United States in Stereo: The Birth of American Tourism

Sara Rose is a Curatorial Intern in our collections department and a first year graduate student in the Library and Information Science program (Archives Management Concentration) at Simmons College. Throughout the summer she has assisted us in our ongoing digitization efforts and online collection social media projects. She shares some insight below about some of the objects she's been working with during her internship. 

 

Summer. A time of warm weather, long days, and of course, vacations. Whether it’s a day trip a few towns over or a weeks-long vacation across the country, Americans have had a long love affair with summer tourism. In the late 1800s there was a dramatic rise in recreational tourism throughout the United States. The newly completed trans-American railroad made interstate travel accessible to the masses, many of whom were increasingly located in urban regions after industrialization. As urban Americans flocked to the seashores and wilderness for leisure, tourism became a profitable enterprise.

National Parks, seaside resorts, and other tourist attractions promoted vacation travel within the United States. Photography played a key role in the development of national tourist attractions, making it possible to mass distribute images showing various places of interests and inspiring wanderlust for the American countryside. Below are just a few examples of this kind of tourism promotion from the over 300 sterocards in the  Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library collection.

This stereocard, titled “Grandeur of the Waters,” showcases the famed waterfalls of Niagara, New York. Visible on the left side of the photograph is a group of tourists taking in the view.

 

 

 

Another stereocard, titled “In Surf, Sand, and Sun,” depicts throngs of beachgoers on the shores of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Atlantic City, one of the earliest resort cities in the United States, has remained a popular destination for summer tourists to this day.

 

This final stereocard shows a street lined with cottages on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. Signs can be seen offering summer rentals to the crowds of tourists who flocked to the Vineyard for vacation, as well as laborers looking for seasonal work.

 

To learn more about stereocards in our collection visit our previous blog posts here.

Captions:

Grandeur of the Waters, Niagara Falls, N.Y., 1905, H.C. White Co., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Fredric Woodbridge Wilson Collection, Gift of Thomas Garrett. 2010.055.277

 In Surf, Sand and Sun, Atlantic City, N.J., 1905, H.C. White Co., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Fredric Woodbridge Wilson Collection, Gift of Thomas Garrett. 2010.055.163

Fourth Avenue Campground, Martha’s Vineyard, 1873. Unidentified, USA. Fredric Woodbridge Wilson Collection, Gift of Thomas Garrett. 2010.055.175

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Grand Canyon Photography Exhibition - Opening and Gallery Talks

The Grand Canyon is wild and unforgiving. But it is also one of the most stunning landscapes on Earth—a place for recreation, reflection and reverence. “Lasting Light: 125 Years of Grand Canyon Photography” allows us to marvel at this natural wonder without camping equipment, emergency rations or rappelling ropes. We invite you to explore this new exhibition of Grand Canyon photography at the Museum this fall, opening on Saturday, October 13. You can discover more about the photographers and their experiences in the Grand Canyon at our gallery talks. Come learn more on:

Sat., Oct. 13, 2 PM; Sat., Nov. 17, 2 PM; Sat., Dec. 1, 2 PM. All gallery talks are free.

Featuring 60 color photographs, the exhibition is a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and the Grand Canyon Association. Early photographers got the perfect shot by dangling from cables, their cumbersome camera equipment balanced precariously on their shoulders. More recently, photographers have created bold and dramatic images, revealing the canyon’s capricious weather, its flora and fauna, waterfalls and wading pools, and awe-inspiring cliffs and rock formations. Contemporary images in the exhibition were selected by representatives from Eastman Kodak’s Professional Photography Division and National Geographic.

Grand Canyon National Park, 2,000 square miles of snaking river beds and sheer rock walls, is a world like no other, where vibrant cliffs and flowing water create a striking complement to the Western sky. “What you do is keep it for your children, your children’s children, and for all who come after you, as one of the great sights which every American should see,” Teddy Roosevelt urged. Roosevelt, ever the naturalist, was just one of the canyon’s devotees. There are millions of others, including the 26 featured photographers of “Lasting Light,” who ran the river and climbed the rocks to capture these breathtaking images.

