24 Keystone Stereoscope Cards W/ Original Box--set "wild Animals" For Sale

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The Keystone View Company was a major distributor of stereographic images, and was located in Meadville, Pennsylvania. From 1892 through 1963 Keystone produced and distributed both educational and comic/sentimental stereoviews, and stereoscopes. By 1905 it was the world's largest stereographic company. In 1963 Department A (stereoviews sold to individual families) and the Education Departments were closed down, but Keystone continued to manufacture eye-training stereographic products as a subsidiary of Mast Development Company. In 1972 Mast closed the Meadville manufacturing site.

In 1886 Singley came to Meadville, in northwestern Pennsylvania, to enroll at Allegheny College's preparatory department. College records list him as a first year prep student for three years in a row; after 1889 his name disappears from college listings.[2] 1889 was the year that Singley married Anna Caraway, whose family lived in Meadville.

The Hall of Fame Annual[3] states that while Singley was a college student James M. Davis showed him a stereograph of two silver gray foxes in the woods. Gazing at the three-dimensional image caused Singley to understand the educational potential of stereoscopic photography, and enkindled in him a desire to teach others through the use of steroviews. James M. Davis distributed the stereoviews of the Kilburn Brothers and Benjamin W. Kilburn.

In 1892 French Creek overflowed its banks and flooded Meadville. Singley 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 views.[4] In 1898 Keystone began making and selling stereoscopes.[5]

The company expanded rapidly and by 1905, the year the Keystone View Company was incorporated, it was the largest business of its kind in the world. All of the manufacturing was done in Meadville, but branch offices were in New York, St. Louis, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, Chicago, Toronto, Canada and London, England. Salesmen and photographers were scattered around the world, and the company was offering 20,000 different views.[6]

This item has been shown 32 times. 24 Keystone Stereoscope Cards W/ Original Box--set "wild Animals": $23