See the World in 3D

Have you been on a trip lately? How did you get there? By car, airplane, bus or train? Did you take photographs of your journey? Today we take travel for granted, but in the late 19th and early 20th century it was not as easy to get around. There was no television, movies or the Internet. How then, did people learn about distant people and places? Books of course, but another way might have been to use a stereopticon or stereograph.

 

Have you been on a trip lately?  How did you get there?  By car, airplane, bus or train?  Did you take photographs of your journey?  Today we take travel for granted, but in the late 19th and early 20th century it was not as easy to get around.  There was no television, movies or the Internet.  How then, did people learn about distant people and places? Books of course, but another way might have been to use a stereopticon or stereograph.

This device, along with stereograph cards, allowed a 3D view of a variety of places and topics.  First published in the 1840s – stereographs enjoyed their heyday until the 1920s when they were replaced in popularity by the movies.

Stereograph cards are comprised of two nearly identical photographs or images placed side-by-side about 2 inches apart; one image is for the left eye to focus on, the other is for the right.

Yosemite Valley, California c. 1880

Using a hand-held viewer such as the one invented by American doctor and writer Oliver Wendell Holmes, the two images are seen as one – with depth.

Stereoscope, c. 1901

Cards were produced by several different companies such as the Keystone View Company and Underwood & Underwood and showed images that ranged from travel locations to tours of American factories.

Luray Caverns, 1882

Paris, c. 1875

Although the craze for 3D viewing died out in the 1920s with the advent of movies, there was a brief resurgence in popularity of this type of image in the 1950s with the introduction of the View-Master.  Essentially the same sort of device as the stereograph, the View-Master was first sold as a souvenir for tourists, and then became a popular children’s toy.

View-Master, c. 1970

Laura Carr
Museum Technician
Valentine Richmond History Center