The Stereoscope

               Entertainment through media has changed drastically over the last 150 years. Inventions like the telegraph, radio, television, and the Internet have shaped the way we laugh, cry, learn, and everything in between. These forms of communication get the most attention so today we’re going to talk about an object that is relatively unsung in the field of entertainment and education – the stereoscope. “The what?” – Exactly. Pictured to the right is the stereoscope located in the Farm House Museum. It’s essentially a viewing device that lets people experience far-away people, places, and things. 

               It’s not a very complicated device to use. All you have to do is hold it up to your face, look through the two lenses and enjoy! The engineering behind it, however, is more complicated. To use the stereoscope, you must have stereo cards, pictured to the left. These have two slightly different pictures of the same thing, in this case, the Coliseum in Rome. One picture is taken from the perspective of the left eye and the other is taken from the perspective of the right eye, about 7 centimeters away. When we look through the stereoscope, each eye looks at the corresponding image and our brain combines the images to make it seem 3D. Pretty cool, huh? 

               The stereoscope was first invented by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1838. His version looked very different but still got the job done. Seen to the right, his was much larger than later models and used two angled mirrors to achieve the same effect. Later, in 1849, David Brewster improved on the design by using lenses which allowed the device to be smaller. Queen Victoria found the stereoscope fascinating and had her portrait manufactured into a stereo card. The new device was displayed at The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London during the Great Exhibition of 1851 which today is known by many as the first World’s Fair. This attention made the stereoscope craze spread like wildfire across the globe, especially in America. 

               Americans took the stereoscope and ran with it. A man named Oliver Wendell Holmes further improved the design by making it more economical and therefore feasible for mass production. Holmes didn’t file for a patent for his design so companies began producing them on a mind-boggling scale. Between 1854 and 1920, there were an estimated 300 million stereoscopes sold. Companies, like one called Underwood and Underwood, started selling tours of factories, monuments, and other travel spots and marketed them as “edutainment” – something for the whole family. Schools also started to use stereoscopes which was the beginnings of forming a global student. With the stereoscope, one could appear well-traveled without having to leave their home state. 

 

               The really interesting thing about the stereoscope is how the technology is relatively timeless. There are instances of the same binocular depth-perception displayed with devices we use today. Remember those red and blue 3D glasses you got at the movies back in the day? All those did was force your eyes to focus on two slightly shifted images. To the right, you can see what the picture looks like without the 3D glasses. But, when you look through the color filters, it blocks the blue or the red for each eye, making it appear 3-dimensional. You can also find devices that are made by Hasbro and Google that use iPhone apps as stereo cards and create the same effect! 

               The story of the stereoscope shows another benefit to studying history through its objects. Even if it isn’t totally apparent, some technologies and designs don’t go away. At the heart of it, the stereoscope’s technology is being used in movie theaters today. Electricity is still generated through steam power plants like they were in the late 1800’s. The same can be said for fashion. A few weeks ago, I mentioned the Greek key pattern which is hundreds, if not thousands of years old and still can be found on textiles today. 

The Farm House Museum is a treasure trove of objects like these. Not only will you step back in time when you walk through the door, you’ll notice similarities between two very different time periods if you look closely enough.

Stop by anytime, Monday through Friday, 12 to 4 p.m.

Native Alaskan Basket and the Swastika

               The object we’re going to focus on now has an interesting history with a lot of mixed reviews. The basket, pictured to the right, is woven out of grass which is really impressive in itself. The fact that it was woven in the 1920’s and is still in such great shape is even more impressive. This basket in particular is from a Native Alaskan tribe but exploring further, one could find many similar creations from Native tribes all the way to the Southwestern U.S. 

               Putting the craftsmanship aside, let’s look at the symbol that is on the basket. It’s one that we all most likely recognize, the swastika. This symbol has taken on different meanings for millennia but today, really just one sticks out. The swastika was used by Adolf Hitler in the 1930’s and 40’s as a symbol of the Nazi Party’s dominance and now it is linked to the atrocities that group committed. There is much more to the history of the swastika symbol, however.

               It’s probable that many of you have learned what the symbol originally meant and perhaps even to whom. The swastika, meaning “good fortune” or “well-being,” symbolizes these ideas and, for many people, invokes very positive emotions and reactions. The symbol is also very old! It has been found in remains from the Bronze Age in parts of Europe, as well as ancient Persian and Indian sites. The swastika is also used in Jain and Buddhist traditions, two religions originating in East Asia. It even enjoyed a spike in popularity in the late 19^th and early 20^th century in most western countries, U.S. included. Pictured to the right is a Coca-Cola watch fob designed like the swastika. The symbol was very much normalized and still a very positive image up until it was co-opted by the Nazi Party.

               In the late 19^th century, a German archaeologists names Heinrich Schliemann found many artifacts in what is today Western Turkey that had the swastika symbol on them. He made the connection between those artifacts and similar ones with the swastika found in German pottery and proclaimed the significance of the symbol to the Germans’ Aryan ancestors. It’s important to note that the connection was helped along by German historians who were translating old Indian Sanskrit and noticed similarities between that language and German. They concluded that Germans and Indians must have a common ancestry and imagined a race of white god-like warriors that they called Aryans.

