06/04/2024
Signs of the Times: 150 Years Today!
It was June 4, 1874, when the first issue of Signs of the Times was produced in Oakland, California. Here is a brief history as reported in Streams of Light:
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The new paper was an eight-page weekly about half the size of the newspaper of today, similar in format and style to the Review of that time. For the name, Elder White thought back thirty-four years to the early days of advent preaching, when, in 1840, Joshua V. Himes printed a paper in Boston and called it The Signs of the Times. Volume 1, number 1, of the new paper was issued on June 4, 1874. Responsibility for the publication was indicated on the first page: "Elder James White, Editor and Proprietor."
Publishing was not a new venture for James White. Twenty-five years earlier he had begun printing a little paper, Present Truth. For that enterprise, he had no backing but faith and hard work. His aggressive foresight had through the intervening years met problem after problem in the growing church organization. Soon after starting the Signs he was elected to his second term (not consecutive) as president of the General Conference. At the same time he was president of the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association in Battle Creek and an editor of the Review and Herald.
The degree of faith and initiative exhibited in this Western enterprise may be gauged by reviewing the responsibilities shouldered by the tiny denomination, eleven years after its formal organization and twenty five years after the beginning of its first project, the little paper called Present Truth.
In 1874 the membership of the Seventh-day Adventist Church was 7,500, with 291 churches, 60 ordained ministers, and 67 licentiates. The ministers were not pastors, however; they were evangelists, who went from town to town and gave local congregations the benefit of their ministry only when their public meetings permitted. In that year the donations amounted to $37,181.56. The work was spread thinly over thirteen state Conferences, some of which listed memberships of less than 100.
Severe as the strain of aggressive evangelism must have been on the slender finances, the young denomination was supporting the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association in Battle Creek, which printed the Review and Herald, and the Western Health Reform Institute, founded there in 1866. In 1874 Battle Creek College was established, and the European Mission was opened, with Elder J. N. Andrews as the first missionary, a project which was soon calling for a printing house of its own. The church membership in California was less than five hundred. It was true that California was a rich state, where fortunes were won or lost at the drop of a stock quotation, but there is no evidence that any fortunes landed in the church membership. Money was raised the hard way, in small amounts, with James White leading out.
The Signs was a bold venture for Elder White, and he carried the load almost singlehanded at the beginning. He made it a major interest for seven years, until his death in 1881. His name appeared on the masthead throughout this time, except for a few issues.
The first three issues were printed by an Oakland printer, who used very small type for the first issue, larger type for the second and third numbers, as the editor pointed out in his editorial column. Then the printer sold the plant. James White bought type and rented space for setting up the forms for the fourth issue, which were delivered by wheelbarrow to an Oakland printer for the presswork. The younger White boy, Willie, now twenty years of age, did this and other jobs for $1 per day.
The next month, this statement appeared in the July 23, 1874 issue:
Through the SIGNS OF THE TIMES we wish to erect thousands of pulpits more especially in the Pacific Coast States and Territories, where we can appeal to the people weekly, when we shall be well established and in full force, upon the exhaustless themes of "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ," necessary to a fitness to receive the dear Saviour at his second advent.
For the past 150 years, Signs of the Times has continued to share Christ’s love, not just on the west coast of the United States, but around the world.
