our next speaker is dr. barbara gannon. she's a professor of history at the university of central florida in orlando, and she's the author of a couple of books. first, the award, the one cause black and white comradeship in the grand army of the republic. and another book entitled americans remember the civil war. and she's currently got a great research project on battle of a lost state in florida, looking not only at what happened there, the civil war, but about the status of the union dead. here's remains were left on the battlefield. so hopefully we'll have a future opportunity to learn more about that project today. her talk is going to turn attention to visual of information and how affected the

civil war. her title is war and 3d stereo views and civil war memory. dr. guinan welcome back to civil war weekend. well thanks to all. i'm so glad to be here and so honored. it's so good. your have been excellent. sometimes a civil war meetings you don't get as a question but this is obviously a very well-educated bunch. so first, all i want to do, try something a little closer to now. so have anyone ever done the view-master when you were a kid kid? all right. the view-master. well, that's what we're talking about here. the original view-master. and i came to this project. i am a historian. i a lot of different subjects. i'm all over map. some people say that means a fox

as opposed to a hedgehog and i saw a picture when i was doing research for the one cause from the grand army. the republic, the union army's largest veterans organization. and i thought, well, is cool. this must be rare. there aren't of these around. no, but i went on and someone asked me, well, could you do something about selling civil war in the 19th century? and i said, okay, there's this crazy thing that i know nothing about which, is what? not the way most historians start. and then, you know, i'm going to find them. and what i found was an insight, something i never had even imagined. the perfectly ties in with everything we've talked about, think this as the 19th century internet and you'll see why. now. i don't know if you've ever heard of oliver wendell holmes, senior engineer. most people know. jr the prominent jurist.

oliver holmes senior is not as well known, but he was a tech adopter. he was very much of a what we would call public intellectual. he wrote a lot of things. but he intersects with the civil war in a great, an interesting way. oliver holmes, senior one to antietam right after the battle, looking for his wounded son on oliver wendell holmes jr, the famed jurist there. he witnessed the horrific aftermath of the bloodiest one day battle in american history. the following summer, he examined alexander gardner's photographs the battle aftermath. the photographs bear witness to the accuracy of some of our own sketches he wrote in the article for the atlantic monthly. the ditch is still encumbered with dead. the dead and strewed. we saw it in the neighboring fields with fragments and tatters. the colonel's dead horse, dead. gray horse is given in another

picture, just as we saw him lying. holmes understood the value of these photographs. it was nearly like visiting the battlefield to look over these views that all emotions excited by the actual sight, the stained and sordid scenes strewed rags and wrecks came back to us and buried them in the resus recesses of our cabinet. as we would have buried the mutilated of the dead. they too represented. holmes emphasized his views, quote, gave some conception of what they brutal, sickening, hideous thing. it is the stashing together of two mobs to which we give the of armies for the first time americans from the battlefield were exposed to the horrors of war. and when i do this, i often think of lee, not something someone who wrote the one cause or the union cause would say when he said.

it is good that. war is so terrible it would be fond of it. and i'm not convinced that we aren't perhaps a little too fond. and some of the reasons why are a bit romantic about the civil war is the process which these images lost. now war photography made it possible civilians to witness the horror of war's union. photographers often the aftermath of these battles on stereo views. this is dead horse. this is a story of you and. i will talk about how they work. it's a format that pictures. two pictures together and together. if you look at them together. it's three d. and i saw. one picture that's associated with my project. and it looks like it's alive. now the key here, though, is they were had to be placed in a stereo view, which is this.

that's a stereo viewer. imagine the card is there and you're looking through it. now, here's the crazy coincidence. oliver wendell holmes, he design an inexpensive stereo viewer that allowed people to see the battlefield. he did it well before the war. and so people were watching stereo views before. and it became, well, crimean had some but really the civil war is what brought them home so americans for the first time so in only pictures but many of them were three dimensional. now it's not just that these are really one of the most popular types of photography in the 19th and early 20th century. i had never heard or read one word about them, so i sort of had to trace them through photographs, photography, history. so this is how people remember.

