Glass Magic Lantern Slide - Catskill Mountain House – Catskill Mountains - circa 1890
Condition: Used, some spotting, good quality for age
Color: Black and White
Original
Circa buy 1890
Size: Approximately 3 1/4 by 3 1/4 inches
The magic lantern is an early type of image projector employing painted pictures or photographs on sheets of glass, a lens, and a bright light source. It was mostly developed in the 17th century and commonly used for entertainment purposes. It was increasingly applied to educational purposes during the 1800s and was in wide use until the mid-20th century, when a smaller-format version for photographs on film, marketed and commonly known as a slide projector, superseded it.
In the United States, magic lantern shows were especially popular in formal education settings. From the 1850s, following the lead of the Philadelphia-based Langenheim Brothers, a growing number of slide manufacturers retained stock collections of negatives from which lantern slides could be produced, assembled into thematic boxed sets, and sold to consumers, including universities, companies, clubs and other social organizations.
The Catskill Mountain House
The Catskill Mountain House was a famous hotel near Palenville, New York and in the Catskill Mountains overlooking the Hudson River Valley, opened in 1824. In its prime, from the 1850s to the turn of the century, it was visited by three U.S. presidents (U.S. Grant, Chester A. Arthur and Theodore Roosevelt) and the power elite of the day.
Product code: Glass buy Magic Lantern Slide - Catskill Mountain House – Catskill Mountains - circa 1890