A short history of stereoscopes: In 3-D
When I was a kid, one of the first movies I had seen at our hometown theater was “Jaws 3-D” on July 22, 1983. After leaving the theater two hours later with my polarized glasses in hand and a smile on my 9-year-old face, I fell in love with the three-dimensional film genre. Even now, as an adult I still love watching 3-D films such as the top grossing 3-D film of all time “Alice in Wonderland” (2010). Being a fan of three dimensional films, I know the first confirmed 3-D film available to a paying audience was entitled “The Power of Love” premiering at the Ambassador Hotel Theater in Los Angeles, Calif., on Sept. 27, 1922.
Imagine my surprise when I began working at the Greene County Historical Society and Museum in Waynesburg, and one of the first items I picked up was a wooden handled stereoscope. Not just the stereoscope, but with accompanying stereo cards!
From the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s stereoscopes, or stereo viewers, were a popular form of entertainment with all generations. From 1850 until World War I, the stereoscope made it possible to see the world without ever leaving your American home.
Sir Charles Wheatstone first patented the stereoscope in 1838. He had experimented with drawings for his stereoscope in 1832, years before the advent of photography. A few years later the stereoscope and photographs assembled to create the first official stereoscope viewer.
Sadly, the Wheatstone stereoscope was not as popular as the one created by poet, physician and essayist Oliver Wendell Holmes. His viewer, the Holmes Stereo Viewer, was all the rage from 1881 to 1939. Holmes “invented” his “American Stereoscope” around 1860 and instead of patenting and profiting from his invention, he gave the idea away. Holmes version was a sleeker and more modern version of Wheatstone’s crude invention.
While we are on the subject of stereoscopes, let’s take a peek at an overlooked inventor who also “invented” the stereoscope. Sir David Brewster created the “Brewster Viewer” and by 1856 he reportedly sold over half a million viewers. The Brewer version made it possible to view various types of plates such as tintypes, Daguerreotypes, glass and tissue views, and also flat mount views.
Let’s get to the visuals here…
The stereoscope looks like a old fashioned version of Fisher-Price’s View-Master which was introduced in 1939’s New York World’s Fair. The main part of the stereoscope involves the two photographs being an equal distance apart, usually two and a half inches, which are about the distance of your eyes. When looking into the viewing “eyes,” you see the two images as one, thus creating the 3-D effect.
Stereoscopic cards were the accessory to the Stereoscope. Two separate images are printed side-by-side on a cardboard type of paper. With the magnified lens, the point of focus is extended from a short distance to infinity, thus allowing the eyes focal point to be consistent with the parallel lines of sight giving the viewer a three dimensional image. Most stereoscope cards showed pictures of people on horses or standing at a work site. Stereograms cards are now frequently being used by vision therapists in the treatment of many binocular vision and other eye disorders.
The history of stereoscope (3-D) has come a long way as we now enjoy more and more 3-D movies than ever before. With brand names such as LG, Panasonic, Sony, and Samsung all releasing the new 3-D television to customers around the world, we now have come full circle as a selected group of people can enjoy the world from the comfort of their home in vivid 3-D just like their ancestors did in 1850.
If you are in town and want to view a stereoscope first hand, just walk on in to the Greene County historical society and ask for Larry. I will gladly hand you ours to take a peek at some of the most unique pictures you have ever seen in 3 -D.
By the way, do you know that “Dial M for Murder” (1954) is considered by many to be the best 3-D movie ever made?