A recent post on this blog reprinted two letters from Melvin J. Ballard in late summer 1913. At the time, he was midway through his ten-year service as president of the Northwestern States Mission. (He was released in 1919 to serve in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.) Both letters deal almost entirely with improving the mission’s statistics, and the author of the post writes, “It’s uncomfortable to see how focused on numbers … the letters are, and .. to see a president so focused, at least on the date of these letters, with the numbers, and how the mission stood in rank with the other missions whose numbers he was comparing with his own.”
I’d like to take a closer look at some of those statistics. My own great-grandfather was a missionary during the same time frame, serving in the Central States Mission. (We’ve met him before in a post where I verified a family tradition that he was Pres. Kimball’s missionary trainer.) Here’s a scan of his report for the month of March 1914:
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Joseph A. Ritchie missionary statistics sheet
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There are a few similarities that immediate stand out:
Reporting Period: Pres. Ballard reminds his missionaries, “the monthly report closes with the last Saturday in each month, and that night the reports should be mailed.” Elder Ritchie’s form – although it appears to be designed for weekly reports – was also filed monthly. The date (March 28) is the last Saturday of the month, and his note in the margin reads “Monthly four weeks.”
Emphasis on Distributing Literature: The first six data point son the report card all relate to distributing literature, either books sold (1-3), or pamphlets and magazines distributed (4-6). Pres. Ballard likewise puts a heavy emphasis on literature, even going so far as to take the liberty of shipping double the quantity ordered and charging the extra to the missionary’s account. The Liahona was heavily emphasized. (“We feel it is the most important factor in our missionary labors today and we cannot be without it.”) Elder Ritchie distributed an enormous amount of literature! An average of more than 900 tracts and 20 books per week.
Statistics Reported: After literature, the next two sub-categories relate to visits (lines 7-11; families visited, tracting, gospel conversations, hours with the saints), and finally meetings (lines 14-16; Hall, Cottage, and Open Air). Interestingly, this is the same order that Pres. Ballard addresses these topics. It’s possible this same form was used in both missions. This would explain Pres. Ballard’s remark that the data was being compared with other missions, and why the form includes a line for “Mission.”
It’s clear the emphasis is different from my mission (Mexico, mid ’90s) and that of missionaries currently serving. For instance, we gave away many, many more copies of the Book of Mormon (free, of course) but no other books or pamphlets. Neither I nor Elder Ritchie reported service hours, but missionaries today do.
Most interesting, I thought, was the claim of visiting 1,545 families in the month. That’s 55 families per day! Perhaps he counted doorstep visits? The numbers of gospel conversations (53) and follow up visits (49) seems to indicate that most of the “visits” were brief and not actual “discussions.”
I wish I had a broader data set to pull from. I’m sure a professional historian could lend far more context to these numbers than I can.
What catches your attention?
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Caption on back reads: “Joseph A. Ritchie making out his weekly report, July 19, 1914
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TOClark, thanks for this. You are right in your surmise that the two missions — all the missions — used the same form, or a version of the same form overseas asking the same questions, because the elders’ repirts were all summarised on a mission report, and the mission report was sent to Salt Lake for compilation into a church wide report. The questions asked changed from time to time as dictated by Salt Lake — one reason why you sometimes read talks from a certain era where men state they walk so many thousands of miles as missionaries, for instance, is because that used to be one of the things they tracked. Another bit was keeping track of how many times they had been “refused entertainment” (i.e., a meal and a bed whike traveling without purse or scrip), and how many times their testimony had been “rejected” (I don’t know how they distinguished between rejection and simply busy or uninterested). I’m surprised not to see an accounting of money spent — I had thought expenses was something they always tracked.
While it may not be the most important historical document ever published, I’m especially glad to see the picture of your grandfather at his desk. It’s emotionally satisfying — it creates an instinctive kinship — to see an elder engaged in the unglamorous, nitty gritty paperwork that we all did but generally don’t talk about because it was so routine and, well, unglamorous.
