Popular Amusements: Destructive & Constructive

"Vast crowds are losing their heads over games and live for nothing else" (7).

Cloth 12mo, 233pp. VG+ with light toning, rubbing to tips and mottling to textblock edges only. In a VG- dust jacket with light general soil/discoloration and shallow chipping at the corners and spine ends.

An evangelical Christian assessment of "Popular Amusements" in the United States, intended to inspire "an aversion for destructive and unclean amusement" among "young people or those of more mature minds." The authors take turns deriding "destructive" amusements, like the theater, of which they say, "its mission is to hold the mirror up to nature and that nature is a cesspool." Acceptable "Christian recreation" is limited to educational and morally fortifying pursuits, including Chautauqua initiatives, radio clubs and baseball.

"Cokesbury Press" was adopted around 1923 to centralize Methodist publications and expand their appeal beyond denominational lines. The nondescript name was intended to, "increase the sale of books written by Southern Methodist authors, bring a greater financial return to them, and act as a stimulus to the production of more books and better books by our own writers." (Announcement in the Virginia Conference Annual, 1923)