The Story of Russell Errett's "Mrs. Partington" Caricature of David Lipscomb

Christian Standard editors Isaac and Russell Errett maintained a literary feud with Gospel Advocate editor David Lipscomb. In the late 1890s, while mission society leaders sought to establish a Tennessee branch, Lipscomb regularly criticized the society movement. Russell Errett, in turn, caricatured Lipscomb as an old woman attempting to sweep back ocean waves with a broom, a caricature widely known among Churches of Christ today. Their feud serves as a microhistory illuminating the complex factors that divided the Stone-Campbell Movement into two divergent groups by the end of the nineteenth century.