“The Grand Canyon taught me a way of seeing. How to see light and design,” said featured photographer John Blaustein. This and other dedicated artists share their insight into the power of the canyon in intriguing narratives that accompany the exhibition’s photographs.

 

“Lasting Light: 125 Years of Grand Canyon Photography” is an exhibition created by the Grand Canyon Association and organized for travel by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). The Grand Canyon Association is a non-profit, membership organization founded to support education, scientific research and other programs for the benefit of Grand Canyon National Park and its visitors.

For further information about this exhibition or visiting the Museum, call the Museum's front desk at 781-861-6559 or refer to our website.

Photo Credits:

Rainbow, 1995. S&A Partners. Photo courtesy S&A Partners

Toroweap Overlook in Morning Light, 1987. Jack Dykinga. Photo courtesy Jack Dykinga.

Treasured Lands - Final Gallery Talk

All good things must come to an end. The last day to view "Treasured Lands: The Fifty-Eight National Parks in Focus" is Saturday, August 4.

Join us for a final gallery talk on Saturday, August 4 at 2 PM in the "Treasured Lands" gallery. Photographer Quang-Tuan Luong has created stunning works depicting the natural beauty of America's landscapes. We will explore his techniques as well as his artistic project of capturing all of America’s national parks in large-format photographs.

The gallery talk is free. For further information, call the Museum's front desk at 781-861-6559 or refer to our website.

For more on Quang-Tuan Luong and his work, read two of our previous blog posts: on how the exhibition has been received by the public and on the show itself.

Credit: Quang-Tuan Luong at work in King’s Canyon National Park, August 2007. Photograph by Buddy Squires. © Buddy Squires, used with permission.

Richard Hatcher to Speak on "The Flags of Fort Sumter," Sept. 17

Fort Sumter, the scene of the first shots exhanged in the U.S. Civil War, still has vital significance for how Americans define themselves today. In April of 1861, South Carolina had seceeded from the United States, while Fort Sumter remained a bastion of Federal military authority in Charleston's harbor. An immense 34-star United States flag flew over the garrison. After Union forces were bombarded into surrendering the fort to Confederate troops, its new occupants replaced the garrison flag with not only the Confederate colors, but the palmetto flag of the new Republic of South Carolina.

Richard W. Hatcher III, as the National Park Service's historian at the Fort Sumter National Monument, is entrusted with helping present generations better understand the site and its role in our national history. Moreover, he knows the symbolic power of these two flags, now part of the site's curatorial collection. Hatcher will share his knowledge with us at the Museum on Saturday, September 17 at 2 PM in a talk entitled, "The Flags of Fort Sumter: National Symbolism in the Civil War." He will offer insight into what new flags such as the palmetto meant to secessionists and how American flags that formerly signified national unity now became divisive. Join us for a lively illustrated talk that traces the history of the Civil War-era flags in the Fort Sumter collection.

This lecture is part of a series that celebrates the National Heritage Museum’s own treasured 15-star flag and explores the changing history of the American flag. Thanks to the generous sponsorship of Ruby W. Linn, the lecture is free to the public. For more information about this public program, visit our website or call the Museum during business hours at 781-862-6559.

Richard Hatcher has had a deep and rich career as an historian with the National Park Service. Since 1992, he has served at Fort Sumter - Fort Moultrie National Monument. As site historian, he has played a leading role in reframing of how the Park Service interprets Fort Sumter to the visiting public. Over the past two decades, Hatcher and site staff have developed an engaging and inclusive story that does not shy away from some of the knottier dilemmas of the causes of the Civil War. Hatcher is the author of numerous Civil War-related books and articles.He is also a National Civil War Museum Advisory Council member and a regular speaker at Civil War Roundtables.

