Lebanon Swedish Lutheran Church, Bristol, Conn. 101.

Lebanon Swedish Lutheran Church, Bristol, Conn. 101.

Pictured is a quiet residential street with two houses and a small, Neo-Gothic frame church. 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. The city of Bristol, a center of watch and clock-making, saw a large influx of Swedish immigrants during the last decades of the 19th century and into the early 20th. This group was quick to establish this Lutheran parish in 1887 as well as a Congregational church in Bristol. The Lebanon Lutherans built this structure in 1891. It presently houses the Salvation Army, which has altered the structure beyond recognition. [source: historicbuildingsct.com]