A quick one for a holiday weekend:
On this day in 1865, a former Methodist minister established in London the forerunner of an organization that expanded to America fifteen years later, after changing its name to the one we know it by today. Among its interesting features were a belief in the power of music, and its provision for absolute equality of women within its organization. When the founder died in 1912, Vachel Lindsay wrote a moderately famous poem imagining his entry into the afterworld.
Although its most dramatic and visible impacts on American culture were in the first half of the twentieth century, the organization is still quite busy today.
What’s the name the organization eventually took?
As usual, answer without Googling or consulting your great-grandmother, who is trying to watch The Osbornes in peace. First correct answer posted to comments wins a Sanrio "Bad Badtz-Maru" eraser holder.
Posted by BT at July 05, 2002 10:12 AMCanada?
Posted by: boxjam on July 5, 2002 10:32 AMThe Lions? Rotary? Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band?
Posted by: Rory in Wien on July 5, 2002 10:43 AMThe Red Cross?
The Salvation Army?
The Christian Scientists?
Alexander's Ragtime Band?
Urantia?
DAR?
International Fellowship of Oddfellows?
Elks?
Moose?
Lions?
Vermin?
During my sophomore year in high school we were asked to go home and ask our parents who their favorite poet is. My father really didn't have a fave, so he pulled Vachel Lindsay out of his memory. I reported VL to my teacher the next day. The teacher replied that VL was a lousy poet.
Well, everybody but Kiwanis is taken. I'll take them.
I mean, I guess the Shriners are left too, but the part about 'equality of women'...I'm not even going to bother typing "Shriners."
Posted by: boxjam on July 5, 2002 12:09 PMWell, my money was on the Salvation Army, but I've been outpaced by hours...
Posted by: KF on July 5, 2002 02:28 PMMultiple guesses in the same post strike me as not-quite-cricket, but I should know better than to try to impose order on this unruly mob. Gavin got it in first: the smart money indeed had the Salvation Army -- founded by William Booth, an evangelical preacher whose outfit, originally called the Christian Revival Association, adopted a military drag and eventually took on the martial monicker we know it by today. An interesting early sendup is "Captain Shout, S.A."; and of course there's Major Barbara, in which G.B. Shaw suggests the organization is a perfectly tuned instrument of social control.
I'm sorry you had a toad of an English teacher, teenidol. Lindsay may not have been to the taste of everyone who thinks The Waste Land to be the last word in twentieth-century verse, but Charles Freaking Ives set Lindsay's poem about Booth to music, and I think that's enough to command a little respect.
Posted by: BT on July 5, 2002 03:25 PMmajor barbara is a great play. really rocked my world when i read it at the tender age of fifteen. along with brave new world. those two books, along with the persian gulf war, made me give up on trying to make the world a better place.
Posted by: mlang on July 6, 2002 09:45 AMThe Mickey Mouse Club?
i am too stupid to be at this website :(
Posted by: shauny on July 6, 2002 07:06 PMShuany, please consider all of the Americans on this end who took part of a precious 4-day weekend in summer to post, answer and comment on the origin of the Salvation Army.
Then ask yourself if "too stupid to be at this website" is a category that could really be said to apply to anyone.
Posted by: BT on July 7, 2002 09:49 PM