page_title: Sunday School (LDS Church)
section_title: Deseret Sunday School Union
hierarchical_section_title: Sunday School (LDS Church) / History / Deseret Sunday School Union
caption_attribution_description: Evergreen boughs, garlands, and banners decorate the interior of the Salt Lake Tabernacle for the July 1875 Deseret Sunday School Union Pioneer Day celebration. Note the fountain at the center of the seating area, directly under the central chandelier. This image is the subject of an academic paper, due to its unique depiction of this event: Ronald W. Walker, Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, James S. Lambert. (2003) "Salt Lake Tabernacle Interior Photograph: Sabbath School Union Jubilee, July 1875," BYU Studies, Vol 42, No 2, Brigham Young University.
context_page_description: Sunday School is an official organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). All members of the church and any interested nonmembers, age 12 and older, are encouraged to participate in Sunday School.
context_section_description: Anxious to bring a standard structure and organization to the over 200 independent Sunday schools that had been created, LDS Church president Brigham Young ordered that a union of the Sunday schools be carried out. On November 11, 1867, Young and church leaders Daniel H. Wells, George A. Smith, Wilford Woodruff, George Q. Cannon, and Brigham Young, Jr. met and organized the Parent Sunday School Union. Young appointed Cannon as the first general superintendent of the Sunday School, a position he would hold until his death in 1901. In 1872, the Sunday School organization was renamed the Deseret Sunday School Union.
  The organized Sunday School addressed lesson topics and source materials, grading, prizes and rewards, use of hymns and songs composed by members of the church, recording and increasing the attendance, developing an elementary catechism, and libraries. It also sponsored the publication of administrative guidelines and materials for classroom use, resulting in increased uniformity lesson content.
  Until the turn of the century, only children were taught by the Sunday School. Eventually, classes were added for the youth of the church; in 1904, an adult Sunday School class was created.
caption: The interior of the Salt Lake Tabernacle as decorated for the Deseret Sunday School Union's July 1875 Pioneer Day celebration.
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