In the late nineteenth century, Utah Territory was increasingly flooded with “stage loads” of East Coast fiction and novelettes that Church leaders feared would poison the minds of Latter-day Saint youth. To combat this influx of “Gentile” literature, Apostle George Q. Cannon founded the Juvenile Instructor Office in 1866, a private printing press dedicated to producing wholesome, faith-promoting “home literature” for children and converts. A fascinating new interview over at the Latter-day Saint history blog, From the Desk, features independent historian Craig S. Smith, who discusses his comprehensive new book on the Juvenile Instructor Office. Smith unpacks how Cannon’s private family venture grew to rival the Church-owned Deseret News, birthed the iconic “Faith-Promoting Series,” and ultimately laid the historical and institutional groundwork for the modern Deseret Book Company.
Banish the Novels
George Q. Cannon was arguably the most influential Latter-day Saint leader of the late 19th century besides Brigham Young. Drawing on his vast experience publishing the Millennial Star in England and the Hawaiian Book of Mormon, Cannon sought to create a publication that could supplement Sunday School teachings. He was fiercely anti-fiction, writing in an early editorial:
“As you value your children’s future, banish novels from your habitations. Discourage the reading of fiction. It poisons the mind; it destroys the memory; it wastes valuable time; it warps the imagination…”
Brigham Young was highly supportive of this endeavor. In fact, Young instructed his son, Brigham Young Jr. (who was presiding over the European Mission), to procure specialized woodcuts and engravings from printing houses in London and send them back with returning missionaries specifically for Cannon’s new “children’s paper.”
Breaking the Deseret News Monopoly
One of the most surprising historical details Smith highlights is the intense, in-house business rivalry between Cannon’s private Juvenile Instructor Office and the Church-owned Deseret News. Because Cannon actively invested in new, superior printing equipment, his office soon outpaced the Deseret News in capability and efficiency.
This rivalry came to a head in 1881 when John Morgan, head of the Southern States Mission, requested bids to print missionary pamphlets. Cannon’s nephew and manager, George C. Lambert, submitted a bid that was one-sixth the cost of the quote provided by the Deseret News.
After the leading authorities of the Church, who were paying for the printing of the tracts, saw that Lambert’s bid was a sixth of the others’, they immediately launched an investigation into the large discrepancy. President John Taylor visited Lambert to confirm the pricing and, once satisfied, hired the Juvenile Instructor Office to do the printing, saying he wanted to teach the Deseret News a lesson.
Absolute Control and “Faulty Doctrine”
Despite its success, the Juvenile Instructor Office was a family dynasty tightly controlled by George Q. Cannon. When his nephew George C. Lambert requested a formal partnership and one-third ownership, Cannon refused. He wanted “absolute control” so he wouldn’t be answerable to anyone if the business failed, ultimately buying Lambert out for $5,000 and installing his own son, Abraham H. Cannon, as manager.
However, Cannon’s absolute control sometimes slipped due to his overwhelming duties, such as his role as Utah’s territorial representative in Washington, D.C. At one point, John W. Young (a counselor in the First Presidency) complained that the magazine was slipping from its high ideals and publishing “fiction and faulty doctrine.” When President John Taylor reviewed the files, he found that a serialized travelogue called “A Trip Around the World” by George M. Ottinger did indeed contain fiction, as Ottinger was writing about places he had never actually visited!
The Legacy of Deseret Book
In 1879, the press launched the “Faith-Promoting Series,” which included classics like Wilford Woodruff’s Leaves from My Journal. This series forever altered how Latter-day Saints write and share personal history, establishing the genre of faith-promoting biography that dominates the Latter-day Saint market today. (Though one wonders what Cannon would think about Deseret Book’s large catalogue of fiction novels these days.)
By August 1900, Cannon sold his family’s printing business to the Church. He reasoned that it was inappropriate for two members of the First Presidency to run competing printing enterprises. The bookstore side of the Juvenile Instructor Office was renamed the Deseret Sunday School Union Bookstore. Two decades later, in 1920, it merged with the Deseret News bookstore to officially become the Deseret Book Company.
For more insights into the massive publishing output of the Cannon family, the tragic early death of Abraham H. Cannon, and the financial strain of printing Orson F. Whitney’s massive History of Utah, head on over to the Latter-day Saint history blog, From the Desk, to read the full interview with Craig S. Smith about the Juvenile Instructor.
While you’re there, check out the new Wilford Woodruff page!
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