or at least then antietam. and here is what i had not realized. the stereo camera is the was the prime eerie battlefield camera. most people took were stereo views. now, the ironically, i would have not have thought this was true. the bulkier camera was the two d camera, and that's why this was used. so gardner took 63 photograph shafts of antietam in its aftermath. eight were to d and rest were three d and images of all the dead soldiers seen are stereo views. now what's interesting is there's a process by which just three dimensional war which i'll spend quite a bit of time, will go over the pictures became two d what i call flat and it has a lot to with how people remembered the civil war but it

also has to do what will sell and what will market. but it's a fascinating we're always saying, well, why do people forget aspects of the civil and one reason they forgot the horrific aspects is no one wanted to remember them, but they also didn't sell the entrepreneurial nature of america shapes. all of our wars. now stereo, views were photographic entertainment. american. created 2 to 5 million different views, not stereo views or cards. different views. and then from there, you had hundreds, not thousands. there were probably billions of stereo views floating. but by the turn of the century, just all of these images we will

see are 2d. and there's a process. this happens now, part of it, though, is the success of stereo views. they become this huge netflix of the 19th century. and i mean that everyone who was anyone and that was one of their selling points had a stereo view library. this is what you did. did not have tv. you stereo views. and it became this large commercial. there were door to door salesmen. all of these things conspired to make this. so let's go look at some of these that were popular. like, for example, there were all sorts of reasons people looked at stereo. some thought they were educational. this is the british museu a you would have seen this when you had your stereo view 3d. this is a huge stereo view. yellowstone people, nature,

gs they hadn't seen the san francisco earthquake of 1906 was well dented in stereo ews. this is the big one was the holy they would have pictures sometimes colorized. you could not go to holy land. but you could see it was very religious. this the pornography of stereo. i know youre proba yeah, and. there was a lot of images like thatere. pretty much i can't say scantily clad. it'rd to say that. but pettclad women and so so imagine you're holding t this is this was one of the bigger t and this is why i say the teet. you would order series of images watch them as a sitcom.you would and hello, the final judgment on

being the internet. cute cats. real cute cats. all these th was and that'hiisllthere are billions of these images running around. people collect them. i had not known anything a thisor before. i did this not i. but i'm going to show you next was just this freaky thing they did because of the girl obsessed. what? okay, hold on. sorry. wrong at the wrong button. this is the picture that set me off. is eight african american grand army at the republic post marching tional encampment of 1892. the grand review of the girl and d always said african-americans excluded from the the grandn 1865. and i found this picture well

i've read an account that th had been included in the reenactment and i said i'll never picture. never. no, no. so i went to the library of congress and i tolwoman what i was looking for and she said, well, there's something not cataloged. here it is. and she brought it out. and she had one of these i'm sure it's a replica. i put it in and i went. they were marching like were alive. and i was staggered by the impact because their feet seemed to move. so that's when i started it. but i just thought was this weird, strange thing where there was no one doing it? and then later, i found everyone who was anyone, middle class respectable had if you were in a library of views. so. this is though how most people saw them originally.

now, remember, we don't have newspapers that can do pictures. so what they wou dwas they would take pictures and turn them into woodcuts. that's ou s here. so when.eekly. i assessed these, i went through this process and i was stunned, like the editor, jim martin, of the volume i wrote in, he didn't believe me actually. and jim has known me since graduate school that all of the images we see of dead bodies. are or. all of them were the wor images they've shown. ansohis is obviously a young person whose guts have been blown out and it would have been

in 3d. now what you mostly remember and i'm goi ttalk about is the photographic history of the war, which places them. it was originally in 1911 redone at the centennial 1958, and in 1987, and that flattened them because you don't see that and there's no reference to it. and what you'll see is it's very much homage to the blue and the. and not about. this is a terrible war. it's all the valiant men. and i'll discuss that happened. so it began decades before civil war, actually in the forties. you saw your first stereo views. manhattan was the first subject. oliver wendell senior, who looked for his son among soldiers and horses and if we could get the smell, civil war battlefields, i think, would

