Historical Note

Over 800 photographers and publishers created the work represented in the Stereograph Collection. Major publishers including E & H.T. Anthony, Keystone, Underwood & Underwood, and Kilburn Brothers make up much of the collection. Views by well-known western photographers Carleton Watkins, William Henry Jackson, J.J. Reilly, and C.R. Savage are included, along with photographers who worked in eastern locales such as John P. Soule, D. Barnum, the Bierstadt Brothers, and George Barker. Many of the photographers worked in established tourist areas, such as Niagara Falls however, dozens of photographers working in their local areas are also included in the file. Portraitists who worked in stereo include Mathew Brady, Pach Brothers, Napoleon Sarony and J. Gurney & Son. Some of the photographers were amateurs, such as F. F. Thompson, who photographed Central Park in the 1860s and was one of the founders of the Amateur Photographic Exchange Club. Another significant amateur was Alfred T. Loonam, whose stereographs of New York in the 1950s and 1960s capture modern skyscrapers, expressways under construction, and the emerging television industry.