A few questions/clarifications:
10. Hours Gospel Conversations [with non-members?]
11. Hours with Saints [? like home teaching?]
14. Hall Meetings [? in rented venues? rented by whom?]
15. Cottage Meetings [? in member homes?]
16. Open Air Meetings = Street Meetings [outdoor speeches, right?]
Thanks
What were those 84 “other books” that were distributed if not Books of Mormon or other standard works? Is it possible that they were actually Books of Mormon, but given away instead of sold (as required on line 1)? I gave away a fair number of Books of Mormon, but I could not have afforded to give away that many.
Gary, yes to all of that.
“Visiting with Saints” was quasi-home teaching because priesthood quorums generally did not exist outside the stakes (the first one I’m aware of is the Elders’ Quorum in Washington, D.C. in about 1923(? – I’ve blogged about that but am not sure of the year and too lazy to look it up) so the missionaries were the ones tasked with visiting members, especially where missionaries acted as branch presidents. There simply wasn’t anyone else to keep in touch with members on a personal level.
There were definite rules as to what constituted a “gospel conversation” — simply saying, “we’re elders from the Church of –” *slammed door* didn’t count.
Halls were rented by the missionaries themselves in some places, although that was dying out by 1914, and the mission organization picked up the tab.
Last Lemming, there was a whole group of books that were generally known as “small books” that were more than the 1-page leaflets or 4-8 page tracts but still far less expensive than the Book of Mormon (10c-35c). The ones I can think of off the top of my head that were used at this era were “Cowley’s Talks on Doctrine,” “Voice of Warning,” “A Friendly Discussion” and “Mr. Durrant of Salt Lake City.” There were others.
OTHER CLARK — your great-grandfather might have known my great-grandfather, William Emer Taylor, who was in that same mission around the same time. The distant relative who has his mission photos has one my great-grandfather took of “Elder” Kimball baptizing someone in a river.
Other Clark-
This is most interesting! I’m glad now that I saved a few record books, etc. from my mission (Brazil, 1976-78).
I’m no fashion expert, but I noticed that your great-grandfather is wearing suspenders and a belt. Was that a thing back then?
I think #12 “Hours in Study” is interesting. In my mission, there were fixed number of hours reserved for study. If we had spend more time studying, we would have been considered being lazy, since we weren’t out doing “real work”. Yet I feel that sometimes some extra studying would had been better use of time than wandering along empty streets.
Late to the discussion, as usual… Grant, I don’t know if the belt-and-suspenders approach was a thing or not. Maybe he just wanted extra insurance for his pants to stay up.
Bruce, I have photos of Elder Ritchie with three different companions (labeled), and several in groups, but I’m not sure who they all are.
My grandfather served in Australia at this time. In the back of his journal, he complied in tabular form statistics much like these. The journal is at my mother’s house, so I can’t check right now to see how much the statistical categories match.
In my mission (NYC 1978-80), we mailed in a weekly report unique to our mission, with carbonless copies kept by each missionary. In addition, we phoned in statistics at the end of the week to the district leader, who compiled them for the zone leader, who sent them on up the line. Not all of our statistical categories were so well defined. For example, we were expected to report the number of investigators, under the categories of “individuals” and “families.” Everybody seemed to count it differently. Suppose you were teaching a family of five and one single person. Depending on who you talked to, that counts as: 1 family and 1 individual; 2 families and 1 individual; 2 families and 6 individuals; 1 family and 5 individuals; 1 family and 6 individuals, and so on. And no clear definition of what counts as an investigator, or whether we count children under 8. I remember one companion who actually obsessed about whether a single parent with children counted as a “family,” or if both a mother and father was required. Every time I got a new companion, he seemed astonished that I was counting differently that he had. They all claimed to have never heard of anyone who counted any other way, even though it seemed like every one of my companions counted differently from each other. Some of them insisted they had heard directly from the president that his way of counting was correct. One or two implied that I had been fudging the numbers to make us look good. I would just sigh and start counting the way my companion wanted.
