The nineteenth century was an extraordinary period in every way. The face of human affairs was changing at an accelerated pace, particularly among the western industrialized nations where the machine age had arrived in full bloom with its dynamos, steam engines, iron-clad ships, telegraphs, wireless radio, photographic devices, mechanical printing, as well as machine-making machines for vast mechanized factories. And, of course, this change in the west would soon spred, a mere trickle at first, but building quickly to a tidal wave that would touch the farthest corners of the globe where many societies were barely more advanced technologically than their stone-age ancestors.In the west an appetite for the new and novel was being fed and encouraged immediately and directly. In particular, the invention of photography in 1839 and its rapid progress from a quaint amusement to a burgeoning industry of cheap pictures and cheap apparatus for the masses in little more than a decade created a new sense of things, spacially and emotionally. Populations, especially in the United States of America and in Europe, were on the move, from the country to the cities and from country to country in search of new opportunities for jobs, for wealth, or for just a general improvement in the quality of their lives. Change was in the air, awaking feelings that would introduce a new era of exploration and expansion -- especially of mind and experience. Ordinary people were gaining increased access to goods, including many things that until then had been exclusive to the more affluent in society. Even distances seemed to diminish as people became exposed to more of the world through traveling museum exhibits, world fairs, inexpensive photographic images, cheap books, and especially newspapers. Printed matter in particular achieved wide success and in turn fueled the publics ever-growing need to be amused, tantalized, and astonished by scenes of the new or exotic, allowing millions of people to travel the world at least in spirit if not in body. Travel books were all the rage, as was fiction depicting exotic settings in far off lands or imaginary places -- names like Jules Verne, Jack London, Mark Twain, and H.G. Wells led the list of authors whose reportage or tales of high adventure captured the minds and hearts of millions everywhere.
Adding greatly to this mood of excitement was the stereograph, a 3 by 6 inch card with two nearly identical photographic images mounted side by side (each recorded from slightly different perspective to create the illusion of three-dimensions). The stereograph was first produced experimentally in the 1840s, but by 1850 it was being commercially produced and quickly became one of the most popular means of armchair travel. Very early on companies were offering cheap views of all manner of exotica, natural and man-made wonders, world leaders and popular figures, disasters large and small. Remember the U.S.S. Maine? There are stereographs of the ship before and after its sinking. Then there are the images of battlefields -- the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the Sino-Russian War, the Boxer Rebellion in China to mention but a few. Just about any event or theme large or small that might capture public attention -- royal coronations in Great Britain or Russia, shoe manufacturing in this place, tobacco growing in another -- found their way onto sterographic cards. Advertisements published by Keystone View Company, one of the leading publishers of stereographs, proudly quoted Carl Sandberg, a member of their advisory editorial board, who proclaimed that "the best substitute for intelligent travel is intelligent use of stereographs." And such was the popularity of stereographs that in short order nearly every Victorian parlor had a stereoscope and a selection of views at hand for enjoyment of family and friends. The stereoscopic photograph persisted for nearly a century, between 1850 and 1950, and was nearly as pervasive in its time as television has become in our time.
To understand what these images might tell the scholar about the past or to understand how we as scholars can use the information they contain to enlarge our pictures of the past or to help us shape our interpretations of the past, it is useful to know a little something about the terms of their production. As a publishing venture, the business of stereographic documentation was primarily a commercial undertaking. The legions of mostly nameless and faceless photographers, both professional and amateur, some of whom were independent and some who were employed by the publishing companies, scoured the world to capture images ranging from the exotic to the mundane. The quality, as you might expect, varied according to the talents of the photographer, the conditions in which the photographs were made, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of raw luck.
The photographer generally lugged with him a heavy two-lens camera and other cumbersome equipment, though usually few went with the advantages of light meters or long lenses. Sometimes the camrea would not even have a shutter. Often, too, a photographer was obliged to carry with him the means for developing his pictures, such as a dark box or perhaps a photographic tent, as well as chemicals and other accessories. Today, the stereograph is a mere relic. Gone are the publishing companies. Gone are the armies of photographers. The photographic records have survived, however, perhaps countless thousands hidden away in attic boxes, or held in private collections, or scattered among museum holdings here and there. But, by far, the most rich and expansive collection held in one location has to be the collection housed at University of California, Riverside's California Museum of Photography (UCR CMP).
Index
Title Page
Keystone-Mast Collection
Overview
