Visions of Glory:
A History and a Memory of Jehovah’s Witnesses
by BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON
SIMON AND SHUSTER NEW YORK
This is copyrighted material used by
permission of Barbara G. Harrison.
Please do not duplicate elsewhere. Feel free to link to this page.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Without the support and generosity of friends and
colleagues, and without the gift of time and space provided by the MacDowell
Colony, I could not have written this book.
For trusting me enough to share intimate details of
their lives, I thank David Maslanka, Walter Szykitka--and others who are
unnamed, but not unloved. My debt to them is very great.
For the invaluable information and advice they gave
so freely, I thank Bernard and Charlotte Atkins, Leon Friedman, Ralph deGia,
Father Robert Kennedy, Jim Peck.
For their creative research and editorial assistance,
I thank Tonia Foster and Paul Kelly-and the librarians at the Brooklyn Public
Library, who eased their task.
For their perceptive insights and criticism, which
helped me to understand not only my subject, but myself and my past, I thank
Sheila Lehman, Tom Wilson, Sol Yurick, L. L. Zeiger, and David Zeiger.
No words can express my gratitude to the members of
my family who always listened, even when their patience was
sorely tried, and who were emotional bulkwarks when I was sorely tried:
Carol Grizzuti, Dominick Grizzuti, Richard Grizzuti; and my children (who
managed, with grace, to live with my obsessions), Anna and Joshua Harrison.
For Father Michael Crimmins, Alice Hagen, and Rose
Moss, who gave me a very special kind of encouragement at a very crucial time, I
have love and regard.
And finally, I thank and esteem my editor, Alice E.
Mayhew, for her good counsel and her good work.
(Throughout this book, I have changed names and
identities to protect the privacy of those concerned.)
This book is for Arnold Horowitz
Contents
11 Organizational Beginnings: (1873-1912) Charles Taze Russell
III Waiting for the World to Die
IV Accumulating Wealth While the World Refuses to Die
VII Catholics, Mob Violence, Civil Liberties, and the Draft
IX The Heroic Opportunity and Adventure: Jehovah's Witnesses Overseas
Abbreviated Codes for Sources Frequently Cited and Additional Sources