| STEREO VIEWS
A Brief History of Stereography
From the early 1850s to the late 1930s millions of stereoscopic photographs were made by commercial and amateur photographers. At the height of their popularity in the late 1890s, a stereoscope and a selection of views could be found in nearly every middle and upper income home in the United States.
The first major public introduction to stereoscopy occured at the 1851 International Exhibition of London, England. By 1859 stereomania was in full blossom in the United States, with local photographers and major publishers making scenes for a hungry public.
The financial crash of 1873 sent the stereo view business into a decline. The demand for stereo views dropped dramaticaly and many local photographers ceased production or even went out of business. From this decline grew a trade in "pirated" or "copy" views. These publishers simply copied existing views and placed cheap-quality prints on a low-quality card stock. The copy publishers flourished at one point and, as a result, some examples of better quality can be found on these copy views.
The stereo view business began to come back in the 1880s, thanks to door-to-door stereoscope sales, and continued until the depression of the 1930s.
A simple guide;
A real photo view is two separate, but identical, real photographs affixed side-by-side to the mount.
A real photo copy view is also a real photograph but is only a single photograph, with two identical halves, affixed to the mount.
A lithograph view has two identical halves and is printed directly on the mount.
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