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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio,

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Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that flips through the pages of history to deliver

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Speaker 1: old news in a new way. I'm Gabe Lucier, and

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Speaker 1: in this episode, we're searching for answers to questions that

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Speaker 1: have baffled hotel guests for more than a century. Who

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Speaker 1: or what is Gideon? And why is there Bible in

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Speaker 1: my bedside drawer? The day was November tenth, nineteen oh eight.

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Speaker 1: The first Gideon's Bibles were placed at the Superior Hotel

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Speaker 1: in Montana. If you've ever spent the night at a hotel,

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Speaker 1: especially in the US, there's a decent chance you've encountered

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Speaker 1: one of the books yourself. There's a copy in the

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Speaker 1: nightstand drawer of roughly eighty percent of American hotel rooms,

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Speaker 1: and you'll also find it, to a lesser extent at

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Speaker 1: hotels in more than one hundred and ninety other countries.

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Speaker 1: But even if you've never seen a Gideon's Bible yourself,

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Speaker 1: you've probably at least heard of it. After all, the

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Speaker 1: Beatles did give the book a pretty memorable shout out

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Speaker 1: in their nineteen sixty eight song Rocky Raccoon, Rocky Rocko.

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Speaker 1: If I'll back in his room, only too fine. Gideon's

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Speaker 1: Bible A Gideon jet down and he left it, no

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Speaker 1: doubt do help. We're good Rockies read Bible. The name

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Speaker 1: Gideon's Bible is a little confusing the first time people

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Speaker 1: hear it. Paul McCartney takes it to mean that the

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Speaker 1: hotel Bible belongs to a man named Gideon, but there's

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Speaker 1: no apostrophe in the name, which means it's plural, not possessive.

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Speaker 1: Another common theory is that the name refers to a

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Speaker 1: specific translation of the Scriptures, presumably written by someone named Gideon,

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Speaker 1: but most of the books are actually just the King

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Speaker 1: James version, the most widely known version in the world.

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Speaker 1: In reality, the name refers to Gideons International, the group

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Speaker 1: that distributes the hotel Bibles. Its members, all male missionaries

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Speaker 1: and Christian businessmen, are known as the Gideons, and they

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Speaker 1: provide the Bibles free of charge to any hotel that

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Speaker 1: agrees to place them in the rooms. Today, the organization

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Speaker 1: is best known for its Bible distribution, but the Gideons

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Speaker 1: actually existed for a full decade before the practice began.

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Speaker 1: It all started in eighteen ninety eight when two traveling

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Speaker 1: salesmen crossed paths at the Central Hotel and Bosco Belle, Wisconsin.

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Speaker 1: Their names were John Nicholson and Samuel Hill, and though

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Speaker 1: they were complete strangers, the men wound up sharing a

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Speaker 1: room that night as there was only one available. They

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Speaker 1: made the best of the awkward situation by talking about

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Speaker 1: their lives on the road, eventually finding common ground in

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Speaker 1: their Christian faith. Both men agreed there should be some

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Speaker 1: kind of association for Christian commercial travelers like themselves, and

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Speaker 1: by the next morning they decided to form one together.

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Speaker 1: One year later, Nicholson and Hill held an open meeting

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Speaker 1: at a y MCA in Janesville, Wisconsin for any traveling

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Speaker 1: business men seeking quote, mutual recognition, personal evangelism, and united

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Speaker 1: service for the Lord. Only one other person showed up

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Speaker 1: that day, a man named William J. Knights, but he

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Speaker 1: proved to be a valuable addition to the group, as

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Speaker 1: he's the one who suggested they call themselves the Gideons.

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Speaker 1: Knights took the name from an Old Testament figure in

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Speaker 1: the Book of Judges, a farmer turned prophet who leads

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Speaker 1: a small band of untrained men to victory over a

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Speaker 1: much larger army. The Gideons, as they called themselves the

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Speaker 1: International came later slowly grew their numbers over the next

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Speaker 1: few years. Most of the members frequented hotels while traveling

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Speaker 1: for work, so they started brainstorming ideas for how to

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Speaker 1: share their faith while on the road. One member, Fred Woodcock,

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Speaker 1: suggested that they take a page from the Commercial Traveler's

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Speaker 1: Christian Association, a group he came across while visiting England.