definitely have a different image of it. people say that lincoln could still smell the battle in november when he went up there to give the gettysburg address and very likely shaped comments. he wrote essays about it kind of like people do advocating air, which, by the way, i hate just to spoil the alert as a teacher of history, bird here described importance of this new 3-d medium, he thought, and he right stereo views would eventually be universally. the time come when a man who wishes to see any object, natural or artificial will go to the imperial national or city street graphic library and call for it. and he as he would a book in any common library critical of the story of civil war prince. libraries never became the main distributors. instead, it became an entirely

new line of profitable business. they were popular pop culture. now holmes played a key role in facilitating this because he didn't patent. he designed because he thought it was of great benefit to everyone. and he just everyone could make a holmes viewer. but it will to the point when almost every middle class home will have a viewer and even a poorer household have one in a personal. it became about mass production. now, after fort sumner photographers leveraged this new technology to capture images of the first widely published brightly photographed war. matthew brady of course always gets the credit because that's what he does. and he did do. he organized photographers he provided the money but really it

wasn't him. it was the people who worked for him. now, of course, the easiest battlefields. you weren't going to shiloh or corner nearby, basically a train out to antietam. so that was the first truly publicized battle. now, gardner went out there and he had his camera and, as the woman said, for some reason, not being technological it was lighter. now, he was the first person to capture dead american soldiers on film and there was no restrictions. so we don't have censorship. there's no one running the information war. important point we won't see such grim of american soldiers. maybe until vietnam or even them. i don't think anyone have showed what we see. when he took pictures. he did so for brady. so they'll end up in his museum

museum. now what we will see is, these are some of the pictures and the stereo views. and what happened was holmes was not referring he was referring to he went to this exhibit that everyone else to. so this picture was stereo view. this one w. this is the one everyone talks about. the silk road. these are skulls skulls. i think this might not be antietam. it could be. the wilderness here is more dead. anhere is my favorite. i always say, okay, who's antietam? how many people say, why the and just walk across the creek. well, this is a picture i'm sure taken not long afterwards, and it has reinforced my idea. siy ople have told me they'd have had to swim o setng.

i don't see that at all. so there were a loof bridges and most of the bridge shots you see, though, are done. they are by two d because os are the ones got later. now this is a rather grisly picture, but i think ites you somethi. what these four what these pictesere about a this is the execution. oh, a black soldier was done between the union and confederate lines. h been accused of rape. and i told my editor again, i had this picture and he said one would. no one would do that. no one would have it in a stereo car. and what y, ey saw did and yes, they did. we got in a lot of rather odd like that and go go back to the skull to keep them behind me. now. now, what happened was brady had

his own studio, new york. so he observed he exhibited that stereo views with a stereo viewer. so when first thought did they just see? but no, i found out they did have a stereo viewer to see them. the proper. so this was reported in the new york times. crowds of people were constantly up the stairs. follow them and you find them over photographic views of their fearful battle taken immediately, the action. you will see hushed reverent groups standing around weird copies of carnage, bending down to look in the pale faces of the dead, chained by the strange spell that dwells dead man's eyes. now the idea they were stooped tells me they had a viewer and no one would show these without it. the images provided little mediation of the war's horrors, since somewhat similar that the same sun to look down on the

faces of the slain blistering them blotting from the bodies all semblance humanity and hastening corruption should thus have caught their features upon canvas and give them in and give them perpetuity. the effect of the three d civil war was. mr. brady has done something to bring home us the terrible reality and earnestness the war. if he has not brought the bodies and laid them in our door, yards and along streets, he has done something very like it. now you're saying, well, there's too in new york elite. like a new play. well, no, this is the beginning of the marketing of stereo views. now, americans want similar exhibits. they weren't just in new york because i found the advertisements in newspapers. someone placed an ad for display

