Bicentennial Banners

This is how it came off the press in ye olden days--it's the printing crew of The Banner, circa 1930s (?). Used to be that printing the mag was an in-house job; years later, it got shopped out and still is today. This is the veteran squad who made it their calling to get out the denominational magazine the old fashioned way, by tending the big press. 

In 1976, The Banner, the official magazine of the Christian Reformed Church, ran a series of covers drawn from the old days. It was, after all, the year of the American Bicentennial, and people all over the country were digging up roots. Just for fun, here's a bunch.

This Banner production room pose is one of a couple dozen covers sent to me by old friends who didn't know where to get rid of things they hated simply to burn, and therefore decided I might well be a convenient waste basket. 

"Because we thought you'd like 'em," they said. Little hand-written note. 

Problem is, they're right, and that's why you're seeing them right now.

This year's Synod promises to be a cooker. LGBTQ issues dominate. There'll be the ordinary stuff (as there had to be in 1936, mid-Depression here), but the angst to come in summer, 2022, is all "gay marriage." 

Most everyone on the floor that year had no clue what the word "gay" means these days, which isn't to say there were no gay people around. Quite likely, there were. But gay marriage didn't tear the place up in '36. Other issues did, like "modernism," always handy, or "worldly amusements" like dancing or playing cards. 

Meanwhile, there were places in the denomination where real growth was taking place--like the hospital at Rehoboth, New Mexico. The undeniable success of that mission (not to say we white folks got everything right) has to rank as one of the denomination's most precious gifts to American life and culture, a gift that came, at least initially, by way of the hospital's special blessings to the Navajo and Zuni people.

Hard as it is to imagine, this farm sits right on 28th Street, Grand Rapids, Michigan, August, 1903, a family portrait all the rage back then, especially for immigrant families looking to show people back home in Holland how well they were doing. Everything and everybody is on the picture--Mom behind the fence, holding the baby.

With a family portrait like this, you didn't have to say much. "See that horse?--see that child aboard? We're doing just fine over here. Big places, bigger plans. Wish you were here."

 

Iowa, you're thinking? Good guess. That corn's hardly up there by today's standards, but it was sky-high in 1912, when these two young ladies waltzed out to check it out. Sorry--it's not Peoria or Hull, but (are you ready for this?) Hudsonville, MI. What's more, that young lady on the left is a celebrity, although her fame grew from Nigerian soil. It's Johanna Veenstra, who would become the most beloved missionary figure the denomination ever sent abroad. 

The corn doesn't look all that bad really, and I'm an Iowan.

More tomorrow. This is fun.