I’m sure someone in the mission home was making wise decisions based on those numbers, but they might as well have used a random number generator.
Since I am visiting my mother, I brought out my grandfather’s mission journal from Australia, 1916-1917. In the back of the journal, he pasted in categories cut from a printed form, and then carefully ruled in his own lines to form a table to record his monthly numbers. I could provide a photograph, but I don’t think I can post a photo in a comment.
The categories are:
Hours spent– (a) Tracting; (b) Visiting Investigators; (c) Studying Gospel Subjects; (d) Attending Meetings; (e) Visiting Saints; (f) Gospel Conversations
Number of Gospel Conversations
Families visited in tracting
Invitations in while tracting
Families of Investigators Visited (not tracting)
Literature distributed– (a) Books of Mormon; (b) Standard Church Works; (c) Other Books; (d) Pamphlets; (e) Tracts
Meetings held– (a) Hall; (b) Open-air; (c) Priesthood; (d) Cottage; (e) Fast
Baptisms
Confirmations
Children blessed
Investigators found
Expenses
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Some observations:
It’s not identical to the categories used in the Central States mission, but there are some similarities, particularly in phrasing: gospel conversations, open air, standard church works.
What’s the difference between tracts and pamphlets? He typically distributed several hundred tracts per month, but usually only about ten pamphlets.
He distributed only five Books of Mormon on his whole mission. That’s exponentially less than we typically placed on my 1978-80 mission. I wonder why so few? He distributed usually 2-3 “other books” per month. What other books, I wonder, and why did they distribute “other books” in preference to only five Books of Mormon and no “standard church works”?
He records zero baptisms for his mission, but one confirmation. I guess that is the number of ordinances he personally performed, rather than the number of investigators baptized and confirmed.
[edited to add Left Field’s picture — AEP]
That’s really cool, Left Field. If you want to send a photo, I can post it in a comment — that has to be done by my end, though, rather than by commenters.
A few points I can respond to:
A tract was usually a one-page (often not even printed on both sides) sheet — more like what we’d call a flier today — with a little bit about whatever gospel principle was being promoted, and the meeting time and place in a given community. They could be cheaply produced, and since missionaries were paying for their own materials, cheap was more attractive than expensive for first contacts. These were often distributed on the street to anyone who would take one without the elder even introducing himself, or to leave with whoever spoke with them briefly at a door while tracting.
Pamphlets were multi-page items, which went into greater detail about a gospel principle. They were more expensive to produce, not just because they were larger but because they had to be stapled. Elders were more discriminating in distributing them — somebody had to have shown at least some interest or willingness to read before they were given out.
The Book of Mormon was not used very extensively as a missionary tool, until about this very time when the Northern States Mission began pushing them and challenging other missions to do the same. Elders very often (well, relatively speaking) *loaned* a copy of the Book of Mormon to people who expressed an interest in reading it, but they didn’t give them away (again, that came out of their pockets). They did sell them if somebody wanted to buy, but again, that was more of an investment than the casual contact would be interested in making.
The “standard church works” were things specifically published by and promoted by the Church — Jesus the Christ, and the Articles of Faith, once they became available. Some of the Deseret Book advertisements designated “standard church works” from different eras. Again, they were as expensive, relatively speaking, as such books are today — there were cheap editions, but nothing like today’s paperbacks — so somebody really had to be interested to be willing to buy them.
On the other hand, things like “A Friendly Discussion,” “Mr. Durrant of Salt Lake City,” “Cowley’s Talks on Doctrine,” etc., which were really just very fat pamphlets, stapled or glued rather than bound, were the “small books” — the “other books” — being offered. They were far cheaper than real books so semi-interested people would buy them, just as you might be curious enough about some talked-about but little-known group today to pay $1 to learn about when you wouldn’t pay $5.
It boils down to the smaller/the cheaper/the easiest to read being more popular for the elders who had to pay for or sell these things, and the level of interest of the purchaser limiting what he was willing to pay for.