Swedish Congregational Church, Bristol, Conn. 96.

Swedish Congregational Church, Bristol, Conn. 96.

View of a modest, 19th-century wood frame church in a rural setting. This image is part of a series made by one of the three Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company photographers assigned to cover New England or upstate New York. The quest for images that would be saleable as postcards resulted in the documentation of small towns and small town life at the turn of the 20th century. As the photos were shot, the glass plates were promptly sent back to Belfast, Maine, and processed into postcards at the printing plant on High Street. Here the Eastern photographer has stopped to record the Swedish Congregational Church in Bristol, which appears to be on the edge of town. Like many Swedish Protestant churches in Connecticut, this one is a simple, modestly sized clapboard structure with a front projecting entranceway supporting a tower and steeple. The city of Bristol, a center of watch and clock-making, saw a large influx of Swedish immigrants around 1900. This group was quick to establish this Congregational parish as well as a Lutheran church in Bristol.