Western Views in Eastern Parlors: The Contribution of the Stereograph Photographer to the Conquest of the West

Abstract

If students of American Studies have seen fit to mention the stereograph at all in their discussions of the Victorian era, they have tended to treat it as a toy, intent on images of another sort or on data more arcane than the parlor images so popular in the last five decades of the nineteenth century. But the production and sales figures for stereographs, the frequent advertisements for them, and the discussions about them throughout the second half of the century in such photographic journals as The Philadelphia Photographer and in cultural organs ranging from Scientific American to the Atlantic Monthly to Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper suggest that they were more than a fad. Hermann Vogel, the internationally respected German professor of photochemistry and teacher of Alfred Stieglitz, echoed one merchandiser's slogan when he declared in 1883, “I think there is no parlor in America where there is not a stereoscope.” Students of American culture should carefully consider Vogel's remark; especially in view of its unusual distinction as both an image and an artifact, the stereograph functions as a valuable tool for illuminating and evaluating the tastes of a large cross-section of our population during and after the Civil War.