Get Right with God at the Anderson Campaign Tabernacle, Coatesville, Pa., 1914

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the theme of church, chapel, or any other religious building.

Caption: "Get Right with God." Painted on the side of the building: "Anderson Campaign Ta[bernacle]."

This is a real photo postcard with a photomontage consisting of five giant heads peering over the top of a large wooden building. "Get Right with God" is the admonition at the top, and the sign on the building identifies it as the "Anderson Campaign Tabernacle."

I also have a second copy of this card that has the name of a photographer -- "D. W. Faulk, 7 Second Ave., Coatesville, Pa." -- embossed on it.

A different version of this real photo postcard that I spotted online is captioned, "Be Sure Your Sins Will Find You Out," with the location given as "Coatesville, Pa." On the back of all three of the photo postcards is a Noko stamp box design (with "NOKO" on all four sides) that indicates a time frame ranging from 1907 to 1929.

After some searching, I discovered that "Anderson" refers to George Wood Anderson, a minister who ran some of his first large-scale revival meetings in a tabernacle building in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, in 1914. As reported in the Christian Advocate, December 3, 1914, p. 36:

"The Rev. George Wood Anderson, pastor of Elm Park Church, Scranton, Pa., has been conducting for six weeks an evangelistic campaign at Coatesville, Pa., an industrial town of 11,000 people. The service has been carried on in a tabernacle specially constructed. The local paper tabulates results, showing total attendance 140,700, with 2,208 conversions.... Beginning next spring, Dr Anderson will leave the regular pastorate, to devote his life to evangelism, in obedience to an impulse which he has long felt."

A later photo of the "George Wood Anderson Evangelistic Party" appeared in the Christian Workers Magazine, May 1916, p. 712, and allowed me to identify some of the giant heads on this photo card. That's George Wood Anderson himself on the left, his wife Nellie Anderson next to him, and Miss Agnes Smith, director of women's work, in the middle. The man on the right is Carl Leonard, business manager, but I haven't been able to determine who the man next to him is.

George Wood Anderson went on to build tabernacles in other states to continue his revival campaigns. A recent Facebook posting by the Logan County History Center, for instance, describes his evangelistic services and provides photos of tabernacles in Bellefontaine and Belle Center, Ohio.