Category: Philadelphia

Competing for the Crowd: What Else Philadelphia Could Do in 1915

When Billy Sunday arrived in Philadelphia in early 1915, he stepped into a city alive with options.

This wasn’t a spiritually quiet moment in American life—it was a crowded marketplace of attention. Every night, Philadelphians could choose where to go, what to watch, and how to spend their time. Entertainment was not scarce; it was everywhere. And much of it was designed to delight, distract, and hold an audience far more comfortably than a hard-hitting revival sermon.

That’s what makes Sunday’s campaign so compelling.

He didn’t draw crowds because there was nothing else to do.
He drew crowds in spite of everything else there was to do.

Let’s step into that world.

The Bright Lights of the Theatre

Philadelphia had a thriving theatre scene—serious plays, comedies, and traveling productions that brought a touch of Broadway to the city. These venues were polished and respectable, often appealing to middle- and upper-class audiences.

An evening at the theatre meant dressing well, sitting in a structured setting, and watching trained actors perform carefully scripted stories. It was entertainment with dignity—refined, cultural, and often expensive.

The theatre still carried prestige in 1915, but it was no longer the only game in town.

Vaudeville: Fast, Funny, and Everywhere

If theatre was refined, vaudeville was electric.

Vaudeville shows were built on variety—comedians, singers, dancers, acrobats, magicians—all packed into a single program. The pace was quick, the tone was lively, and the appeal was broad.

For many working-class and middle-class Philadelphians, vaudeville was the go-to night out. It was affordable, constantly changing, and full of energy. No two shows were exactly alike, and that unpredictability kept audiences coming back.

In 1915, vaudeville was at or near its peak. It wasn’t just popular—it was a cultural force.

The Rise of the Photoplay

And then there were the movies—still new, still evolving, but already reshaping the landscape.

They were called photoplays, and by 1915 they were drawing massive crowds. For just a few cents, people could step into a darkened theater and be transported into another world through silent film.

That same year saw the release of The Birth of a Nation, a film that demonstrated just how powerful and immersive cinema could be.

Movies had three advantages that made them unstoppable:

  • They were cheap
  • They were accessible
  • They were constantly changing

In many ways, they represented the future of entertainment—and people knew it.

Music, Dance, and the Pull of the Nightlife

For younger audiences especially, entertainment wasn’t just about watching—it was about participating.

Dance halls and social clubs offered ragtime music, lively crowds, and a chance to be part of the action. These venues were social, energetic, and often stretched late into the night.

They were also controversial.

Revivalists like Billy Sunday frequently warned against the moral dangers of dance halls, seeing them as places where discipline gave way to impulse. But for many in the city, they were simply where life felt most alive.

Traveling Shows and Big-Tent Spectacle

Even in a major city, the draw of spectacle remained strong.

Circuses, traveling shows, and Chautauqua events brought something different—large-scale experiences that combined entertainment, education, and wonder. Whether it was a circus parade or a lecture under a tent, these events added to the sense that something exciting was always happening just around the corner.

They were part of the cultural fabric, especially for families and those looking for something beyond the everyday.

And Then… There Was the Tabernacle

Into that world stepped Billy Sunday.

No velvet curtains.
No orchestra.
No stagecraft.

Just a rough wooden tabernacle, a sawdust-covered floor, and a preacher who spoke with urgency and conviction.

And yet—night after night—people came.

Why?

Because Sunday offered something none of the others could.

  • The theatre entertained.
  • Vaudeville amused.
  • Movies captivated.
  • Dance halls energized.

But Sunday confronted.

He spoke about sin, purpose, eternity, and the need for decision. His meetings were not passive experiences. They demanded a response.

The Real Story

The real story of Philadelphia in 1915 is not just that Billy Sunday drew crowds.

It’s that he drew them in the middle of one of the most competitive entertainment environments America had ever seen.

Every night, people made a choice.

They could laugh, watch, dance, or be distracted.
Or they could walk into a wooden tabernacle and be challenged.

And tens of thousands chose the latter.

That’s not just revival.

That’s a man—and a message—breaking through the noise of an entire culture.

Major national and world events going on during the Jan-March 1915 Philadelphia campaign?

Article curated by AI, examining period newspapers, with human oversight.

A City on the Edge: The World Behind Billy Sunday’s Philadelphia Campaign (Jan–Mar 1915)

When Billy Sunday stepped into Philadelphia on January 3, 1915, he didn’t enter a quiet city.

He stepped into a world already under strain.