of magnificent stereo views, including thrilling war to raise money. the national home for invalids soldiers. the war was not only though the exhibit also include beautiful scenes in architect statuary in landscape the typical the odd fellows of fraternal organization raise money by charging $0.25 per for adults and $0.15 for children to see the wait. all caps. great stereos. epic exhibitions. exhibition of the american civil war. and they to talked about the statuary in the statues. so there's always kind of a competition here. they saw these war scenes as just a market, just like any other stereo view. now, if you couldn't see them brady established a partnership ship with a company again, the first large scale producer of stereo views in the united states. anthony and anthony gardner, who broke with brady and began his

own business, collaborated with the company to in 1859, the same year that they had published the atlantic monthly essay. these are series of essays. holmes wrote. they had sold their first views of new. now in addition, and this is one of the most important things about these two, the civil war exotic overseas. this is almost like how can i say this virtual. for people now. so you had foreign cities, landscapes competing with this after the war was continued. anthony and anthony, they had the negatives. so they promoted a series on the war for the union. maybe they're being clear on what they feel once again. they did it alongside other products. you see this throughout the whole time period. i found these images everywhere.

ohio, wisconsin, pennsylvania, vermont, iowa, minnesota, indiana and kansas. now, key there is there was one set of the ads in south carolina. but by 1869, they no marketed the series. and perhaps because, as we all know, the changing to start reconstruction. but they'll never able to advertise this in south. there aren't many stereo views of the south, and that's kind of key to. our story, the wars 25th anniversary they generated interest and. someone had gotten hold of the negatives, reproduced them and what they got there, what i found in my work sort of middle age nostalgia of the grand army, the republic for the war. and they're probably the only people with a lot of nostalgia. john c taylor remember the j.r. in i believe it was connecticut. he worked again with the big stereo view company and he had a

catalog and this catalog is very revealing, according to the catalog, quote, the war for the union was composed of quote, original photographs taken during the war of the rebellion. they remember what it was about the catalog copy explaining of the series a quarter of a century has passed away since the sun painted these real scenes of. that great war, of course no more negatives can be made is the scenes represented by the series of war. views have passed away forever. the company targeted civil veterans and highlighted taylor's status. a veteran himself, he was these views vividly renew the memories our war days, the camp, the march, the battlefields, the forts and trenches, the wounded, the prisoners the dead, the hurriedly made grave. now, remember, those are just one section. there's all of different stereo views of just people marching or hanging around the camp. and i'll tell you where they survive today. now, the catalog and this is

interesting also a brief description of each. image, including a slave pen, alexandria, virginia, the catalogs. arthur understood the passage time might affect the memory of slavery people of his generation can hardly it seem possible but such an institute lucian was ever tolerated under the stars stripes in this land, the free despite rejecting racial slavery, the catalogs. arthur had some racial views. he had a group of contraband. he's happy and thankful to remain under the protection of massa lincoln's soldiers in contrast to the light view, the african-american body on the scaffold. now, one of the things that you talk about in these and we saw one is they go on to the gruesome images which still exist in 3d i have four veterans in one picture, quote, the boots still hung on the flesh.

this bones. and another caption identified the skulls and skeletal of some of our unknown heroes. the more grisly images, though, captured the enemy dead, a dead confederate just as he fell. his head is partially shot away and his brains are about in the mud. the series also the fate of the union dead in a stereo view entitled the horrors of war a union soldier by a show of gettysburg can be seen with his arm torn and completely disemboweled after describing individual's wretched fate. the description, description, the viewer to imagine the single as part of a, quote, battlefield covering nearly 25 square miles and covered with thousands of them dead, many of them mangled, even worse than this one. and you can have a faint of. the challenge now, what was

interesting was we're americans. so how many people's dinners get disrupted by phone calls. yeah, yeah. and they so they said marketing really began. and this is another thing to shock me early. so it was a very much a marketing challenge. they did it in a number of different ways, even had these stereo optical cars which sort of flashed them to raise money for their post. it seemed to be most successful among war veterans. they would make profits in 1890, they made $75 for one post to help their charitable efforts. but again, very much seemed to be in world of veterans. now now, one of the things they did was and this is what i found. so this is this narrow view in marketing stereo views. one of the things they did, which was absolutely hysterical is they actually have a and the