               In the 1930’s Adolf Hitler co-opted the swastika, called the Hakenkreuz, which most of us are more familiar with today as the black swastika in a white circle with a red background. The connection between the swastika and the evil committed by the Nazis was forever sealed in contemporary and material culture after that. 

               Despite the unfortunate reputation the symbol has gained since World War II, it can still be found in modern contexts, conveying the positive meaning of well-being. Jains and Buddhists still interact with the symbol on holy sites and within various traditions. The symbol is also still used in a popular design known as the Greek Key pattern (seen below). That pattern can be found on many tiles, decorative arts and textiles. 

               As I’m sure we all have experienced at some point, symbols can have significant impacts on our lives and the way we view groups and historical events. They pervade every area of life: advertisements and business logos that make us want to buy their products, the elephant and the donkey of the major political parties that annoy us, traffic signs along the road that keep us safe, and so many more. And it’s by using these symbols as a lens that we can understand societies from thousands of years ago and that future generations will understand us. Also, who knows what common symbols that we see today will change with time? What will the $ symbol mean one thousand years from now. Or, what about the American flag? For religions, it is probably really hard to imagine symbols like the crucifix or the Star of David changing significantly, but I bet that’s how people felt about the swastika. That being said, even today, those symbols mean different things and cause different emotions for different people.

 

There is always something more to the objects, words, and symbols that humans have interacted with for thousands of years. In the Farm House Museum, we love talking about these things and of course, telling stories too. The next time you want to stop in for 5 minutes or 50, feel free. We’d love to have you!

The Farm House Museum is open Monday – Friday, 12 to 4 p.m.

The Broncho Buster - Frederic Remington

               We’ve all seen the old Western films in which cowboys and vigilantes take on the Wild West. This version of the West had gun duels, bank robberies, and a really eccentric but hard-working, masculine dominated society. This image makes for great movies but what the West was actually like has been a hot-button topic among historians. I won’t try to answer the question of what the West really was because people much smarter than me have written many books on the topic. What we’re going to look at is what happened that made people believe and enjoy this idea of the lone cowboy and mountain men who charged forward in the name of Manifest Destiny!

               But first, our object!

This is The Broncho Buster a sculpture created by Frederic Remington. The copyright is from 1895 but there’s an interesting timeline for this piece that I’ll get into a few lines down. The sculpture is cast bronze from one of the originals that Remington created. Take a good look at the sculpture. Depicted is a rough and tough gentleman atop a bucking horse. Every inch of this sculpture screams rugged, from the detail to the action depicted. Look at how much detail Remington put into the muscles and mane of the horse and also the clothing and facial features of the cowboy. Remington said of The Broncho Buster, “Only those who have ridden a bronco the first time it was saddled, or have lived through a railroad accident, can form any conception of the solemnity of such experiences. Few Eastern people appreciate the sky-rocket bounds, grunts, and stiff-legged striking.” This rich detail is something you can see in all of Remington’s artwork, whether painting or sculpture.

               From the copyright date of 1895 to about 1918, there were a few different waves of copies being made of The Broncho Buster. Overall, about 160 were made while Remington was alive so those would be the most authentic and would’ve had his approval before being sold. After his death in 1909, about 300 more were made that didn’t have his touch on them and there are some differences in the quality with this batch.

               Let’s put it in context and answer our question.

               Around the turn of the century, there was a shift in the view of the American West which is when we see the lone ranger and gunfights in the middle of towns show up in pop culture. Before that, people were pretty realistic about what was actually happening in the West. The only way for the typical family to survive on the frontier was by building a community. You needed neighbors (even if they were a few miles away) to make it very long in the rough environment. Eventually, people – especially on the East coast – heard stories about the few who did venture out into the unknown like fur traders and mountain men and that’s where the image of the lone wanderer came in.

               Remington held an interesting place in this transition. Originally an East coaster himself, Remington moved around the West (Illinois, Montana, Kansas, Missouri), striking out on his own before moving back east to Brooklyn, NY to attend art school. He found that interest in the dying West was coming back which led his art to sell widely. Remington’s style was very naturalistic and always focused on the people and animals of the West. This was in contrast to other famous artists who depicted the vast, empty landscape in their works. Remington’s style became very popular with his art showing up in Harper’s Weekly and he was contracted to head Westward to produce more. Remington also wrote quite a bit and along with Owen Wister, wrote “The Evolution of the Cowpuncher,” in 1893. This novel was one of the first descriptions of the mythical cowboy in American literature and came before Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis (if you aren’t familiar with this, definitely look that up because it was instrumental in how the idea of the West and Manifest Destiny became solidified for much of the 20^th century).

               I encourage you all to stop into the Farm House Museum to take a close-up look at The Broncho Buster because it really is an amazing sculpture and the detail is worth a thousand words. This sculpture by Frederic Remington resonated so much with the American West that when the Rough Riders returned east, they presented their leader, Theodore Roosevelt with a copy. Seeing the lifelike detail and vigorous movement captured in The Broncho Buster, is worth every minute.