Modern Inventions Used to Publish the Good News

100 YEARS

WOULD you have enjoyed living 100 years ago? Certainly life was very different then. There was no electricity in the homes, no radio, no TV. There were no automobiles on the streets. Travel was by horse-drawn coach, steam train or ship​—no planes. Instead of three to seven hours to cross the Atlantic, it took two to three weeks. But it also marked a period of great inventions that would soon change the old way of life.

‘In Six Months It Will Be a Lot of Junk’

The year 1884 was special for several reasons. Interestingly, the history book The People’s Chronology carries two significant references for that year. The first states: “The Linotype typesetting machine patented by German-American mechanic Ottmar Mergenthaler, 30, will revolutionize newspaper composing rooms.” The second is: “The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society is founded by Charles Taze Russell to publish his books, pamphlets, and periodicals. Russell . . . preaches that the world is on the brink of annihilation in a monstrous battle of Armageddon.”

What relationship could there be between these two historical items? During 36 years, from 1884 onward, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society had millions of Bible publications printed by outside printers. But in 1920 the Society decided to do its own magazine printing. This advance also meant that eventually Linotype typesetters had to be acquired. Mergenthaler’s 1884 invention for quicker type composition had been a boon to the printing trade and now it was an enormous aid in speeding up the publishing of the good news.

In 1922 the Society decided to do its own printing of books and Bibles. Local printers and bookbinders were not impressed. A report states: “A complete outfit of typesetting, electroplating, printing and binding machinery, most of it new, was obtained. The president of one important printing concern that had been doing much of the Society’s work saw the equipment and said: ‘Here you are with a first-class printing establishment on your hands, and nobody around the place that knows a thing about what to do with it. In six months the whole thing will be a lot of junk; and you will find out that the people to do your printing are those that have always done it.’”

Was that businessman’s pessimism vindicated? To the contrary, the volunteer workers at the Society’s headquarters learned fast. At first they could only bind 2,000 books a day. By 1927 that figure had risen to 12,000 a day​—but with one further advantage! When the books were printed by outside firms they were costing the public 50 to 75 cents. Off the Society’s presses, and printed by volunteer laborers, the books were produced and distributed for 25 cents each! Was the purpose that of making profits? The above figures speak for themselves.

The Advent of Phonographs and Movies

In 1887 Thomas Edison invented the first motor-driven phonograph playing cylindrical wax records. In that same year Emile Berliner went one better by using a flat disc and a horizontally moving needle. Thus was born the phonograph, or record player. Parallel to this there were great strides in the making of motion pictures. In 1896 the United States witnessed its first public screening of a silent movie.

Just 16 years later the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society made use of these two inventions to give more impetus to the preaching of the Kingdom message. In 1912 work was started on an ambitious pioneering project. The publication Where Else but Pittsburgh! said of it: “The first epic motion picture. It was called ‘The Photo-Drama of Creation,’ and although it appeared 15 years before other sound pictures were produced, it offered a combination of motion and still pictures synchronized with a recorded lecture. It was in four parts, running a total of eight hours, and was viewed by some 8,000,000 people.” It served to give a tremendous witness from 1914 onward.

Marconi’s Invention Transmits Good News

Guglielmo Marconi received the first wireless signal from across the Atlantic in 1901. But it was not until 1920 that KDKA, the world’s first radio station to operate on a daily schedule, began to broadcast from East Pittsburgh. So what a surprise for many in the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware when in April 1922 they heard the voice of J. F. Rutherford, then president of the Watch Tower Society, presenting a lecture with the theme “Millions Now Living Will Never Die.” The novelty of it all can be seen from the headline in the Philadelphia Record: “Judge Rutherford’s Lecture Broadcasted from Metropolitan Opera House. Talks into Transmitter. Message is Carried Over Miles of Bell Telephone Wires to Howlett’s [Radio] Station.”

The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society was quick to see the possibilities for rapid transmission of the Kingdom message by radio, which was growing in popularity. Thus in 1922 the Society purchased land on Staten Island, New York City, to build its own radio station. A government license was obtained and the Society’s station was assigned the call letters WBBR. The first broadcast was made on Sunday, February 24, 1924.

