Shining Lights: Magic Lanterns and the Missionary Movement, 1839—1868

Leaving a Legacy

Tracing the remediation of Samuel and Dandeson’s magic lantern shows ultimately gestures to the ways in which African missionaries were reinscribed within European narratives of education, civilization, and submission to British rule. The published accounts of their missionary efforts downplay the extent to which they made significant contributions to magic lantern as part of the missionary movement, particularly in the ways that they used it as a fundraising tool. The Crowthers’ letters reveal that they not only capitalized on the lantern’s novelty, but they also recognized the potential for adaptations of missionary work for the big screen. Though inaccurate, representing the Crowthers’ exhibition of the dissolving view in print as a Sunday School treat transformed the textual account of the lantern show into a secondary site of education, engagement, and economic support. The shared experience of the Sunday School treat gave British children a portal through which to view and imaginatively encounter missionaries who traveled abroad.

As leading figures in the native missionary movement, Samuel and Dandeson forged strong relationships with Henry Venn and other administrators in the Church Missionary Society in order to continue support for non-European missionaries. One of the outcomes of these friendships was the Missionary Leaves Association, founded by Mrs. Malaher, Miss. Lanfear, and R. C. Billing in 1868. The resulting publication, Missionary Leaves, became a platform through which native missionaries and their European counterparts could request lantern material. Between 1868 and 1882, Missionary Leaves would send ten lanterns to missionaries around the world; between 1883 and 1885, that number grew to sixteen. From 1885 onward, requests for lanterns and slides would grow exponentially, facilitated in part by the standardization of slide size and the increasing availability and reliability of photographic equipment. Though the lanterns went mostly to European missionaries, Missionary Leaves played a leading role in normalizing the lantern as part of the missionaries’ essential toolkit.

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