Researchers find it useful to know about the publishers who produced stereographs, since examining the publication history of a stereograph can tell us much about how it was marketed, distributed, and consumed. Typically the photographers who captured the images were anonymous. Although some photographers published and distributed stereographs themselves, several large publishers dominated the stereograph market. At the turn of the twentieth century, the major US stereograph publishers were Underwood and Underwood, Keystone View Company, and H.C. White Company.
Companies used a variety of means to sell stereographs. Traveling sales agents sold stereographs, as did drug stores, novelty stores, and book stores, and catalogs. Stereographs were included as promotions with products or were given away by stores to customers who spent a certain amount of money. Church organizations gave Sunday school students Holy Land stereographs to recognize their attendance or achievement. To appeal to the education market, some publishers printed captions on the backs of stereographs. Underwood began including legends in 1897, while Keystone did so around 1902 (Darrah 54-55). Legends could be as long as 450 words long; often they were stories that were meant to educate or amuse children. These captions mediated viewers’ experiences of the depicted scenes, telling them what they were seeing.
Underwood and Underwood
Founded in 1882 in Kansas, USA, Underwood and Underwood first distributed and sold stereographs produced by others, but they eventually hired their own photographers to take pictures around the world. In the early 1900s, Underwood brought out the “boxed set,” typically a series of 100 cards that were selected to simulate a guided tour of a country. These sets were accompanied by a guide-book written by an expert that explained each scene. Underwood attempted to represent many facets of the country depicted, including views of people, places, industry, historic sites, and natural resources. In addition, customers could purchase a patented map system that pinpointed where each stereograph was shot and what was included in the image. An advertisement for Underwood’s boxed sets promoted their educational value: “…Tours are carefully selected by persons of wide experience and liberal education…. Schools and public libraries are turning more and more to the stereoscope to put students and readers in touch with the actual places of which they are studying” (qtd. by Evans). The boxed sets were so popular that the company produced tours of a number of countries, including Egypt, Ceylon, Japan, and India. By 1901, Underwood and Underwood produced 300,000 stereoscopes a year and had established itself as the leading US stereograph firm. In 1920, as the market faded, the company stopped producing stereographs.
 |
Keystone View Company
In 1892, amateur photographer B.L. Singley distributed a series of stereoviews documenting a flood. From this small beginning, Singley built one of the leading stereograph firms of the era. Prior to 1897, Singley himself photographed all of the Keystone views, but in 1898 the firm hired professional photographers to travel the world taking pictures. Keystone distinguished itself by pursuing the educational market, preparing teachers’ manuals to accompany stereograph collections and appointing a prestigious editorial board to select and comment on stereographs. In a sense, stereographs were a predecessor to filmstrips and other forms of educational media, used to teach subjects such as what the Stereoscopic Encyclopedia (1st edition 1906, 10th edition 1926) termed“racial geography, peoples of all lands” and “literary subjects and settings” (Darrah , World 50). Keystone, which published over 43,000 titles, stopped regular production of stereographs in 1939, but filled individual orders until 1970.
 |
H.C. White Company
Founded in 1899, H. C. White Company ultimately produced 12,800 titles. According to Darrah, “The company boasted that in seven years its chief photographer had traveled 140,000 miles and had visited all the continents” (World 51).
 |
References
Darrah, William. The World of Stereographs. Gettysburg, PA: Darrah, 1977.
Evans, Elaine A. “In The Sandals of Pharaoh: James Henry Breasted and the Stereoscope.” McClung Museum. 9 August 2006. http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/newresearch/stereoscope/stereoscope.htm
