Molly Donnermeyer holds a small, black square up to a fluorescent light. A pen-and-ink drawing of a mastodon appears on the now-illuminated surface of the object: a glass plate, the shape and heft of a stone coaster.
Beneath the main branch of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, a storage room is furnished with an antique dining set and filled with the library’s entire collection of these glass plates, formally known as lantern slides. They’re catalogued in a row of old filing cabinets, each marked with a Dewey Decimal number and a short caption. Old photos of the Cincinnati Zoo? They’re in there. Illustrated versions of fairy tales? You’ll find some on file. Aesthetic shots of ancient Greek busts? There are quite a few, and they look pretty sharp rendered in grayscale.
“There’s nothing like coming down here to see these in person,” Donnermeyer, a reference librarian, says as she lines up a row of randomly-plucked slides on a lit surface. “You pick these up and you’re like, ‘What are these little gems?’”
Visitors will be able to see a selection of these slides for themselves on the Main Library’s second floor through Feb. 28 as part of an exhibit titled, The World Illuminated: Highlights of The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County’s Lantern Slide Collection. Since the turn of the 20th century, the library has collected more than 62,000 of these slides, which were meant to be viewed on a primitive, projector-like apparatus called a “magic lantern,” also known as a stereopticon.
The collection began in 1904 when the library launched a lecture series aimed at women working in factories, says reference librarian Rob Amend. Though the magic lantern was originally conceived in the 17th century as a form of entertainment and visual storytelling, it gained popularity as an educational tool equivalent to a PowerPoint presentation.
“The purpose was to educate the local factory girls,” Amend says. “In reality, though, most of the people who attended (the lectures) were factory men, their wives and the elderly. It was pretty well-received.”
The slides proved popular enough for the library to start producing their own: In 1908, the library brought in a staff photographer named Elmer Foote to create slides of local landmarks and architecture.
At their peak, Amend says, the slides were more frequently checked-out than DVDs are today. By 1908, there were 10,000 slides in circulation, and they were checked out more than 32,000 times. Patrons could borrow the slides for three to four days — and just one day around Christmas, when religious images and slides of hymnal lyrics were in high demand.
Of the slides currently on display, Donnermeyer is particularly intrigued by a photo of an extremely small horse once owned by the Cincinnati Zoo.
“I really like the idea of it being as popular as Fiona,” she speculates.
She also points to a display of slides taken from the Better Housing League, a progressive coalition that documented their housing surveys and used the magic lantern to present their findings. The slides were taken on a lecture tour to push against tenement housing, promoting better living spaces for low-income families. Today these photos provide an in-depth look at daily life in 1916.
“It’s really interesting that if you look at these images and visit their actual locations, they don’t look too different, maybe apart from the cars,” Donnermeyer says.
On Tuesday, Feb. 26 at 6 p.m., graphic designer Derek Scacchetti will use these slides to give a virtual tour of Cincinnati at the turn of the century. Local historian Anne Delano Steinert will then discuss the slides’ influence on the building of suburban communities like Winton Terrace and Greenhills — the latter of which was featured in-depth in a CityBeat cover story earlier this month.
The World Illuminated: Highlights of The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County’s Lantern Slide Collection will be on display at the library’s Main Branch (800 Vine St., Downtown) through Feb. 28. For more info: visit cincinnatilibrary.org.