To understand the power of that campaign—why thousands poured into the tabernacle, why his words landed with such force—you have to look beyond the sawdust trail and into the broader setting. Because what was happening outside the tabernacle made what happened inside feel urgent, even necessary.

A World at War—But Not Yet America’s

By early 1915, Europe was already bleeding.

What had begun in the summer of 1914 as a war of movement had hardened into something far more brutal. The Western Front was frozen in place. Soldiers lived in trenches carved into mud and misery. Artillery thundered day and night. Machine guns cut down advances before they began. The casualty lists grew longer by the week.

And in February 1915, something changed that Americans could not ignore: Germany declared the waters around Great Britain a war zone. Submarines—U-boats—would strike without warning.

For the first time, the war felt like it might reach across the Atlantic.

America was still neutral. But no one felt untouched.

A Nation Holding Its Breath

Under President Woodrow Wilson, the United States tried to maintain distance. Officially, this was not our war.

But neutrality is easier to declare than to feel.

Every day, newspapers carried headlines from Europe. Americans followed the movements of armies, the sinking of ships, the warnings issued to neutral nations. Trade tied the U.S. to the Allies. American goods crossed the ocean. American lives traveled those same routes.

The question lingered, unspoken but persistent:

How long can we stay out of this?

There was no clear answer—only a growing sense that the ground was shifting.

Prosperity with a Shadow

At the same time, the American economy was waking up.

Factories were busy. Orders increased. Production surged. War in Europe meant demand for American goods—steel, machinery, supplies.

Philadelphia, an industrial powerhouse, felt it.

But prosperity came with questions.

Was America simply helping… or quietly profiting from the suffering overseas? Could a nation grow rich while the world burned?

These weren’t always spoken out loud. But they were felt.

And men like Billy Sunday had a way of bringing those quiet tensions into the open.

A Moral Movement Finding Its Voice

This was also a moment when moral reform was cresting.

The temperance movement was no longer a fringe cause. The Anti-Saloon League had become a powerful national force. States were beginning to go dry. The conversation about alcohol, vice, and public morality was moving from pulpits into politics.

Sunday did not arrive in Philadelphia as a lone voice crying in the wilderness.

He arrived as a leading voice in a growing chorus.

His attacks on the saloon, his calls for personal repentance, his insistence on moral clarity—they resonated because the ground had already been prepared.

The Pressure of the Modern City

Philadelphia in 1915 was a city alive with motion—and tension.

Immigrants poured into neighborhoods already crowded. Industry demanded long hours and offered uncertain stability. Streets were full. Lives were busy. The pace was relentless.

And beneath it all was something harder to measure:

A kind of spiritual restlessness.

People were working, striving, building—but many sensed something was missing. The old certainties felt less certain. The future felt unclear.

It is no accident that revival fires so often burn brightest in moments like these.

Why It All Matters

Billy Sunday’s Philadelphia campaign did not happen in isolation.

It unfolded in a world:

  • unsettled by war
  • uncertain about the future
  • prospering, but uneasy
  • crowded, busy, and spiritually searching

When Sunday preached about sin, judgment, repentance, and decision, he was not introducing new concerns.

He was naming what people were already feeling.

And that is why they came.

A Final Word

If you want to understand the Philadelphia campaign, don’t start with the tabernacle.

Start with the world outside it.

Because Billy Sunday did not create the urgency of that moment—he stepped into it, gave it language, and called a city to respond.

When is a revival needed? – Billy Sunday

Colorized picture from 1915. This was Billy’s favorite picture at the time.

“A revival is needed when the worldly spirit is in the church of God. It isn’t necessary to do something grossly inconsistent. A ship is all right in the sea, but all wrong when the sea is in her. The church of God is all right in the world, but all wrong when the world is in the church. Some people come to church on Sunday morning and on Monday morning they take a header into the world and the church never sees them again until Sunday morning. They squat and take up a little space in the pew and stay there and put a little money on the plate, but you never see them again until Sunday morning. I tell you, I believe half of the church members could die and the church wouldn’t lose anything of its spiritual force; it would lose them in numbers, but it wouldn’t lose anything in spiritual power.

I tell you, my friends, we need a panic in religion; the world don’t need informing; it needs reforming. We are going to the devil over culture clubs, as if the world needed informing; it don’t need anything of the kind. There are people who go to church and go to a certain denomination because their wife goes there. They got their religion and their property in their name. They go to that church.”

Cited in: Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger. January 6, 1915:6.

