Jen Library Archives and Special Collections

The Savannah Stereoview Collection, MS 018, consists of stereograph cards of the Savannah area. The stereoviews in this collection date from 1870 to around 1930, though many are undated. The subject of the collection is predominantly of Savannah buildings, street scenes, and monuments. Since many of these buildings have been preserved, but have been repurposed, it is interesting to see them in their original form. The entire collection has been scanned and is available in the  Savannah College of Art and Design Digital Collections in the Images of Savannah collection.  The Savannah Postcard Collection is also in the Images of Savannah.  We have tried to include information about the building, architect, or photographer when that information could be found. 

Freedman's School, D. J. Ryan, photographer, Savannah

About the Stereographic Process:

Stereography is the art and science of depicting three-dimensional images in the mind of the viewer using two-dimensional images. Though we think of it today as a photographic process, the idea for the stereoscopic image was thought of long before photography was invented. Giovanni Battista della Porta (1538-1615) made binocular drawings. About the same time, Jacopo Chimenti da Empoli‟s (1554-1640) side by side drawings demonstrated his understanding of binocular vision. Jesuit Francois d’Aguillion (1567-1617) coined the word “stéréoscopique” in 1613.

Early photographers applied the process of stereography to the daguerreotype and later to photographic procedures. At first it involved either the lens, plate, or even the camera being moved a measured distance to take two images in rapid succession. In 1854, Achille Quinet patented the first “binocular” twin-lens camera, the Quinetoscope. J. B. Dancer, a Manchester inventor introduced an improved version of his own binocular design, usable with either wet or dry plates in 1856. A commercial success, the twin-lens principle went on to dominate stereo camera development.

Park Fountain Playing, Forsyth Park, O. Pierre Havens, photographer, Savannah

In order to view the images, equipment had to be constructed. Various demonstrations of the theory of binocular vision began to take place in the 1800s. In June of 1838, Sir Charles Wheatstone gave an address to the Royal Scottish Society of Arts on the phenomena of binocular vision. He is credited with the invention of the first stereoscope. His device was a large freestanding or tabletop stereoscope. It was a bulky and expensive and was used primarily as a laboratory instrument by scientists. William Brewster improved Wheatstone’s stereoscope, and his was in demand for laboratory and scientific use through the mid-1870s.

A more user friendly device was needed to make stereography accessible to the public. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes is attributed with inventing what would become the standard hand stereoscope in the early 1860s. The Holmes stereoscope was hand-held with a viewing lens at one end and a sliding cardholder at the other. The user placed a stereograph in the cardholder and looked through the lens, adjusting the distance until the image came into focus and a three-dimensional object was seen. Holmes did not patent his stereoscope, so shortly after its introduction, similar devices were mass produced. This sparked an international stereography craze.

City Market, J. N. Wilson, photographer, Savannah

The form of commercially successful stereography that ensued was referred to as Orthostereography. It created two photographic images that depicted the same scene from slightly different locations. The images were affixed side by side to a rectangular card that and when viewed through a special viewer, the image appears to be three dimensional. These went by many names, among them stereoviews. It was popular from the 1870s through the 1930s.