About the Collection
The glass lantern slides in this collection were produced by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (1844–1939) as visual aids for promoting the denomination’s domestic and international missionary work. These hand-colored slides feature images of Brazil, Cuba, China, Russia, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Virginia. All were produced in the late 1910s or the early 1920s and bear the markings of the Board of Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, or the "Centenary Commission, M.E.C.S." The Centenary Commission raised funds for evangelistic and benevolent missionary enterprises in observance of the one-hundredth anniversary of the formation of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal church in 1819.