From a sermon on A Defense of Revivals, from Habakkuk 3:2. January 5, 1915. Philadelphia.

His power: what is it?

Cited in: The Philadelphia Evening Ledger. January 5, 1915:5. – William Rader

Billy Sunday is not easily defined. Power conceals its secret. Psychologists would call it hypnotism; theologians, the power of the spirit; the ethical teacher, the gift of truth; the dramatist, the art of the player; while others declare:

His strength is as the strength of ten,
Because his heart is pure.

Billy Sunday is a good actor. Each sermon is carefully prepared, and some of it read from manuscript. Certain climaxes are illustrated. At one point he slides to a base; at another, kneels, or leaps upon the pulpit desk, or smashes a chair to pieces. Edward Everett did not more carefully prepare a speech with its proper gestures than does this evangelist build his sermons. The local color with which he decorates his main thought is taken from the city in which he speaks.

His imagination interested me. Speaking on “The Grenadier,” the consideration of his theme invited the use of the imagination, and he gave it full play. The sermon was an application of military attributes to practical life, a rebuke to the “wind-jammer” of the prayer meeting, and an appeal to the man who has taken an oath to be good to go out and honor it. He assailed the “saphead” who criticises the Church, and the description he gave of Daniel in the lion’s den and of the head of John the Baptist on a charger will not be forgotten.

I confess to a liking for his so-called slang. Most of it is plain English with a punch in it. It is the punch which preachers and editors and people who use words generally lack. Words are like shot, made to strike, and especially when used to influence great bodies of people. It is refreshing to hear a man say what he thinks and say it as he pleases—a thing most public men signally fail to do.

What a revival does? – Billy Sunday

Cited in: The Evening Public Ledger. January 5, 1915: 5.

“What is a revival? Now listen to me. A revival does two things. First, it returns the church from her backsliding; and, second, it causes the conversion of men and women; and it always includes the conviction of sin on the part of the church. What a spell the devil seems to cast over the church today!

“I suppose the people here are pretty fair representatives of the church of God, and if everybody did what you do there would never be a revival. Suppose I did no more than you do, then no people would ever be converted through my efforts; I would fold my arms and rust out. A revival helps to bring the unsaved to Jesus Christ.

“God Almighty never intended that the devil should triumph over the church. He never intended that the saloons should walk roughshod over Christianity. And if you think that anybody is going to frighten me, you don’t know me yet.

“I will cram it down their throats in this town for the miserable lies they hurl against me up and down the streets of this city. Don’t you forget it. You bet your life. You bet, and they will get it.

“When is a revival needed? When the individuals are careless and unconcerned. If the church was down on her face in prayer they would be more concerned with the fellow outside. The church has degenerated into a third-rate amusement joint with religion left out.

“When is a revival needed? When carelessness and unconcern keep the people asleep. It is must the duty of the church to awaken and work and labor for the men and women of this city as it is the duty of the fire department to arouse when the call sounds. What would you think of the fire department of Philadelphia if it slept while the town burned? You would condemn it and I will condemn you if you sleep and let men and women go to hell. It is just as much your business to be awake. The church of God is asleep today; it is turned into a dormitory, and has taken the devil’s opiates.”

HIT TYPEWRITER KEYS FOR PASTOR; THEN “HIT TRAIL”

Cited from: The Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger. January 2, 1915:3.

Miss Grace Saxe, “Billy” Sunday’s Prayer Meeting Organizer, Tells of Her Conversion.

“Billy” Sunday’s right-hand woman, whose other name is Miss Grace Saxe, is just as much a woman as though she didn’t hold one of the most important positions in the whole Sunday organization, a position which might make even a man forget all else but the responsibilities of his work.

For one of the very first things she did on arriving in Philadelphia several days in advance of the opening of the campaign was to launch forth on an energetic shopping tour.

“I simply had to have some pretty clothes to wear, to conduct my meetings,” she said, smiling nervously, at “Billy” Sunday’s home, 1914 Spring Garden street, happy, but exhausted, at the termination of her first work in Philadelphia.

Miss Saxe is the person whom Mr. Sunday has selected for the very vital work of organizing the neighborhood prayer meetings in the various cities where the revivals are conducted, and it is her particular duty to bring religion into as many of the private homes as she can possibly get into touch with and to make it a permanent factor of those homes.

“Our work would be a very poor thing indeed,” she said earnestly, “if we worked at these people up to a state of high religious fervor only to let them drop back again and cool off soon after the campaign was over.”