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Speaker 1: Some of its members had started leaving behind a Bible

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Speaker 1: at every hotel they stayed at, and Woodcock thought the

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Speaker 1: Gideons should do something similar. The main goal would be

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Speaker 1: to spread the Gospel to any guests who were interested

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Speaker 1: in reading it, but if the Gideons could print their

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Speaker 1: own labeled Bibles, that would be even better, as it

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Speaker 1: would help grow their membership by letting other travelers know

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Speaker 1: about the group. The biggest turtle besides the cost, would

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Speaker 1: be clearing the idea with each hotel so that the

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Speaker 1: staff didn't remove the Bible thinking it had been left

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Speaker 1: behind by mistake. The first person to put the plan

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Speaker 1: in action was a Gideon named Archie Bailey. He was

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Speaker 1: the accountant for a railroad contractor who was opening a

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Speaker 1: new route in the town of Superior, Montana, and during

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Speaker 1: the expansion, Bailey was a frequent guest at the nearby

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Speaker 1: Superior Hotel. One autumn day in nineteen o eight, he

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Speaker 1: stopped by the front desk and asked if he could

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Speaker 1: leave a Bible there for other guests to borrow. The

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Speaker 1: hotel's proprietor, Edna Wilkinson, loved the idea, and once Bailey

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Speaker 1: had explained the concept of the Gideons and their Bible

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Speaker 1: outreach plan, she told him he could place a Bible

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Speaker 1: in every room if he wanted to. Bailey gladly took

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Speaker 1: her up on the offer, using his own money to

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Speaker 1: print the first batch of Gideon's Bibles. Then, on November tenth,

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Speaker 1: he returned to the Superior Hotel and placed one of

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Speaker 1: the books in each of the twenty five rooms. It

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Speaker 1: didn't take long for the program to catch on with

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Speaker 1: his fellow Gideons, and soon the group was distributing Bibles

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Speaker 1: in bulk to hotels across the country and eventually across

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Speaker 1: the world. If you're wondering why they chose hotels specifically,

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Speaker 1: it was largely to maximize their readership. They figured that

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Speaker 1: the average which bible should stand up to about six

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Speaker 1: years of wear and tear before needing to be replaced.

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Speaker 1: So assuming a hotel room gets a new guest every night,

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Speaker 1: that's about twenty two hundred different people who might pick

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Speaker 1: up the book during its lifespan. The way it works

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Speaker 1: today is that local Gideon members will visit a newly

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Speaker 1: opened hotel and present the general manager with a Bible.

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Speaker 1: Then they'll offer to provide enough books for each room,

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Speaker 1: plus some extras for the housekeeping staff to replaces needed.

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Speaker 1: That last part is crucial because there's always the possibility

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Speaker 1: that a guest will take the book. Each copy costs

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Speaker 1: the Gideons about five dollars, so those losses do add up,

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Speaker 1: but the group still encourages people to take the Bibles

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Speaker 1: if they need them. It's also worth noting that Gideon's

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Speaker 1: Bibles aren't given out exclusively to hotels. They're also provided

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Speaker 1: to any military base, hospital, prison, nursing home, or college

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Speaker 1: campus that's willing to accept them. In total, the Gideons

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Speaker 1: have distributed more than two billion Bibles since nineteen oh eight,

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Speaker 1: all of which have been paid for entirely by donations

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Speaker 1: to the group. Today, there are approximately three hundred thousand

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Speaker 1: members worldwide, and together they place more than a million

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Speaker 1: Bibles in hotel rooms each year. That said, the number

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Speaker 1: of hotels accepting Gideon's Bibles has dropped steeply in the

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Speaker 1: last two decades, about twenty percent since two thousand and six.

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Speaker 1: One reason for that decline is the growing secularization of

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Speaker 1: the US and other countries. It's simply more controversial than

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Speaker 1: it once was to stock a room with religious materials unprompted.

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Speaker 1: There's also the question of practicality. In a world where

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Speaker 1: anyone so inclined can access a Bible on their phone, tablet, laptop,

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Speaker 1: or even their watch, is it worth the time and

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Speaker 1: money to keep a physical copy in every room. The

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Speaker 1: Gideons seem to be grappling with that question themselves, as

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Speaker 1: they recently announced a period of quote refocusing and rebalancing

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Speaker 1: for their ministry. They say that distributing Bibles was never

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Speaker 1: intended to be their main focus, just as it wasn't

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Speaker 1: during the group's first decade of existence. But whatever other

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Speaker 1: projects the Gideons may launch, they still plan to keep

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Speaker 1: placing Bibles in the US and abroad for many years

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Speaker 1: to come, whether anyone reads them or not. I'm Gabe

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Speaker 1: Luesier and hopefully you now know a little more about

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Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. You can learn even

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Speaker 1: more about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and

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Speaker 1: Instagram at TDI HC Show, and if you have any

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Speaker 1: comments or suggestions, feel free to send them my way

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Speaker 1: by writing to this Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks

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Speaker 1: to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thanks to

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Speaker 1: you for listening, and I'll see you back here again

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Speaker 1: soon for another Day in History class. The interspected to

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Speaker 1: be the