News Clippings from the "Millions" Campaign

cabasilas

Came across some news clippings from 1919-1925 that relate to the "Millions" campaign for the lecture and book "Millions Now Living Will Never Die." This gives an interesting look at the Bible Students of that era:

JW_Researcher

Thank you.

Elsewhere

"This long awaited day is not fifty, seventy five or more years hence, but is at hand." -- Ad, lower left of page 9 of 24

We are soooo far beyond even his most pessimistic estimates.

Leolaia

When I was doing my research into the life and times of W. E. Van Amburgh, I wrote to his old college to get his alumni file. It contained material that Mr. Van Amburgh submitted to the school after he left. The centerpiece was a beautiful two page spread of newspaper clippings from Van Amburgh's "Millions" lectures....much of it about what was supposed to happen in 1925. Van Amburgh mailed a copy of this collage to the college in 1924 or 1925 (I forgot the exact date), and you can tell that he took some pride in being a public figure. These articles are really interesting, and most are from small local papers otherwise unavailable today.

cabasilas

Leolaia, that sounds like fascinating stuff. What particularly got me were the early ads (April 1921) that even said that if you could live until 1925 you could live forever if you choose to. Also, the ads that personalized the "millions" claim and said that "thousands" now living in whatever town they were speaking in would live forever.

Amazing that in a few short years they would change their beliefs that only a handful of people would survive Armageddon.

M.J.

Thank you! This is awesome, and in excellent resolution.

Amazing to think that these same kooks were fulfilling half of the book of Revelation at around the same time too...

Lady Liberty

Dear Cabasilas,

Thank you!! How funny though when I recognised that link! My dad just showed me that site a couple of days ago, and I was just about to do a topic directing the friends here to it, for thier files. Isn't it amazing the literature gathered there??

Sincerely,

Lady Liberty

M.J.

If I may ask, where do all these clippings come from? Was it an old Bible Student's personal collection?

cabasilas

Actually it was from a search engine from ancestry.com. They've got a huge database there but there are holes. I haven't found any papers from the Pittsburgh area yet. There were many more similar ads but I tried to cut it down to a manageable size so that the file could be emailed, if desired.

moshe

Thank you- I was looking for some of these old newspaper ads for some handbills. Judge Rutherford wanted this message to be taken literally and now it is in the Watchtower trash can of failed promisies.

News Clippings from the "Millions" Campaign

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