The Stereoscope
In the spring of 1893 the Boston Transcript gave an account of the stereoscope, for which Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes had furnished the original model. Some inaccuracies having crept into the article, the doctor gave his story of the invention as follows:
“The instrument in common use at that time was a box with a hinged flap on its upper wall, which opened to let the light in upon the pictures. I got rid of the box, made some slots into which the lower edge of the stereograph was inserted, stuck an awl underneath for a handle, and with the lenses and an upright partition my stereoscope was finished. The slide afterwards substituted for these was suggested by one of Mr. Joseph Bates’s employees. The hood was a part of my original pattern, made of pasteboard, and shaped to fit my own forehead.
“I tried hard for some time to give my contrivance away to the dealers, but without success. The Messrs. Anthony, of New York, who were always polite and attentive, did not care to take up the new model. The London Stereoscopic Company, speaking through the young man who represented them, assured me that everything which might, could, or would be novel or interesting in the stereoscopic line was already familiarly known in London. One of the great houses of Philadelphia also declined my gift of a model out of which I thought they might make some profit. At last Mr. Bates thought he would have a few made and see if they would sell. So he put a dozen or thereabout on the market, and they were soon disposed of. The dozen was followed by a hundred, and by and by the sale went into the thousands, and I was told that I might have made more money by my stereoscope if I had patented it than I was ever going to make by literature. But I did not care to be known as the patentee of a pill or of a peeping contrivance.
“The above is the true story of the origin of the stereoscope with which my name is associated.
“O. W. H.”