Our Latter-day Hymns and 40 Views of Brigham Young in the thinnest of paper covers? When I’m in charge of the world, I’ll make better decisions for publishers.
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Amen, on the Deseret Book production schema.
But more to the post’s content, I always love me some scientist/entrepreneur with musical chops.
Comment by J. Stapley — September 29, 2009 @ 10:36 am
He was a parishioner at an Episcopal church, but a fixture of Presbyterian life in Chicago?
How’d that happen?
Comment by Mark B. — September 29, 2009 @ 11:33 am
Oh, and by the way, great post! This is a beautiful hymn which doesn’t get enough “air time” in our congregations. (Biting tongue on comment about what does get too much of that time!)
Comment by Mark B. — September 29, 2009 @ 11:36 am
And thus we see how a man’s whole life can be changed by the careless typing of his biographer. Hibbard was Episcopalian, through and through, and I’ve corrected that. Thanks for the heads-up, and also for appreciating the post, Mark and J.
Comment by Ardis E. Parshall — September 29, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
Stapley said, “I always love me some scientist/entrepreneur with musical chops”
Yes, it is gratifying to see someone who can successfully finesse differing fields. Then again, that roommate in college who was a math whiz, who could play multiple musical instruments, who knew how to work on an engine, who could memorize like a fiend, who was athletic, who knew how to shoot a gun, and who could get excellent grades in all his classes without really trying, well, let’s just say, I hated that guy.
Comment by Hunter — September 29, 2009 @ 12:35 pm
I like this song, and I agree, Mark, it doesn’t get sung enough in church. As to the antics of the messenger boys as opposed to the girls as telephone operators, it seems to be another case of living up to (or down to, in this case) our cultural gender based stereotypes. All one has to do is to look at your frequent “She Had a Question” series to see the differences in expected behavior and demeanor, while we more or less expect boys to be wild and crazy.
We had an experience with our ward choir this last week, where we sang “Come Unto Christ” from the musical “Moroni”, I think, where there are all these lovely, harmonious melodies sung by the women, and the men in unison, but at one point in the song, there is a change. The men start to sing “Deny yourselves of ungodliness”, and the rhythm changes dramatically, and the tenors and basses repeat this refrain multiple times in counterpoint with great emphasis. The message seems to be that the women can easily “Come unto Christ” with sweet tones and gentle melodies, but the men have to “Deny themselves” with much thrashing and shouting and anxiety. Still, it was a nice piece of music. First time I have sung it, although I had heard it a few times before.
Comment by kevinf — September 29, 2009 @ 12:38 pm
I can listen to a piece of music and about all I can say about it is “I liked that” or “I didn’t like that.” I don’t have the training or the natural gift to know why or to hear more to it than that. I love it when someone can do what kevinf has just done — once it’s pointed out, even I can then hear what you mean!
Here’s another difference between men and women (real or stereotype, I don’t know) — Hunter, your funny natural reaction is to hate “that guy.” When a woman can do a gazillion womanly things perfectly, or at least has the reputation of so doing, another woman’s natural reaction is to beat herself up emotionally because she feels she should be able to do all those things perfectly, too.
Comment by Ardis E. Parshall — September 29, 2009 @ 12:52 pm
Thanks for a glimpse of exchange offices staffed by teenage boys. Like many, I first knew this hymns from its use in the LDS “Restoration of the Priesthood” movie. The first time I sang it was with a Seventh Day Adventist congregation I visited as a missionary. (We were invited to attend, so we did.) It was a pleasure to find it in the new hymn book when that came out.
It is interesting how the breadth of a person’s activities elevates them in our eyes. We expect a person to be good at what he does, whatever it is, so being good, even very good, at one thing is nothing special. A physicist who choreographs the local modern dance company, though, or an actor who retires from the screen and opens an aviation machine shop? Now, that’s someone with talent.
Comment by John Mansfield — September 30, 2009 @ 9:40 am