Description:

Civil War -

16 Civil War stereo views by W.E. James depicting South Carolina devastated after Civil War.

Large selection of vintage circa 1865-1870 stereo views (double-sided photographs) depicting the devastation to South Carolina just after the Civil War, including images of General Anderson at Fort Sumter. Total of sixteen pieces. Most are annotated in an unknown hand verso. Several have the photographer's stamp "W.E. James/ No 267 Fulton Street / Brooklyn". Each piece is 6.75" x 3.75". All are slightly grubby, and/or lightly water stained. Several are rubbed or have light abrasions.

A fantastic set! Many W.E. James stereo views are in the collection at the Library of Congress.

Professor William E. James (1841-1887) was an early American photographer, lecturer, and inventor of photographic apparatuses, probably best known for his historical voyage to Europe and the Holy Land with novelist Mark Twain (1835-1910). Mark Twain and William E. James completed the 5 ½ month-long voyage to the Mediterranean on the Quaker City Excursion, a luxury cruise ship that departed from New York on June 8, 1867. Twain later wrote Innocents Abroad about the voyage, and James's stereoscopic images of Europe and the Holy Land were used for educational purposes in Sunday schools and in his lectures. Many of James's stereo views are of missions and early settlements. The series, "Views of Palestine and the East", with a backlist of 60 stereo views, could be purchased in New York from most of the publishers and dealers in stereoscopic views A. O. Van Lennep, George W. Thorne, William B. Holmes, and L. E. Walker.

Mr. W. E. James held the chair as vice president of the newly formed "Brooklyn Photographic Society" when they held their first public meeting in July of 1864, according to newspaper accounts. His gallery was located at No. 267 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, New York. Although he took an occasional portrait, James was devoted to stereo photography, spending much of his time in the field extensively photographing Utica, Brooklyn, and the newly developing Prospect Park in Brooklyn. At the end of the Civil War, as a member of the Oceanus Excursion, his photography documented the destruction of Charleston, and Beecher's oration at Fort Sumter. After Lincoln's assassination, Ford's Theater, the White House, and the presidential funeral procession down Broadway were captured as "instantaneous views", a newly developed procedure in which the exposure time required to set the gelatin plate was less than one second.

Professor James relocated to San Francisco, California in 1874 where he gave highly entertaining and distinguished stereopticon and lecture shows. In October of 1875, as the photographer for the J. M. Hutchings Expedition, James photographed Yosemite Valley and the Mount Whitney area.

Best enjoyed with the stereo viewer device!

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