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Image credit: Underwood and Underwood 

Over past week, as I reworked a syllabus for a course on Photography and Literature, I spent some time skimming through the online finding aids and databases that catalog the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center.  The Stereograph collection at the HRC seems particularly fascinating—it contains over 4,000 images, most of which date to the period between 1870 and 1900.  Introducing students to stereographs can form a jumping off point for considering the intersections of vision, modernity, science and technology, early photography, and tourism.

Image credit: Keystone View Company

The majority of the images in the HRC collection were purchased by the Keystone View Company from Underwood and Underwood in 1912.  Part of the fascination of the stereoscope was its ability to create the illusion of depth—viewing two slightly different images set side by side on a card and placed before a stereoscope replicated the perception of depth.  This technology was considered cutting-edge in the last decades of the nineteenth century and is not all that different from techniques used for Viewmasters or even 3-D films. 

Image credit: Underwood and Underwood

Many of Keystone stereographs contain extensive captions printed on each card and several participate in a narrative of American imperialism through images of both domestic and foreign spaces.  Circulated among a predominantly middle class audience and displayed in middle class parlors, stereographs offered viewers a culturally-privileged vantage point from which to view the world.  Without ever leaving the sanctity of the domestic space, middle class viewers were able to experience his or her own private mode of mini-imperialism.  Flipping through a pile of stereograph cards, owning and displaying these images of foreign people and places, replicated the broader national project of imperialism.  It might be worth comparing these images to more contemporary ones found in National Geographic or considering them alongside 3-D modern marvels (that raise many of the same questions) such as Avatar.