Ben Hur and The Prodigal Son from the collection of Blackfriars Gallery and Library

Ben Hur and The Prodigal Son, 1909

Lithograph

14 x 11 in

Flyer for a program at the Methodist Protestant Church of Newcomerstown, Ohio. While not advertising a film, it promotes an event that might be considered proto-cinema: illustrated lectures using a slide projector. This was likely a traveling exhibition offered to churches to put on as a community event and perhaps as a church fundraiser.

According to contemporary newspaper reports, this event included color slides from the life of the Prodigal Son, a lecture (probably a dramatic reading) and slides depicting scenes from the Lew Wallace novel Ben-Hur, and 75 cartoons from The Ram’s Horn, an interdenominational Christian magazine addressing social issues of the day. The show was said to include more than two hundred slides.