A Vanished America In Stereo
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes asserted “a slight claim on the gratitude of mankind” for inventing a cheap and handy device for viewing three-dimensional photographs. History is still in his debt for the craze he started and the pictures it has left behind
December 1960 | Volume 12, Issue 1
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The photographer’s wagon, like that of J. A. French of Keene, N. H., above, who was ready to furnish you with anything, including stereoscopic views, has gone the way of the head gripper and the wet plate. Portable cameras killed it, as lantern slides, post cards, halftone printing, and finally moving images sent the stereoscope to the attic. Dr. Holmes’s “slight claim” had been strong for fifty years, half the age of his one-horse shay. It vanished almost as suddenly.
Nevertheless we have good reason for another kind of gratitude to him. His instrument was a primary cause in the practice and improvement of photography. People loved those pictures with the illusion of solidity, and mothers saved them for the children from generation to generation. Now, those of us for whom history is visual as well as intellectual cherish whatever old slides we can find. We wipe off the dust and fit them between the wire holders of Dr. Holmes’s stereoscope. With the hood around our eyes we are carried away, as he was—but not so much from the Charles River to the Jordan as from now to then.
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Why do we need a national nonprofit membership society for American history?
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“Save America’s Treasures” has been totally eliminated—the largest Federal program supporting preservation of such treasures as the original Star Spangled Banner and George Washington’s tent.
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65% of Americans don’t know what happened at the Constitutional Convention, according to a recent survey by Newsweek.
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The “Teaching American History” grants—the largest Federal program supporting history education—have been completely eliminated.
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Visits to the Top 20 Civil War battlefields have dropped in half from 1970 to 2009 according to official National Park Service statistics.
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40% of Americans can’t identify whom we fought in World War II, according to a recent survey by Newsweek.
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A quarter of Americans believe Congress shares power over U.S. foreign policy with the United Nations, according to a recent Annenberg survey.
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“There is little that is more important for an American citizen to know than the history and traditions of his country,” John F. Kennedy wrote in American Heritage.
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The “We the People Program,” which touched some 30 million students and 90,000 teachers over 25 years, has been completely eliminated.
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Two-thirds of Americans could not correctly name Yorktown as the last major military action of the American Revolution, according to a recent national Gallup survey.
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The National Heritage Areas and Scenic Byways program, the only major Federal program encouraging visits to historic places, has been completely eliminated in Congressional committee.
