Pictured above is a stereoscope, a device used with stereocards to impart a three-dimensional viewing experience. This form of stereoscope was invented by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., doctor, poet and good friend of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Holmes’s version of the stereoscope, which he created in 1859, quickly became popular, as it was simpler and more affordable than earlier versions of European design. He made his prototype out of two glass lenses, wood, a handle taken from an awl, and pasteboard. In an 1869 article published in The Philadelphia Photographer Holmes had the following to say about his design.
“There was not any wholly new principle involved in its construction, but, it proved so much more convenient than any hand-instrument in use, that it gradually drove them all out of the field, in great measure, at least so far as the Boston market was concerned.”
Despite the popularity of the design, Holmes received no personal gain from his invention. He purposely did not patent it and offered it freely to several different business owners in Boston whom he thought could manufacture them. It was not until he offered it Joseph Bates, a Boston dealer in musical instruments and umbrellas, that Holmes’s design was produced and made available to the public. Bates added his own improvements, including the ability to alter the distance between card and lenses to improve the image’s focus. The design proved to be a great success and helped spark an explosion of stereocard production. Stereoscopes and cards enjoyed more than fifty years of popularity until finally being replaced by postcards as souvenirs of places visited in the early twentieth century.
|
April 30, 2020
|
Last updated: April 30, 2020