Conference has evolved over years
E-mail story
It's easy. Send a link to the story you were just reading to a friend. Just fill out the form on this page and we'll send it along.
Your name and e-mail address are transmitted to the recipient. Otherwise, it is considered private information; see Privacy policy.
Imagine LDS general conference with the congregation sitting on hard benches in standing-room-only conditions with no sound system, few time constraints and a strong directive for everyone to remain until the meeting is over.
Welcome to the fall session of general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 100 years ago — Oct. 4-6, 1902.
Reports from the Deseret News for that event provide some intriguing details about how general conference was conducted a century ago.
Conference meetings inside a packed Salt Lake Tabernacle went so long that even a Deseret News reporter at the time complained about their length.
"On Saturday evening the 'News' was able to give only the briefest account of the meetings of the afternoon of that day by reason of the session continuing until after press time," it reported on Oct. 6, 1902. The afternoon session went well over two hours.
An "impromptu open air session" of conference was also held sometime that Sunday on Temple Square.
If you didn't care for long meetings, a new policy made things even more difficult in 1902. "President (Joseph F.) Smith announced that people will not hereafter be allowed to leave the Tabernacle before the services are concluded," the News reported on Oct. 4, 1902.
To enforce that, apparently the exit doors were all but locked once the meeting started.
Attendance at conference was not small a century ago. "Tabernacle was crowded beyond its capacity," the News reported on Sunday's session in the fall of 1902.
Visitors were said to come from as far away as Mexico and Canada. To accommodate the crowds, overflow meetings were held in the Assembly Hall.
John Dehnel, a KSL radio engineer, says there were no electronic sound systems in 1902. They didn't come along until the 1920s. He said conferencegoers had to rely on the Tabernacle's acoustics to hear speakers.
There also wasn't a Mormon Tabernacle Choir as we know it, but there were a Temple Choir and a Tabernacle Choir.
One hundred years ago, there weren't nearly as many general authorities as there are today, but that didn't create a shortage of speakers. Stake presidents and mission presidents routinely spoke. For example, the 1902 October conference included talks by the president of the California mission, the Southern states mission and also presidents of the Cassia and the Uintah stakes and many other local leaders.
The remarkable growth of the church was a main topic, as were missionary work and prophecies.
Other public events also competed with conference. The 1902 Utah State Fair didn't close until Saturday evening on Oct. 4, overlapping the beginning of conference.
Some things never change either. President Smith made reference to "the drouth" (drought) that was plaguing the West in 1902, though his talk was upbeat, with thanks that Utah and the church had outlasted it. Elder Reed Smoot of the Quorum of the Twelve also strongly counseled church members to stay out of debt — a theme that's still a frequent topic today.
"Every conference has its distinctive features. All are good, but some are better than others, and this appears to have been one of the very best in the history of the church," the Deseret News reported on Monday, Oct. 6, 1902.
E-mail: lynn@desnews.com
