Portraits of Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916), founder of the Society
They first called themselves the Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society and they were the earliest incarnation of what are now known as the Jehova’s Witnesses.
Portrait taken at the 1893 Watch Tower Convention in Chicago (the first major convention) which includes 76 members of the Society
Just like today’s door-knocking Jehova’s Witnesses their main purpose was in the publication and distribution of religious tracts.
Today they remain a major publisher in the field, printing more than 43 million issues of their various publications a month, totaling over 1 billion annually!
These images are from a small archive featuring 32 albumen and silver gelatin print photographs by North American and Australian studios of the 1890s and early 1900s, relating to the Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society currently being offered by Douglass Stewart Fine Books of Australia.