Origin from 1931
On 26 July 1931, at a convention of the International Bible Students Association in Columbus, Ohio, Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society president Joseph F. Rutherford presented a resolution titled A New Name to roughly fifteen thousand delegates, declaring that the organization desired to be known and called by the name Jehovah's witnesses, drawn from Isaiah 43:10. The resolution was broadcast to about 450 radio stations and greeted with applause and shouts of approval from listeners as far away as Melbourne, Australia and Japan. Two days later, on 28 July, The Messenger, a Watch Tower publication distributed at the convention, printed the new name for the first time. A preaching campaign followed built around the booklet The Kingdom, the Hope of the World, which carried the resolution's text and reached more than five million copies distributed within two and a half months to religious, government and business leaders. The adoption drew a deliberate line under the earlier Bible Student movement, some of whose members had left the organization following internal disputes after founder Charles Taze Russell's 1916 death, and gave Rutherford's followers a distinct identity independent of any older denominational label.
Facts
Dates
StatusEstablished marks this 1931 adoption of the name Jehovah's Witnesses at Columbus, Ohio, a distinct institutional milestone from Charles Taze Russell founding the Watch Tower movement in 1879 already recorded here, and earlier than Nazi Germany's persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses beginning in 1933 already recorded here. Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Ohio directly: "Students Association in Columbus, Ohio, Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society president Joseph F."
Occurred In
Spread Event Of
Adds a specific, dated institutional milestone between Charles Taze Russell founding the Watch Tower movement in 1879 and Nazi Germany's persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses beginning in 1933, both already recorded here: the 26 July 1931 convention at Columbus, Ohio, where president Joseph Rutherford presented the resolution adopting the name Jehovah's Witnesses before roughly fifteen thousand delegates and a radio audience of about 450 stations.
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