Guide to the Division of Cultural History Lantern Slides and Stereographs

Scope and Contents

The collection consists of lantern slides and stereographs primarily designed for use in audio-visual educational presentations about the United States, other countries, history, and society. Many of the slides and stereographs are accompanied by descriptive text. In some instances on small cards--one card for each slide-- and in other instances printed directly on the back of a stereoview. A few of the lantern slides, particularly the ones of the J. F. Maertz Department Store of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, are advertisements for consumer products. The majority were taken from 1890 through 1930. While the collection as a whole is in good general condition, some lantern slides, stereographs, and text cards are missing, and some of the lantern slides are cracked.

The collection will appeal to researchers examining the course of nineteenth-century social history broadly, especially how lantern slides were marketed to educators to teach geography, social studies, science, history and reading. The lantern slides as artifacts will be of interest to those who study material culture.

Arrangement

The collection is divided into six series.

Subseries 1.1: #1-#600, undated

Subseries 1.2: H-1 to H-300, undated

Subseries 1.3: Biblical, undated

Subseries 1.4: Santa Barbara, California, undated

Subseries 1.5: Roads, undated

Subseries 1.6: Miscellaneous, undated

Subseries 2.1: Ability Lecture Slides, undated

Subseries 2.2: Bolshevism Lecture Slides, undated

Subseries 2.3: Builders Lecture Slides, undated

Subseries 2.4: Equality Lecture Slides, undated

Subseries 2.5: Fathers Lecture Slides, undated

Subseries 2.6: General Lecture Slides, undated

Subseries 2.7: Poverty Lecture Slides, undated

Subseries 2.8: Property Lecture Slides (Set 1), undated

Subseries 2.9: Property Lecture SSlides (Set 2), undated

Subseries 2.10: Republic Lecture Slides, undated

Subseries 2.11: Socialism Lecture Slides, undated

Subseries 2.12: Miscellaneous Lecture Slides, undated

Subseries 3.1: General Images, undated

Subseries 3.2: Coffins and Soliders, undated

Subseries 3.3: Mexican War, undated

Subseries 3.4: Niagara Falls Conference, undated

Subseries 3.5: Pancho Villa and Major Gonzales, undated

Subseries 3.6: Parade, undated

Subseries 3.7: Refugees, undated

Subseries 3.8: Warships, undated

Subseries 3.9: West Virginia Mine Explosion, undated

Subseries 3.10: Women March for Votes (Suffrage), undated

Subseries 4.1: Bathrooms, undated

Subseries 4.2: Children's shoes and clothing, undated

Subseries 4.3: Dress goods, undated

Subseries 4.4: Dress patterns, undated

Subseries 4.5: Hosiery, undated

Subseries 4.6: House furnishings, undated

Subseries 4.7: House wares, undated

Subseries 4.8: Ladies' Home Journal, undated

Subseries 4.9: Shoes, undated

Subseries 4.10: Store advertising, undated

Subseries 4.11: Underwear, undated

Subseries 4.12: Women's clothing, undated

Subseries 4.13: Miscellaneous, undated

Subseries 5.1: Alaska-California scenes, undated

Subseries 5.2: Animal life, undated

Subseries 5.3: Artifacts, undated

Subseries 5.4: California/Franciscan life, undated

Subseries 5.5: California Indians, undated

Subseries 5.6: California mission exteriors, undated

Subseries 5.7: California mission interiors, undated

Subseries 5.8: Eskimos, undated

Subseries 5.9: Franciscans, undated

Subseries 5.10: Indians, undated

Subseries 5.11: Landscapes, undated

Subseries 5.12: Maps, undated

Subseries 5.13: Mission interiors, undated

Subseries 5.14: Seascapes, undated

Subseries 5.15: General images (#1-7;10), undated

Subseries 5.16: General images (#11-14; 16-17; 19-20), undated

Subseries 5.17: General images (#21-30), undated

Subseries 5.18: General images (#31-33; 36-40), undated

Subseries 5.19: General images (#42; 45-50), undated

Subseries 6.1: American Series, 1887

Subseries 6.2: C.H. Graves Publisher, 1907

Subseries 6.3: Griffith and Griffith, 1894

Subseries 6.4: Pesko Binocular Company, 1907

Subseries 6.5: William H. Rau Publisher, undated

Subseries 6.6: Domestic scenes, undated

Subseries 6.7: Military, undated

Subseries 6.8: Places-Asia, undated

Subseries 6.9: Places-Cuba, undated

Subseries 6.10: Places-Egypt, undated

Subseries 6.11: Places-France, undated

Subseries 6.12: Places-Germany, undated

Subseries 6.13: Places-Italy, undated

Subseries 6.14: Places-Monte Carlo, undated

Subseries 6.15: Palestine, undated

Subseries 6.16: Places-United States, undated

Subseries 6.17: Miscellaneous, undated

Historical

Lantern slides are hand-drawn, painted, or photographic images on glass, intended for viewing by projection; often made in sets. Photographic lantern slides were introduced in the United States by 1850 and popular through World War I; commonly 3.25 x 4 in. (9 x 10 cm.) with a black paper mask, a cover glass, and taped edges. Thesaurus of Graphic Materials

