A department in the General Conference whose officers, a director, and associate directors, in an advisory capacity, coordinate the various phases of the denomination’s literature ministry, both production and distribution throughout the world field. These officers are members of the General Conference Executive Committee. The World Literature Ministry Coordinating Board, consisting of all division presidents, publishing department directors, selected publishing house managers, the president, secretary, and treasurer of the General Conference is chaired by a General Conference vice president, with the General Conference Publishing Department director serving as secretary. This board coordinates interdivision publishing products, appropriates funds for special equipment purchase, initiates the translation and printing of Ellen G. White books in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and promotes cooperation between publishing houses in order to prevent duplication of effort.
Each local and union conference or corresponding organization and each division has a publishing director to foster the work of the publishing department within his/her area of operation. The conference publishing director and associate directors supervise the literature evangelists (colporteurs) within their areas.
The General Conference Publishing Department in its present form dates from 1902. But long before there was a General Conference or a local conference organization, or even an organized church, the pioneers of the Adventist movement began to publish “a little paper,” then tracts, and later books. As the developing church took shape, the publishing work was considered an integral part of the activities of the body, and it often was referred to as the “publishing department” of the church before organization as such.
The Early “Publishing Department” of the Church. When the Seventh-day Adventist pioneers went forward in faith to set forth in print the reason for the hope that was in them, they were in the line of a great tradition. Ever since the invention of printing and the appearance of the first Gutenberg Bible the printing press had been closely allied with the work of giving the gospel. It was the publication of pamphlets, books, and periodicals that gave strength and solidity to the Millerite movement, to which the early Seventh-day Adventist leaders had belonged.
Five years after the first little group of Adventists began to observe the Sabbath, when the total number of adherents was probably only about 100, and before they ever had a church or conference organization, James White launched a publishing enterprise that was to play an integral part in establishing the members of the new movement in the fundamentals of the developing Seventh-day Adventist faith and in welding these adherents into a strong church. It was in 1848 that Ellen White said to her husband, James: “You must begin to print a little paper and send it out to the people. Let it be small at first; but as the people read, they will send you means with which to print, and it will be a success from the first. From this small beginning it was shown to me to be like streams of light that went clear round the world” ( LS 125).
The first publication issued in response to this counsel was the Present Truth, in 1849, whose present successor, the Adventist Review (formerly Review and Herald ) (1850), has through the years been the denominational organ. In July 1849 penniless James White took the copy for the first issue of The Present Truth to a Middletown, Connecticut, printer, had 1,000 copies printed on credit, and then borrowed the horse and buggy of Albert Belden to carry the printed sheets home to Rocky Hill. There a little group of pioneers folded, wrapped, and addressed them, then gathered around and earnestly asked God’s benediction on the little pile of papers as they went on their initial mission. White then placed the entire edition in a carpetbag and walked the eight miles (13 kilometers) to the Middletown post office to send out the product of his faith. When the people read they sent in means with which to print, as he had hoped, so that little by little the circulation expanded. The Present Truth gave place in August 1850 to The Advent Review and in November of the same year to the Second Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, which has been generally known by its short title, the Review and Herald , now the Adventist Review.
James White’s publishing enterprise, although undertaken on his own responsibility, was carried on from the first as an evangelistic project of the embryo church. The local group in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, had helped fold and address the first issues of the Present Truth in 1849. Donations from the scattered members supported the work, for the Review and Herald and the pamphlets were distributed free at first. The publishing work moved with the Whites in succession to Oswego, New York; Auburn, New York; Paris, Maine; Saratoga Springs, New York; Rochester, New York; then to Battle Creek, Michigan.
In Rochester in 1852 the papers and tracts were first printed on equipment owned by the members—a small press and a font of type bought for $652.93, raised by donations. Then quarters were found for the office, which until that time had been in the dwelling in which the Whites and their helpers lived as one family. In 1853 prices were put upon the tracts, which ended the dependence on freewill offerings to defray the operating expenses and furnish the workers with little more than room and board. The next year the Review was priced at $1 a volume.
