Page 40 - Expanded Media & the MediaPlex

Expanded Media - and the MediaPlex 40/206
Oliver Wendell Holmes: Stereoscope viewer from 1861 - based on the Elliot/Brewster/Duboscq model, this became a standard viewer for most of the remaining 19th century and many decades beyond.
The importance of this kind of optical home entertainment, was realised as early as 1816, when the whole world went mad for Brewster’s kaleidoscope. Optical ‘Toys’ or tools like this, became ever more popular as the century progressed. In this era before radio and television, before the telephone, before music records, the accent was on amusing yourselves - the middle classes learned and played instruments, especially the piano, the working classes passed around Penny Dreadfuls, played cards, went to the Pub, played darts - and later visited the Music Hall. The Paper Theatre - such as Pollock’s Toy Theatres played a part too. The magic of bringing photographs into the third dimension helped make stereo-viewers a popular home pastime.