Handshakes After the Service: Chicago, Illinois, 1941

Russell Lee photographed the part of Sunday that happened on the church steps: handshakes after church services in Chicago, in April 1941.

The sermon ended inside, but the visiting — the news, the invitations, the checking-in on everybody — happened out front. And nobody was in a hurry to leave.

This wasn’t a small-town scene; it was Chicago. But the ritual was the same one playing out on church steps across the Midwest that spring: the service was the occasion, and the handshakes afterward were the community keeping itself up to date.

Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USF33-013011-M3

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