people in, india or wherever they're calling you from have the same thing. it's a manual of what to say. so see sales representatives would pitch them mentioning doctor holmes as dr. holmes says, this is no toy but rather a divine which can thus bring us into the very of the most important people, in the most interesting places the world over. so they had to pitch the tour of the holy land, the vatican, japan, sweden, nothing. the war, the only war they talked about is they had stereo views of. the boer war. this was in 1901. now here's they told them to do use prominent names to influence clients with a sample dialog showing them what to say doctor so-and-so like that very much he thought it was about the finest or mr. so and so was greatly pleased with these views and if a woman hesitated to make a

purchase, told you what to say, if she didn't want to do it without her husband permission, the lady's all around. mrs. seaton. ms. mcmanus, jarvis, mrs. plane and lady right across the street. mrs. calhoun, a large number others are buying them without consulting her husband and so these are part of this huge marketing of popular culture. clearly, if you didn't buy this you fell behind your neighbors, which was very bad bad. they had really pushed love, the courtship and marriage, the little sitcoms had. is marriage a failure where you could, you know, literally kind of watch it like a tv show, the trip around the world, all of this. that was the key and critical to their marketing campaign because here's the key. they're marketing it a lot to women and whatever. it's a or gender or whatever. don't want to see the pictures

just saw. so i decided, i had to find out whether trips so i went to the paper they had, the national tribune and i said i have stereo views, they're selling them you could get and this is another thing you see a lot in this era. you could get a viewer and a sample cards with a subscription to the national review and so you can get a one year subscription and, one series of views for dollar in 18 cent so you're thinking i thinking to myself well okay i found it they're going to be all ordering these. no, they didn't. they would think send a letter thanking the national tribune the life of christ gentleman received 25 steffi graphic views of the life of christ. he thanked them for it included

was a painting of christ's last moment on camera calvary and thing is i think that's probably just a painting in addition. they had tourists original they all thanking them home pets remember the internet 25 groups of children and pets. a new series of comics. another ad offered a stereo scope and views for someone if views from every civilized land most prints featured american and european cities. so the veterans aren't buying them so they're going to disappear. so you might be thinking well they just didn't sell no something to them between 1901 and 1911 it was the beginning of the centennial. and of course, war is important. we always into the whole gettysburg reunion thing thing. so what they did was they came up with the photographic history of the civil war, which is this.

this is a modern one and it was ten volumes and. they took they said, okay, look, most of these are union we can't have union because sales sales and what the the confederacy had few stereo viewske t whole thing match and i guess not to waste space they just became one side of the picture. the war was flattened io d. here's an earlier i actually had this, but my house was fin the hurricane and it went with the wind change. yes. so there you go. we done. now, remember. 1958 for the centennial, 1987.

now, here is where you see there's a lot of writing. we just saw pictures. i'd like to see aerial view sets of an earlier generation this was not simply a record of the union war. remember the war for the union? the compilers dedicated the series to quote the men in the blue and gray, whose valor and devotion had become the priceless heritage of united nation. when alexander gardner well, well, this his original thoughts on, this he did not, nor did anyone else have that idea that it was equality. and you're certainly not going to when you see someone's guts hanging out, feel like reunion ism and let's all shake, especially when you think it could be your son or husband. so even confederates this said said. this is what gardner said this is the different comments in.

1866 he said, well, the picture confederates died in frantic efforts to break the steady line of patriots whose heroism only exceeds spelled theirs in motive. confederates paid life the price, their treason very much in memory of people in the war. if they were feeling generous, as they often were, they promoted, people's patriotism. now this, this. it's an example the pictures as you can see, there's a picture, a terrible picture and there's an explanation. the first to fall. and this is not as horrendous so the introduction this collection theth things former confederate officers united daughters of the confederacy. otr quote owners of indispensable pictur have so generously contributed them for this purpose. the war he the introduction said demonstrate quote how a devoted people whose fathers had stood

