The Salvation Army and the Public: Historical and Descriptive Essays

R. Douglas Francis is a professor of history at the University of
Calgary and co-author of Destinies: Canadian History Since
Confederation.

The Salvation Army and the Public examines how perceptions of the
organization have changed since its beginnings in England in the late
Victorian era. Today the Salvation Army conjures up images of brass
bands, committed men and women in black and red uniforms helping the
poor, Christmas kettles, and downtown hostels and rehabilitation centres
for the down-and-out. This image of a rather conservative, nurturing
group of individuals is in stark contrast to newspaper accounts of the
organization that prevailed during the first quarter of its existence.
During that period, the Salvation Army was portrayed as radical,
heretical, unchristian, and unconventional, and disparagingly referred
to as a “soup to salvation” kind of religion. Even the idea of
religious leaders posing as an “army” went against the religious
sensibilities of the day.

Moyles seeks to explain the dramatic shift in perception through a
series of 10 essays dealing with major events in the Salvation Army’s
past that created strong public reaction in the newspapers and/or
popular literature. There are essays on the Salvation Army’s fight for
the right to march, the Army and the Criminal Law Amendment Act,
opposition to Catherine Booth (founder William Booth’s daughter) in
the cantons of Switzerland, the organization’s reception in Canada and
the United States, Huxley’s attacks on the Army in the London Times,
the Army in the popular literature, the funeral oration for William
Booth, and the “Bramwell Booth Affair.”

The book has its limitations. It assumes prior knowledge of the
Salvation Army’s history (that should have been provided in an
introductory essay); without that historical context, issues in some of
the essays lack meaning. Also, the essays are not in chronological
order, so that the reader does not get a sense of the evolution of the
organization, even in terms of the changing public attitude to it over
time. In other words, the book is a collection of 10 disparate essays on
a common topic rather than an integrated study. Still, for those
interested in seeing how the Salvation Army underwent a miraculous
change in imagery over its first century, the essays make for
fascinating reading.