Photo credits:

Palmetto Guard Flag, 1861, courtesy of the Fort Sumter National Monument collections.

Courtesy of Richard W. Hatcher III.

Flag-raising ceremony at Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina, 1865. Library of Congress.

 

"Treasured Lands" Photographer Returns to Museum Sept. 10

"Luong’s large-format camera creates images of beaches and glaciers  and deserts and waterfalls from American Samoa to Maine that were so astonishingly sharp and mesmerizing that my father was convinced there was some special 3-D technology involved. There’s not: they’re just awesome photos."

- Seth Kugel, The New York Times

Photographer Quang-Tuan Luong prefers to capture his images with a large format camera and film sheets over using a lightweight digital camera. The spectacular images in his exhibition, "Treasured Lands: The Fifty-Eight U.S. National Parks in Focus," testify to his success. Using this technology, his camera catches more detail than the human eye can perceive, making his photos particularly dense and rich.

Visitors love this show - many report they have returned to visit it four or five times. "Treasured Lands" strikes a deep chord with many people, so we have invited Luong to speak at the Museum on Saturday, Sept. 10. Join us at 2 PM for "Treasured Lands: Journeys and Vision." Luong will show us fresh images from the "Treasured Lands" project that occupied him for fifteen years, explain how his explorations of the American National Parks have influenced his recent photographic work, and delve into the intricacies of large format photographic technology. He will be on hand following the talk for a book signing. Spectacular Yosemite, 2011, will be available for purchase. His free public lecture is sponsored by the Lowell Institute. For more information about the talk, visit our website or call the Museum during business hours at 781-861-6559.

A computer scientist by training, Luong’s love for nature and adventure led him to become a mountain climber, wilderness guide, and full-time photographer. In picturing the distinguishing features of each of the 58 national parks, Luong shares his understanding of what makes a particular place unique. His photographs allow us to see the parks with fresh eyes. They also serve as a reminder for us to cherish and protect these treasured lands.

For the past twenty-five years, I have been privileged to travel, trek, and climb in some of the most remote and beautiful corners of the earth. My goal has always been to bring back the wonders I’ve seen to people who can’t get there.

--Quang-Tuan Luong

Photo Credits:

Yosemite National Park, California, January 2002. Quang-Tuan Luong. © by the artist.

Quang-Tuan Luong Speaking at the National Heritage Museum, March 2010. Courtesy of Quang-Tuan Luong.

Are the National Parks Better in Stereo?

Stereo cards, also known as stereographic or stereopticon cards, were among the most popular photographic media in the United States from the 1860s to the 1930s.  A stereo card consists of two virtually identical photographs of a given subject that are mounted side-by-side on a rectangular card.  When viewed through a special device known as a stereoscope, the two images would project a single, larger, three-dimensional image of that subject.  The National Heritage Museum has almost 200 stereo cards in its collection, including several that depict national parks in the western United States.

Both of the stereo cards pictured here show scenes from Yosemite National Park in California.  The first shows the Fallen Monarch, a deceased giant sequoia tree that can still be seen today in Mariposa Grove at Yosemite.  The card was published in 1908 by the Keystone View Company, one of the leading American suppliers of stereo cards in the early twentieth century.

This stereo card is a relatively uncommon example, because it is a hand-colored photograph.  Photographers in the late nineteenth century occasionally hired artists to tint a black-and-white image with watercolors, oil paints, or dyes.  While hand-coloring was something of a novelty for American photographers, it was very popular in Japanese studios during this period.

The second card, published in 1867 by the noted early Western photographer Carleton E. Watkins (1829-1916), also shows a view of Mariposa Grove at Yosemite.  Typical of the stereo cards of the American West in the Museum’s collection, it is not hand-colored and does not depict any people.  Instead, its primary focus is the majesty of the Western landscape.  Although there were no true national parks in 1867, when this photograph was taken, California had already set aside part of the Yosemite Valley as a state park.  In 1890, Congress established Yosemite as a national park.