But the sacrifices made for the cause by the editor and the workers were not sufficient to keep the publishing project going without further fund-raising. Finally in 1855 White appealed for help. Because of failing health, he wished to relinquish his responsibilities to a representative group of men. The publishing office was, he reminded them, the property of the church. In the autumn he accepted the offer of some of the members to furnish a building for the publishing house in Battle Creek, Michigan, and to finance the move.
In October 1855 the Battle Creek committee called a “general” conference to be held on Nov. 16, to which delegates from churches in other states were invited, to choose “those Brethren who shall conduct the Review.” This conference voted to repay White for what he had put into the publishing work, above the original donations, and to name a committee to hold the press in trust for the church and to supervise the management of the Review and Herald. It named Uriah Smith as the resident editor, leaving White to act as a corresponding editor and to handle the publication of books. The following year it was proposed that the “book concern be united with the Review, as the property of the church, . . . so that no individual shall have any personal interest in the publishing department” (Review and Herald 7:168, Feb. 21, 1856). Another general conference (1856) voted, in regard to “the Church Book Fund and the Publishing Department,” that the publishing committee of the Review take this over also, and the whole church unite to remove the two debts.
These transactions relieved James White of the burden of management of the publishing house, but not of the legal responsibility for it. Although in the eyes of White and his brethren it was the property of the church as a whole, yet in the eyes of its creditors it was still White’s private enterprise, since the business had been conducted by him personally, and the church had no name and no corporate existence recognizable in law. There was at this time considerable opposition in the church to legal organization.
By 1860 this problem had to be met. “Now is the time,” wrote White, “for those who oppose legal organization, insurance, &c., to come to the rescue of the Publishing Department” ( Review and Herald 15:200, May 10, 1860). Not only the publishing house but church buildings also, held in the name of individuals, were in danger of being lost to the church through the death or the possible defection of the legal owners.
As the problem of owning and operating the “publishing department” had induced the Battle Creek church to call several general conferences from 1855 to 1860, which were intended to represent, as far as possible, the church as a whole, so it was the problem of the publishing department that precipitated the church to organize and to take a denominational name.
As a result of the 1860 conference, the name “Seventh-day Adventist” was adopted and steps were taken to create a legally recognized association. The next year, on May 3, after the legal steps had been taken, the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association was incorporated. (For the history of this association after 1860, see Review and Herald Publishing Association .) Thus the publishing department was the section of church organization that came into corporate existence first, and was the immediate cause of the organization of the church as a whole under a General Conference, which came a little later, in 1863.
After 1875, when the Pacific Press Publishing Association was formed in Oakland, California, the Review and Herald was no longer the publishing department of the church, and other presses were established in many countries. (See list under Publishing Houses .)
General Conference Publishing Department. One of the most important steps in the development and growth of the publishing work was the organization of the present General Conference Publishing Department. It originated in 1901 as a publication committee to promote interests of production and distribution of publications. W. C. White was chairman of this group; E. R. Palmer was the secretary. Then in 1902 the organization of the Publishing Department added a new and forceful impetus to this branch of denominational work throughout the world territory, and brought about closer cooperation and unity between the fields and publishing houses.
The new Publishing Department was intended to carry the work of the former International Tract and Missionary Society ( see Tract and Missionary Societies ). However, it was felt necessary by 1913 to have a separate branch of the department, with its own secretary, to promote the lay activity of distributing evangelistic publications. From 1913 to 1918 there was a Home Missionary Branch of the Publishing Department, which became in 1918 the Home Missionary Department. Thereafter, the Publishing Department was concerned with the production and sale of publications through the Adventist Book Centers, Home Health Education Services, and literature evangelists.
Department Directors (the first two called chairmen): W. C. White, 1901–1906; C. H. Jones, 1907–1909; E. R. Palmer, 1909–1913; N. Z. Town, 1913–1930; H. H. Hall, 1930–1936; C. E. Weaks, 1936–1941; H. M. Blunden, 1941–1946; W. P. Elliott, 1946–1949; G. A. Huse, 1949–1966; D. A. McAdams, 1966–1975; Bruce M. Wickwire, 1975–1980; L. A. Ramirez, 1980–1985; R. E. Appenzeller, 1985– .