Aimee Semple McPherson: Everybody's Sister (Library of Religious Biography (LRB))

448 Pages·1993·15.579 MB·English

by  Edith L. Blumhofer

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LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY
AIMEE SEMPLE
MCPHERSON
Everybody’s Sister
EDITH L. BLUMHOFER
LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY
Edited by Mark A. Noll and Nathan O. Hatch
The LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY is a series of orig­
inal biographies on important religious figures throughout
American and British history.
The authors are well-known historians, each a recog­
nized authority in the period of religious history in which his
or her subject lived and worked. Grounded in solid research
of both published and archival sources, these volumes link the
lives of their subjects — not always thought of as "religious"
persons — to the broader cultural contexts and religious issues
that surrounded them. Each volume includes a bibliographical
essay and an index to serve the needs of students, teachers,
and researchers.
Marked by careful scholarship yet free of footnotes and
academic jargon, the books in this series are well-written nar­
ratives meant to be read and enjoyed as well as studied.
LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY
available
Billy Sunday and the Redemption of Urban America
by Lyle W. Dorsett
Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America
by Edwin S. Gaustad
The Divine Dramatist:
George Whitefield and the Rise of Modem Evangelicalism
by Harry S. Stout
William Ewart Gladstone:
Faith and Politics in Victorian Britain
by David Bebbington
Aimee Semple McPherson: Everybody's Sister
Edith L. Blumhofer
forthcoming
Thomas Jefferson
Edwin S. Gaustad
Charles G. Finney and the Spirit of American Evangelicalism
Charles Hambrick-Stowe
Emily Dickinson: The Fate of Theology in American Culture
Roger Lundin
Aimee Semple McPherson
Everybody's Sister
Edith L. Blumhofer
W illiam B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
G rand Rapids, Michigan
Copyright © 1993 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
255 Jefferson Ave. S.E., Grand Rapids, Mich. 49503
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Reprinted 1998
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Blumhofer, Edith Waldvogel.
Aimee Semple McPherson : everybody's sister / Edith L. Blumhofer.
p. cm. — (Library of religious biography)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8028-0155-2 (paper)
ISBN 0-8028-3752-2 (cloth)
1. McPherson, Aimee Semple, 1890-1944. 2. Evangelists — United
States — Biography. 3. International Church of the Foursquare
Gospel — Clergy — Biography. 4. Pentecostal churches — United
States — Clergy — Biography. I. Title. II. Series.
BX7990.I68M32 1993
289.9 —dc20
[B] 93-39149
CIP
The author and publisher wish to thank the following for help in obtaining
and permission to use the photos in this volume:
• The Chatauqua Institution Archives for the photo on page 197.
• The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel for the photos on
pages 53, 78, 93, 114, 116, 118, 119, 123, 124, 125, 128, 130, 171, 179, 204,
233, 239, 241, 254, 260, 261, 263, 268, 279, 292, 306, 310, 321, 345, 348, 351,
356, 360, 377, 407, and 419.
• Roberta Semple Salter for the photos on pages 40 and 273.

Contents
Foreword, by Nathan O. Hatch ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1. Beginnings 23
2. The Pivot 60
3. Full Time 95
4. Itinerating 135
5. The Foursquare Gospel 181
6. Content 201
7. Angelus Temple 232
8. Angry Surges Roll 281
9. Regrouping 324
AIMEE SEMPLE McPHERSON
10. Finishing the Course 359
Epilogue 383
A Note on the Sources 394
Appendix: Excerpts from The Bridal Call
“Motion Picture Actor Converted" 406
“Delivered from a Living Death" 418
Index 427
viii
Foreword
Aimee Semple McPherson was an American phenomenon.
During the 1920s, a decade of larger-than-life celebrities and of
mass excitement, she rocketed to public attention as a religious
celebrity not unlike such other cultural icons as Babe Ruth and
Knute Rockne, Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindberg, Douglas
Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. A barnstorming evangelist —
often called the female Billy Sunday — Sister Aimee developed
a mass audience from Canada to Florida, from the eastern
seaboard to California.
By the early 1920s, the allure of the Golden State attracted
her to Los Angeles, where her flair for publicity and blend of
piety and pageantry drew crowds by the tens of thousands.
Calling for a return to simply biblical Christianity, McPherson
strongly identified with ordinary folk, and they in turn remained
passionately loyal to her. At the same time, she intuitively under­
stood the advertising and media revolution that was transform­
ing California and the nation. The first American woman to hold
a radio broadcast license, Sister Aimee used everything from