[Large Albumen Photograph Capturing a Worship Service Inside a Baptist Church in Kansas]

[Prairie View, Ks, 1890. Good plus.. Albumen photograph, 8 x 10 inches, on a decorative mount measuring 11.5 x 13.5 inches. Bottom right corner of mount chipped, moderate staining, soiling, and foxing, minor surface wear to image. A striking large-format photograph memorializing an African American religious service inside the spacious First Baptist Church in Prairie View, Kansas in the late-19th century. The pencil annotation on the verso reads, "1st Baptist Church Prairie View, Kansas." The photograph was taken from behind and to the side of the pulpit; the scene captures a wizened preacher standing in front of a congregation comprised of about a hundred African American men and women decked out in their Sunday finest. The service may have taken place on or around the Fourth of July, as streamers converge on an American flag mounted above the lectern. It does not appear that a First Baptist Church still operates in Prairie View, which even today is a small town, with only a little over a hundred residents as of the last census. The present image captures about that many people in one African American Baptist Church a long time ago.