TELLS OF HER CONVERSION

“Although the revivals have not yet started, I cannot help feeling that the way Philadelphia has received us has been nothing short of magnificent. Already 5000 homes have been thrown open to these prayer meetings and more than 15,000 volunteers have come forward and signified their intention of fostering these meetings permanently and keeping the spirit of Christ in the home indefinitely.

“One phase of the work that I am particularly interested in is teaching people how to read the Bible. There are many who have a great desire to study the Book of God, but who do not know how to go about it, and organizing teaching, high school girls and women in city houses, into Bible classes is my chief duty.

Miss Saxe’s career has been an interesting one. Born in Iowa, she “entered” St. Louis to accept a position as court stenographer, and it was while she was energetically hitting the keys in the city that something occurred which, to use her own expression, “made her see the light.”

“Up until that time,” she said, a little shamefacedly, “I was rather an unregenerate creature. I used to come to town in Lyons, Dr. A. B. Simpson came to town and I was engaged to go and take down in shorthand a series of his lectures. There were about ten of them, and in addition to having to hear them I also had to go all over them again, transcribing them on the typewriter.

“TURNS DOWN” ROOSEVELT

“They made me think, and soon after I began a very careful study of the Bible. Later on I was engaged to work with the Rev. Dwight L. Moody, of Chicago, and after that I traveled abroad with Torrey and Alexander. By that time the work of making a Christian out of me was completed.

“Later on I happened to be in Egypt taking a little vacation when I received a request to go up the Nile and meet Mr. Roosevelt at Luxor, there to take down some of his lectures, but I found I was spoiled for that sort of thing. I had become so interested in religious work that nothing else seemed to satisfy, and it was soon after this that I accepted Mr. Sunday’s offer to become a member of his organization, and have worked with him ever since.”

Miss Saxe has the calm, placid Madonna-like face of one who is at peace with the world and herself.

“The test of his wonderful work is in the results that he gets. Day after day hundreds of testimonials come in which show the lasting conversions that he is responsible for.

“Only the other day a man sent a letter from Waterloo, Iowa, where a revival was conducted some three years ago, saying that he was thankful for the change that had been brought about in him, that he was willing even to have his name used if other conversions might be effected thereby.

“For 30 years this Johnny Bates had been a confirmed drunkard. His wife got disgusted and divorced him, his children grew away from him and he went down into the very depths. Three years ago he hit the sawdust trail and since then has never touched a drop. He now holds a splendid lucrative position and his wife has remarried him. That is but one of the many cases which testify to the indisputably good work that Mr. Sunday is doing.”

Cited from: The Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger. January 2, 1915:3.

On the Sawdust Trail: A Night at Billy Sunday’s Tabernacle, Philadelphia (Week One)

Curated from: The Philadelphia Evening Ledger. January 6, 1915:3.

You don’t just attend a Billy Sunday meeting—you step into it.

By the time I reached the tabernacle, the place was already alive. Not just crowded—alive. Policemen lined the edges, firemen stood ready, and yet there wasn’t even “the merest hint of disorder.” Whatever this thing was, it had structure. It had gravity. And it was pulling people in.

Colorized image of the Billy Sunday tabernacle in Philadelphia, c.1915.

Inside, the air carried that peculiar mixture of sawdust, sweat, and anticipation. Outside, though—that’s where you heard the real story.

A man near me, confident as a prophet, said to no one in particular:

“Billy Sunday has only started… it’s going to get worse and worse. He arouses more enthusiasm each day. If you don’t believe me, ask Scranton.”

That was the mood—this wasn’t the event. This was the beginning of the event.

The Crowd Watching the Crowd

It struck me quickly: people weren’t just watching Billy Sunday.

They were watching each other.

One visitor said it plainly:

“I was naturally interested in ‘Billy’ Sunday, and perhaps even more so in the crowd.”

And what a crowd it was.

A boy—no more than ten—hobbled in on crutches just to hear him. A sailor from the battleship Kansas had been waiting “for months” to catch a meeting. A woman stood nearby, nervous, almost whispering:

“Oh! no. I cannot give my name… my husband would throw a fit if he knew I had been in here.”

And yet—there she was.

That’s how you knew something was happening. Not just attendance—but risked attendance.

What People Were Saying

If you wanted to understand Billy Sunday, you didn’t start with the sermon.

You started with the talk afterward.

“What do you think of ‘Billy’?” someone asked.

The answers came quick, overlapping:

“Great.”
“Some man.”
“An ace.”
“I like him because he goes after the hypocrites.”

