Letter from Frederick Douglass to Rev. R.A. Armstrong written on behalf of Ida B. Wells; paper is browned with a dark black script handwriting

Handwritten letter from orator and abolitionist Frederick Douglass

Photographed at an angle from below, a series of colored illustrations of the Great Exhibition, connected by cloth and extended with some distance between each so that, when viewed through the peephole in the front layer, they create a composite view with a sense of depth

Paper toy perspective view of the Crystal Palace

Paper toy perspective view of the Thames Tunnel: item is a small blue rectangle with a hole cut in the center and multiple panels

Photograph by Robert Kato

Paper toy perspective view of the Thames Tunnel
London: T. Brown, 1825
The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle

Paper toy perspective view of the Thames Tunnel

Earlier generations possessed technologies of entertainment and delight that are now uncommon or lost. The novelty toys known as “peep shows,” for instance, featured a view that was painted or printed on portions of accordion-folded sheets, which delivered the illusion of depth to the viewer. This peep show celebrated a more complex feat of technology: the tunnel beneath the River Thames in London, begun in 1825 and completed in 1843. The tunneling shield invented by Thomas Cochrane and Marc Isambard Brunel allowed workmen to dig at great length safely, and the tunnel, built by Brunel and his son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, made possible the subterranean journeys that many of us take every day on systems that we might call the underground, subway, or metro.

Holding Division: The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle

Catalog Record: View record

Not currently on view

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