History & Leaders

This category focuses primarily on the history of the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, its founders, leaders and major personalities.

The following articles document events, books, teachings and decisions the organization’s founders and their successors made, implemented and enforced. They guided the Watchtower and Jehovah’s Witnesses through the end of the 19th and all of the 20th centuries. While there is very little left of their original teachings and practices, those influences are still felt and frequently referenced. Most modern Jehovah’s Witnesses have little real knowledge of the origins of their religion but still hold many of the founders up as examples of “great and righteous men” who promoted “the truth” and acted “under the influence of Jehovah’s holy spirit.”