Monday, April 23, 2012

COLLECTION #213: Vintage Mormon Magazines



I've been picking up old LDS magazines for many years, they are all from the 20th century, dating from 1905 to the early 1960s. These particular magazines shown, date from 1905 to 1940, and consist of publications for children, young ladies, and teachers.

My first little grouping are the magazines geared toward the teachers, or Instructors. The original magazine was called The Juvenile Instructor, but it was changed to just The Instructor in the 1920s. These issues are full of wonderful lessons, articles, teaching helps, photos and activities, primarily designed for the young ones.





The next three are called Young Women's Journal, and this magazine was designed for young ladies of the Church, from ages 12 to 18. These issues are heavy on prose, light on photos or illustrations. It's interesting that two of the issues had the exact same cover design, spanning 15 years. So, it must have been that they used that same cover design, month after month, year after year, except for a change of color.  I'll bet those girls got bored! (But I love the cover art, very Art Nouveau!)



The last two are early editions of the Children's Friend. These issues are from 1915 and 1917, the same years my Dad and his only brother Kent were born. So it's fun to see what life was like back in that era. I have many more later issues of the Children's Friend, ranging from these, to the early 1960s. I'll features these at a later time.





As I was browsing through the 1923 issue of the Juvenile Instructor, I happened to notice, in the children's pages (where children submit their poetry, stories, and art) a landscape drawing by a 15 year old boy named Joseph C. Gibby. I recognized the name as a famous (well, in Southern California LDS circles in the 1950s) artist, who painted many murals for the church, and taught art in Southern California for many years. Looks like he had been developing his great talent since he was a young boy.



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