shoulder to shoulder for liberty in american revolution. part of that dividing line of a great economic problem and stood arrayed against each other in the greatest fratricidal tragedy that the world has ever witnessed rather than war for the union. the book providing the undying record of valor of those who fought for independence from it, each according to his own content interpretation of the constitution that bound them into a great republic of states. if mattered. they certainly did mention it, but actually, of the things they have a sort of the scientific of the time. no phalanx or roman legion ever truer manhood than in those days the american continent, when anglo saxon meant the anglo saxon and all what the irish people say about that. but they the other appealed to a universal brotherhood among the civilized world that include uncivilized races. i guess ironically less four years after this the world began

another horrific war and fought in these kind of photographs sort of become relics of a past quite a war if they slavery under a common and under a picture of a contraband, as they call them, the writer explained. the slaves who reached union lines had been treated as contraband of war his explanation of their wartime usefulness was flex racial use of the day. well, the writer knew of no instance on record in which false or misleading information was knowingly given by the colored man. in a large number of cases, it was by no means trustworthy the -- had no capacity for accuracy of observation or precision of statement. the author continues to list african-american ineptitude only. one picture of black soldiers included colored convalescent

troops. they will need the fighting, the drooling. they also had symbols. wait to be killed. and they did not mention that that had been in way of advocating black. it was not a way satirizing it. they mentioned this fateful slave. but i mean, if the udc's working with you, what are you going to talk about? despite the popularity of these all declining at least the graphic pictures we have a lot of more wars images of the spanish-american, philippine-american and actually some of those waterboarding and was considered kind of amusing. that none of these pictures generally have gruesome american war dead. this will be very much unprecedented they remained unseen because the government censored and not allow you know outlets challenged this of censorship nor did they exhibit or mass market these dead american soldier.

the evolution this material representation represents, i think to be fair how generous was change and their memory. and they have different agendas. but i think one of the reasons why people into particularly with movies the romance of the civil war is because they forgot these. and in both articulations of books and pictures they forgot horror. it really wasn't until i guess vietnam there was no censoring. and even then they wouldn't had anything. this graphic of american soldiers. so, yes, i think lee is quite right. it is. well, that war is so terrible and i sometimes just wish we had remembered that. but there is one thing we are getting a reminder in both gaza and the ukraine, how terrible it is let's hope that never get flattened. thank you.

colette. students. they have to wait for them on the front, tip down front. and here come with the microphone. let me get near this to make video happy. i thought that nerve. came over where you were. then i noticed the one story on the plywood was ordinary and heard according to eric 62. didn't know you would be able to see what was so that some. well he did decouple himself. i don't he might have taken the

rights with him and people weren't the best defenders of rights in those days when it comes to selling things. but gardner was initially but once he set up on his own, he became his own entity because that was brady's job and he was the one on antietam field. it wasn't brady at all. but brady, you know he did again, one of the things i think has been a good theme of this, particularly in the north entrepreneurship in wartime and afterwards, americans. and i've always thought that's one of the reasons the north won that's understated is that he got his freedom and then it became part of larger effort for profit.

i just think i was just wondering if some of this ultimate suppression more or less did not also result just from the march of technology, for instance, even in our own era, if information was only available on floppy well, nobody has nobody has the technology to run that run that anymore. and so it would what if unless it was transferred to do technology in just one way or, for instance, young people now want to go back to lps because they think the sound is different or better than cds. but you know if there wasn't a resurgence of that, then all of that would go away in favor of new technology is. the stereo part of it what you're saying 3d also just a function of the march of the

future. oh, absolutely. good. i really like that because it's true one thing you do have to trace through is who has the negatives, where show up suddenly they're found particularly for the ones that the g was showing very late even though there were and the library of congress has some originals that were from the war itself. but from the point of view, it is partly that it's also i agree remember said initially pictures not have been printed in newspapers now that you have your ability to put pictures in books, of course you're going to put them in a book. and if you're making a book like, well, i could put all these the war for the union, this is the turn of the century. and you're like, gosh, it'd be nice to sell these. and wouldn't it you if you only have a war, the union, you will not only you alienate them, you won't have confederate pictures, they don't have them. so on one hand, i always say i don't think.