Stereographs consist of two nearly identical photographs or photomechanical prints, paired to produce the illusion of a single three-dimensional image, usually when viewed through a stereoscope. Typically, the images are on card mounts, but they take the form of daguerreotypes, glass negatives, or other processes. Stereographs were first made in the 1850s and are still made today. They were most popular between 1870 and 1920.

In 1851 stereo daguerreotypes were exhibited for the first time to the general public at the London International Exhibition (Crystal Palace). Shortly thereafter, American photographers began making stereographs. One of the first American photographic firms to produce stereographs was the team of William and Frederick Langenheim. The Library owns a set of their early stereoviews of American cities on the East Coast.

By 1860 both amateur photographers and publishing firms were making stereographs. The major stereo publishers sold their views by mail order, door-to-door salesmen, and in stores. Stereographs were sold individually and in boxed sets.

Stereographs are usually mounted. They were typically published with caption information printed under the image or on the back of the mount. The mount also provided information about the publisher, photographer, and sometimes the series or a list of views available from the photographer or publisher.

Stereographs were collected by many middle-class families in the late 19th century. People acquired stereographs of tourist sites they had visited, as well as exotic locales that they would only experience through the wonder of the stereoscope. Viewing stereographs was a common activity, much like watching television or going to the movies today. Stereoviews were also used as an education tool in classrooms. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, Stereograph Format)

The Division of Cultural History at the National Museum of American History assembled a collection of miscellaneous lantern slides and stereographs beginning in 1943. Other collection contents were acquired over many years in unrecorded transactions.

Several distributors and publishers of stereographic images are represented in the collection. One of the most prominent was the Keystone View Company of Meadville, Pennsylvania. Founded by Benneville Lloyd Singley (d.1938), a former Underwood & Underwood salesman, Keystone became a major distributor of stereographic images. From 1892 through 1963 it produced and distributed both educational and comic/sentimental stereoviews and stereoscopes used to see the images in 3-D. By 1905 it was the world's largest stereographic company. In 1963 Department A (stereoviews sold to individual families) and the education departments were closed, but Keystone continued to manufacture eye-training stereographic products as a subsidiary of Mast Development Company. In 1972 Mast closed the Meadville manufacturing site.

All of Keystone's manufacturing was done in Meadville, but branch offices were in New York, St. Louis, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, Chicago, Toronto, Canada and London, England. Salesmen and photographers were scattered around the world, and the company offered 20,000 different views.

Selling stereoviews and lantern slides to schools was a field pioneered by Underwood & Underwood, and for several years Underwood & Underwood and Keystone were competitors for the growing educational market. According to the 1953 Keystone Sales Manual the more aggressive sales methods and the more progressive editorial policies of the Keystone View Company soon made it the acknowledged leader in the industry, and Underwood & Underwood decided to give up the contest.

Between 1915 and 1921 Keystone View Company purchased the negatives of nearly all of its competitors. They also continued to have staff photographers travel the world, so that by 1935 Keystone had approximately two million stereoscopic negatives.

Keystone View Company produced stereographic sets up through the mid-twentieth century, and had a stereoscopic photographer on staff until at least 1955.

Thesaurus of Graphic Materials, (2007), http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/tgm1/ (accessed February 10, 2011).

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, Stereograph Format, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/stereo/background.html (accessed February 14, 2011).

Related Materials

Underwood & Underwood Glass Stereograph Collection, 1895-1921, (AC0143)

University of California, Riverside/California Museum of Photography

George Eastman House

Temple University

Brooklyn Historical Society