In 2023, Dr. Richard Healey opened Seeing Double: Stereo Photography, Historical Cartography, and the US Industrial Revolution 1840-1920 at the Royal Geographical Society in London, England. Dr. Healey, a distinguished British geographer at the University of Portsmouth, focuses much of his academic research on Pennsylvania industries studying significant labor and technological developments in rail, iron, oil, and anthracite coal. Dr. Healey also cultivated a sizable collection of 19th and 20th century stereo views, many of industrial settings across the Keystone State. Stereo views were popular, inexpensive photographic novelties when they came out and, through the hand-held stereoscope, offered three-dimensional images of rare and unique places around the globe.
Dr. Healey’s collection formed the basis for Seeing Double and gave British exhibit goers an opportunity to engage a historical overview of significant Pennsylvania industries through the lens of stereo views from the 19th century. The visual challenge in mounting this show, however, was to recreate the 3D effect of the stereo views in a museum setting for a mass audience. Dr. Healey took on the challenge of reproducing these effects through the creation of anaglyphs, the red and blue offset images popular with 3D movies of the 1970s.
Seeing Double shows at four PHMC museums on the Industrial Trail of History. From April 17 through the summer, the Anthracite Heritage Museum, Drake Well Museum and Park, Cornwall Iron Furnace, and the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania will jointly show a component of the exhibit focused on their individual historical themes. So grab a pair of anaglyph glasses and join us this year of America’s 250th anniversary, at PHMC sites for a unique experience of Pennsylvania’s industrial heritage.