JOHNSON-SHAW STEREOSCOPIC MUSEUM
The Keystone View Company
Founded in Meadville, Pennsylvania by amateur photographer B.L. Singley, The Keystone View Company was an internationally recognized producer of stereographic images from 1892 through 1963.
The company’s origins began after French Creek flooded the city of Meadville in 1892. Singley, who photographed the damage, developed multiple prints of 30 negatives and pasted them on cardboard mounts bearing the name of Keystone View Company. By 1895 the company had issued approximately 700 different 3-D views depicting educational, comic, and sentimental stereoviews, and three years later began selling its own stereoscopes.
This popular form of in-home entertainment helped the company grow quickly. By the time the Keystone View Company was incorporated in 1905, it was the largest business of its kind in the world. While the manufacturing operations remained in Meadville, the company had branch offices in New York, St. Louis, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, Chicago, Toronto, Canada, and London, England. Keystone salesmen and photographers scoured the globe allowing the company to offer over 20,000 different pictorial views.
In 1963 Keystone was purchased by Mast Development Company of Davenport, Iowa. As a Mast subsidiary, Keystone produced telebinoculars, eye training products and overhead projectors. In 1972 the Meadville manufacturing site was closed; however, the name of Keystone View Company continues to be used on eye training equipment today.
At the time of its closing, Keystone possessed the world’s largest collection of stereographic negatives and negative contact prints which was later donated to the University of California, Riverside where they can be found at the university’s Museum of Photography.
Visitors can experience the history and artistry of stereoscopy through an extensive collection of stereoviews, lantern slides, historic documents, books and equipment while also learning about the manufacturing process that brought the world into people’s homes through 3-D imagery. Many of the exhibits are hands-on, allowing visitors the opportunity to view the past through photos of family and friends, landscapes, architecture, and historical events across the globe.
The museum is continually adding to its collection while building a research library as it seeks to maintain its place as an institution dedicated to providing new and previously undiscovered information to stereography enthusiasts and researchers.
Connect with the museum through its Facebook page.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Address:
423 Chestnut Street
Meadville, PA 16335
Phone:
(814) 724-6080
Email:
jsherretts@crawfordhistorical.org
Hours:
April through November
Saturdays 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
Sunday-Friday by appointment only