Protestants and Pictures

In this lavishly illustrated book David Morgan surveys the visual culture that shaped American Protestantism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries--a vast record of images in illustrated bibles Christian almanacs children''s literature popular religious books charts broadsides Sunday school cards illuminated devotional items tracts chromos and engravings. His purpose is to explain the rise of these images their appearance and subject matter how they were understood by believers the uses to which they were put and what their relation was to technological innovations commerce and the cultural politics of Protestantism. His overarching argument is that the role of images in American Protestantism greatly expanded and developed during this period.