Viewing stereo cards was a common pastime during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.  Many upper- and middle-class Americans living in that period owned a stereoscope.  Ultimately, however, stereo cards declined in favor of newer technology. Handheld cameras like the Kodak Brownie, invented in 1900, allowed anyone to take snapshots of their favorite scenes.  By the time that the Keystone View Company ceased its regular production of stereo cards in 1939, motion pictures were already enormously popular with the American public.  Stereo cards were unable to compete with the social, cultural, and audiovisual experience of going to the movie theater.
  
To see photographs of the national parks as they appear today, please visit our current exhibition, Treasured Lands: The Fifty-Eight U.S. National Parks in Focus, which is on view through October 17, 2010.

References:

Burns, Ken, and Dayton Duncan. The National Parks: America's Best Idea. New York: Knopf, 2009.

Gilbert, George. Photography: The early years: a historical guide for collectors. 1st ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1980.

Runte, Alfred. National Parks: The American Experience. 3rd ed. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.

"The Kodak Brownie at the Franklin Institute." The Franklin Institute History of Science and Technology. The Franklin Institute, 2010, http://www.fi.edu/learn/sci-tech/kodak-brownie/kodak-brownie.php?cts=photography-recreation, accessed March 31, 2010.

"Welcome to Carleton Watkins Stereoviews." Welcome to Carleton Watkins Stereoviews, http://www.carletonwatkins.org/, accessed February 28, 2010.

Top: The Fallen Monarch, Mariposa Grove, 1906, Keystone View Company, Pennsylvania, New York, Oregon, United Kingdom, Australia; collection of the National Heritage Museum, Gift of William Caleb Loring, 88.38.25.

Bottom: In the Mariposa Grove, 1867, Carleton E. Watkins (1829-1916), California, collection of the National Heritage Museum, Gift of William Caleb Loring, 88.38.62.

Travel to Treasured Lands

For the past twenty-five years, I have been privileged to travel, trek, and climb in some of the most remote and beautiful corners of the earth. My goal has always been to bring back the wonders I’ve seen to people who can’t get there.
 --Quang-Tuan Luong

The Museum’s new exhibition, “Treasured Lands: The Fifty-Eight National Parks in Focus” features breathtaking large-format photographs taken by computer scientist-turned-photographer Quang-Tuan Luong. “Treasured Lands” offers the perspective of a world traveler whose personal commitment to preserving America’s beauty and natural resources shows in his work. By capturing the distinguishing features of each national park, Luong shares his understanding of what makes each place unique.

Luong’s experiences in traveling to all 58 national parks, as described in the exhibitions text, are also unique. He kayaked through iceberg-laden waters, canoed down wild rivers, scuba-dived tropical seas, climbed to the summit of Mt. McKinley, and frequently trekked the trailless terrain of the backcountry, all while lugging his 75-pound large format camera, photo gear, and camping equipment.

When reviewing the text before the exhibition was installed, I looked on the National Park Service’s web site for additional information about some of the parks. I was struck by how remote many of them are. Only an experienced backpacker and outdoorsperson would be able to visit Gates of the Arctic National Park, for example, since it has no roads and is only accessible by floatplane. Much of the information provided on the NPS’s “Things To Know Before You Come” link have to do with wilderness survival and bear safety. Not a vacation that will appeal to everyone! Although I love visiting national parks, I prefer a hotel bed to a sleeping bag. I knew I would never visit this park in person, and welcomed the opportunity to see it through Luong’s photograph.

For a trip to a wide variety of landscapes that you might not otherwise see—from the rugged glaciers and mountains to lush, tropical islands and everything in between—visit “Treasured Lands,” on view through October 20, 2010. Mr. Luong will speak at the Museum about his experiences as an adventurous photographer of the national parks on March 14, 2010, at 2 PM as part of our Lowell Lecture Series. 

Photo: The Maidens, Gates of the Arctic National Park, August 2000. Alaska. © Quang-Tuan Luong