Comments on: The Whole Year Through: Improvement Era, 1963

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:00:37 +0000

For the sake of being agreeable, Mark, I’ll be agreeable … but after granting the obvious correctness of your comment, there are now one or two places in addition to Chicago where unescorted lady travelers may buy fruit between Salt Lake City and New York.

By: Mark B.

Mark B. — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:32:52 +0000

That still makes sense, Ardis. First, leave Salt Lake City–and second, go to New York.

Where else is there? : )

By: ESO

ESO — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:05:10 +0000

Ardis–thanks for clarifying–now the pictures of elderly and infant people make more sense to me.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:23:34 +0000

I don’t doubt you’re right, Bookslinger. When I was a missionary in the very early ’80s, it seemed revolutionary for the flipchart pictures to be multiracial and to include pictures of coins in the local currency and scriptures with titles in the local language. I’m glad the magazines have gone much further. (And you certainly won’t find church materials any more that are like those “usages in good society” lessons I’m posting from the early 20th century, where tips for travel include telling the girls where to buy fruit while traveling on the only train route that made sense in those days, Salt Lake to New York!

By: Bookslinger

Bookslinger — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:51:58 +0000

I’m very glad to see the Ensign and the Liahona get a more diverse and international flair, with more news and stories from around the world, and a lower percentage of caucasian photo subjects. This makes the magazines, especially non-English Lihaona issues, much easier to present to people who’s native language isn’t English.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:58:27 +0000

It started out in the late 1890s as a magazine for the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association, but over the years the Improvement Era evolved into a magazine unequivocally for adults. Along about 1960 they added a section of unnumbered pages within the magazine that was called "The Era of Youth" which was directed at youth -- that "Era of Youth" is probably the most direct ancestor of today's New Era, while the Improvement Era became the Ensign.

By: ESO

ESO — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:12:01 +0000

Am I wrong to think that “The Improvement Era” would have been directed at youth? The forerunner of “The New Era?”

By: sister blah 2

sister blah 2 — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:27:55 +0000

Tanner’s expression is scaring me a little bit.

Fun collection!!

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:08:54 +0000

Y’all are great — you can find something worth discussing in any material from the past. I love that!

The Children’s Friend actually seems to be unusual in that it *does* often have a yearly theme. A few of the other magazines occasionally did, but not always. That surprises me: even if somebody isn’t thinking ahead to plan out a whole year’s covers, I would expect a little more unity because the same people were working on the magazine month to month — wouldn’t the same taste, at least the same ruts, tend to make a lot of the covers in a given period somewhat similar? Apparently not.

The Improvement Era is especially unexpected that way, because for years at a time there isn’t even any indication on covers that a given holiday fell during a particular month — there aren’t many Improvement Era Christmas covers in the advent calendar I did a year ago, for instance.

By: Mina

Mina — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:24:05 +0000

Wow, the design is all over the place! I wonder why; have you even run across a similar example in any of the publications you’ve researched? I like April: its very of its time in colour and composition. And I kind of like July too, maybe not as well realized, but I like the idea of the diptych of older workers with their machinery emphasized.