The Salvation Army and ridicule

Rhetorical strategies for countering scorn and derision at the turn of the century 1900

Abstract

The Salvation Army came from England to Sweden in 1882, and rapidly became one of the leading social movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The movement’s use of colorful uniforms, popular music, and emotional preaching, and its charity to the poor and outcast, was met with both considerable enthusiasm and scathing ridicule. It is widely agreed that this movement was more ridiculed than any other in this period. The ridicule threatened both to undermine the ethos needed to
convince new members, and to discourage the members’ confidence. Using Michael Billig’s concept of “unlaughter”, my article studies the Salvation Army’s strategies to counter ridicule. I show how the movement on the one hand proactively sought to avoid ridiculousness and actively used seriousness and tears to convince, and on the other mobilized a martyr identity, for which the laughter of the opponents was a signal of their own righteousness.