This was just the beginning of the Watch Tower Society’s use of radio. By 1925 another radio station, call sign WORD, was broadcasting Bible truth from Batavia, Illinois. Eventually worldwide networks of radio stations were set up to broadcast recorded Bible programs and discourses. By 1933, the peak year, 408 stations were being used to carry the message to six continents!

In 1957, after 33 years of broadcasting, the Society sold WBBR. Why the change of policy? Because there were now many congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the area covered by the station, and they were able to give a more effective person-to-person witness by calling at the homes of the people. (Acts 20:20) Furthermore, the station and programs tied up manpower and money that could be better used in other ways, especially in the missionary field. For similar reasons television has been used sparingly.

Preaching With Phonographs

The use of records on the radio led to another innovation​—preaching from house to house with the phonograph! In 1934 the Watch Tower Society promoted this use of portable phonographs and 78-rpm discs for house-to-house preaching, using a brief Bible message. Special lightweight portable phonographs were designed at the Society’s Brooklyn headquarters and 20,000 were manufactured at the Brooklyn plant! So when the Society withdrew from the use of commercial radio stations in 1937, the phonograph work helped to bridge the gap.

However, by 1944 Jehovah’s Witnesses had become more qualified in personal presentations of oral sermons, so the phonograph work was phased out. Like radio, that invention had served its purpose.

A Unique System

Just as the Linotype typesetter had been a revolutionary boon to the printing world in 1884, so was the combination of offset printing and phototypesetting that gathered momentum in the 1960’s. Practically overnight, photocomposition made the hot-lead typesetting process obsolete. To illustrate the advantage of phototypesetting, a 600-page book that would normally have taken a year to typeset by the old method was phototypeset in 12 hours!

The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society was watching developments in this field and entered phototypesetting when most of the problems had been worked out of the system. Since 1978 the Society has been printing on rotary offset presses and has developed its own multilanguage computerized, prepress system called MEPS, or Multilanguage Electronic Phototypesetting System.a It is one of the most advanced, fully automated prepress systems in the world.

Why has the Society become deeply involved in computerization, to the point of having its own research laboratory? The prestigious Seybold Report on Publishing Systems gives a clue, saying: “The extraordinary multi-lingual requirements of Watchtower would have meant a great deal of customization, perhaps even redesign, for any vendor. . . . The Watchtower’s printing and publishing operations produce hundreds of millions of copies of books and pamphlets each year. The fact that these publications are produced in scores of different languages for worldwide distribution is the cause of some unusual typesetting problems.”

These problems are being resolved by Jehovah’s Witnesses to the point that by January 1, 1985, the Watchtower magazine’s contents will be published simultaneously in most major languages. With this tremendous advance, over 90 percent of the world readership will be getting vital Bible information at the same time.

Another Helpful Aid

For many years a serious barrier in many countries has been illiteracy or semiliteracy. This has prevented many sincere people from getting to know the Bible personally. Although the Watch Tower Society has sponsored literacy classes for decades all over the world, it saw the need of making use of yet other technological advances to spread Bible knowledge​—tape recorders and tape cassettes. Therefore the Society set up a tape-duplication department in Brooklyn, starting in 1978. Since then, over 18 million cassette recordings have been produced!

Recording studios were prepared for the special needs of recording Bible readings, Bible dramas and Christian music. As a consequence all the congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses around the world can sing their Christian songs to the same recorded piano music. There are also symphonic versions of this same music, called Kingdom Melodies, that are popular worldwide. Many people, including the blind, are getting a deeper appreciation of the Bible from listening to the cassette recordings of Bible books in their own languages, in addition to having available publications in Braille.

Recently, a Florida businessman who sells tape-manufacturing machinery wrote the following after visiting the Watch Tower Society’s tape-duplicating complex: “Needless to say, I was quite impressed by your complete operation. I have never seen a factory as clean and as efficient as yours. I suppose people work better and take more pride in what they are doing when they have a different means of motivation other than money.”

The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society’s 100-year record proves that it has made good use of new inventions to accomplish its chartered purpose to preach the good news of God’s Kingdom government worldwide. But this has not been without violent opposition from religious and political enemies. It is a unique story of religious persecution on a world scale, as you will see from the following articles.

[Footnotes]

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These inventions were used to spread the Kingdom message

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Advances in technology have had a worldwide effect