Others reached for bigger words:

“Wonderful… splendid… marvelous.”

But not everyone could quite put their finger on it.

One woman, looking slightly dazed, said:

“I have had so many things fired at me in the last hour that I can’t quite set my bearings.”

That may have been the most honest response of all.

More Than a Sermon

There was something else in the air—something heavier than excitement.

A man, speaking to a small group of women, said what many were thinking:

“I would like to see ‘Billy’ Sunday wake this city up and get the rum out of it… Look how many homes he would make happy.”

And then, almost quietly, another moment:

In the northeast corner of the tabernacle, someone reported hearing a man say:

“This is my last drink.”

No sermon transcript can capture that.

That’s the sawdust trail doing its work.

The Unexpected Details

Not everything was solemn.

Someone joked about the sawdust itself:

“They say Mr. Sunday hates noise, and I know I am going to sneeze. I always do when around sawdust.”

Even the ministers weren’t immune to the moment. One well-known clergyman was said to amuse himself before preaching by reading The Fun of Getting Thin—and now, thanks to the crowds, “occupies two seats.”

And everywhere—evidence of men lingering longer than usual:

“There were enough cigar butts left in the gutters… to start a true second-hand cigar store.”

It wasn’t tidy.

It wasn’t polished.

But it was real.

Order in the Midst of It All

For all its energy, the thing held together.

The crowds were vast, but they moved. The police managed them. The firemen stood watch. The machinery of the city seemed, for a moment, to cooperate with something larger than itself.

One observer summed it up best:

“To get and hold a vast throng like this on a weekday for the purpose of hearing the gospel certainly is a tribute to the man himself.”

And It’s Only the Beginning

If you stood there long enough, listening—not to the sermon, but to the people—you began to realize something:

The revival hadn’t peaked.

It hadn’t even arrived yet.

It was building.

You could hear it in the confidence of the man who said, “ask Scranton.”
You could see it in the boy on crutches.
You could feel it in the nervous woman who came anyway.
You could sense it in the man who muttered, “my last drink.”

Billy Sunday may have been the preacher.

But the city—
the crowd—
the conversations spilling out onto the streets—

They were becoming the message.

And Philadelphia, whether it knew it yet or not, was just getting started.

Grace Saxe’s Prayerbook, c 1911

Source – the author of this article is probably the wife to Evangelist M.B. Williams.

Grace Sax joined the Sunday team in February 191. She immediately assumed the leader of the cottage prayer meetings, as well as Bible teaching and training local churches to handle the fruit of the Sunday revivals.

The Liverpool Evening Review. Wed. Sept 18, 1912:1. Grace is in the center.

This article in a 1911 newspaper gives a glimpse of the importance of prayer to Grace.

Miss Saxe then held up little blank book which is called “Answered Prayer.”

She calls it, “A Record of the Footsteps of a Prayer Hearing and Prayer Answering God.” It is divided into four blank columns headed. First, date of asking; second, the request; third, the special promise pleaded; fourth, date when answered.

In this record she puts only the prayers which to man’s eyes it seem impossible to have answered. All of her prayers, she says, have not been answered thus far—many of them have however been answered fully.

“There are conditions to fulfill if prayers are to be answered.” These seven conditions she has in the back of her “Answered Prayer”

1. Personal condition, Psalm 66:18,

2. Forgiving Spirit, Mark 11:25,

3. Spiritual Motive, James 4:3.

4. Asking, Matthew 7:7,

5. Asking in Faith, Mark 11:24,

6. Asking according to God’s will (not to interfere with His plans) 1 John 5:14,

7. Asking in Jesus name, John 16:23. “Pray so that if it were written we could ask Jesus to sign it.”

In our prayers Miss Saxe suggests that the following should be the form of approach to God: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication.

Taking the first letters of these words in order, we spell the word Acts. In Genesis 32:9-12 we find that order observed in Jacob’s prayer. In conclusion Miss Saxe suggested the reading of Andrew Murray’s ‘With Christ in the School of Prayer.’—Mrs. A. R. Williams.

Source – the author of this article is probably the wife to Evangelist M.B. Williams.

The following story was printed in a paper on March 3rd, 1915:

“One of the special features of the meeting yesterday afternoon came when Miss Grace Saxe, of Sunday’s party, rushed from the platform and threw her arms around the shoulders of a woman trail hitter. Miss Saxe later explained that the woman was a relative, living in this city, and that she has been praying for her to come to the front since the opening of the campaign.”