this is a conspiracy. it's the process change. and when it comes to reunion, the spanish-american war is always very but i do believe is technology. you're absolutely right there and it's not so much. they lost it. they gain the technology of printing photos. but then everyone said, well, we can't waste the space with two, we'll just make it one. and so that but it's also the generation the veterans would look at it because it reminded them even of the terrible things but the next generation no and can blame them in some ways. yes.

thank you very sure you. are really on the front lines picture of all african american so whether it was at the archive that will find it what i did. yes i well it's the african question okay. he asked me about the african-american pictures and the extent which i had to find them. i certainly have seen the one where the african-american african was. that was an i don't think a popular collector item, because that's how you a lot of things. one of the things i found was the cattle you find catalogs and

salesman pictures i mean what astonished me there was a catalog that described everything now the next set and i found that picture and it was not of the popular ones. now what i found when the the non soldiers that's all photograph the photographic history they people always say why everyone forget there were black soldiers because that would say that was censored out there were black pictures of blacks soldiers done not in stereo view but we've all seen a number of them the fourth u.s. colored troops we've seen the 20 i believe people misidentify and i think it's the first south carolina colored which became the 33rd u.s. city. so, no, i think black, noble fighting was literally wiped out from these in some cases it was

primary purpose for. oak, a person born in 1890 may not have liked african-americans, but knew they fought because everyone talked about it. by 1910, they're invisible. 1920, invisible. you walk into a class today, how many black troops were there? they might have seen glory and they come up with two or three or four regiments. and that's it. the campaign. with. you for africa. research on the war working purely a public marketing memory. the question was when were these used for academic purposes as opposed marketing and public

interest in popular culture i honestly only recently i think for photographic historians who because i'm in 19th century and were dreary traditionalists i had never read photography history and kind of were aware of it more in modern times so they talked about it then people started noticing that the real market. for it was women. and what this told you about ideas particularly the way they portrayed the stereo cards, portrayed the home and family and marital in a certain way. so people looked at it that way. the only thing academics were aware of, the body pictures i've just run into a lot of people when i say in academe we are very well people who when i say those pictures were 3d are surprised because they've only seen the one day. so what i came to it with was civil war knowledge and.

but yes what's amazing is if you put it into google the number of hits you get is insane because of collectors it never really was an academic thing until people got into popular culture and what really the the images of the family and domestic relations there are a lot of marriage stereo views kind of like king of queens something or modern family. what they tell you about modern and their relations. that's what people look at. those stereo views for. yes, jack, just for comment, another reason a lot of these got lost is because so many of the negatives are glass, which is ephemeral a great many were lost. there's a wonderful i think the story in 1890 and early 1900s

when these said going out of vogue a lot of the glass negatives virtually go to the manufacturers of gas meters and scraped off the images and then using their leaders and worshiping to apparently a lot of these images were screened. often the glass within the eyepieces gas masks for soldiers in world war one whether that's true not i don't know. i think of the wonderful ivory and silver in the 1918 looking through glass. but it was superior of the images of the frame. maybe it's well, what are distinguished emeritus head of the center are jack davis who knows everything he yes and he told he was saying that what happened was literally they were glass negatives and that is true or anything was always chasing the negatives trying to figure out where they were. and people would like find them. he said they were glass negatives and he heard they were used in gas meters, but they were also used.

he at least this is the story we know stories being civil wars that they were used in gas masks for world war soldiers and that was what we call in academia an irony because world war one soldiers might be whirring through there and looking their eyes at plates that had had these images. i veterans ready for lunch by the. i think so thank

my name is christopher scalia. i'm a senior fellow here at aei. and it's my my pleasure to welcome you all to the fifth installment of the american dream lecture series, a component of aei, american dream initiative. this series seeks to revitalize our nation's core institutions and values by inviting prominent writers, academics and thinkers to address some of the most significant political, cultural and social issues facing the united states. as we approach the 250th anniversary of america's founding, these lectures are an opportunity to ask how healthy are our national institutions and