Village Preaching, Kanigiri, South India.

Informative preaching sessions in villages were usually held in the central part of the villages by American and British missionaries. Postcards like this one were used to raise funds in their home countries to build churches and provide social and educational services. Today there are 24 million Indian Christians in India (according to 2007 census), most of them being descendants of those converted by missionaries.

This card was actually printed in Japan and shows the diffuse coloring style and red and green tones characteristic of Japanese cards, which liked to emphasize their painted watercolor effect in portions of the print. The Japanese also hand painted 19th century albumen photographs with great expertise.