Abraham

réf. 11717 — Ford's Theatre stereopticon view undated depicts the Washington D.C. building where John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln on April 14 1865 during a performance of Our American Cousin. The image belongs to the later visual commemoration of Lincoln's assassination presenting the surviving theater as a historic site for audiences encountering Civil War history through commercially produced stereoscopic imagery. Lincoln was carried from the theater to the Petersen House across the street where he died the following morning. Full color stereopticon view 6 x 3 inches captioned "Old Theater Where Lincoln Was Assassinated Washington D.C." The image is a later historical view of Ford's Theatre adapted from a photograph contemporary with the production of the stereoview rather than an image made at the time of the assassination. Printed descriptive remarks appear on the reverse. Produced for stereoscopic viewing the paired images were intended to create an illusion of depth when viewed through the appropriate optical device. Stereoscopic images circulated historic buildings landscapes and monuments to domestic and educational audiences during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries making geographically distant sites available as visual objects of study and commemoration. This example records Ford's Theatre not as the scene of the 1865 assassination itself but as a later memorialized landmark identified explicitly through its caption. Minor edge wear; otherwise very good condition. unknown books