Featured Stereoview: Interior Religious Display

Got this interesting stereoview of a man showing off a large display in an auditorium. The left side shows a large tree, and it looks like various races of man. Center is a circle with text saying Death, Resurrection, and Second Death. The internal circles look to show various animals. To the right looks to show various plants. Wondering it this looked familiar to anyone and if the man could be identified.

No makers mark/location, but I think its a New England area view.

 

Death, resurrection and second death is probably related to the Book of Revelation. Sunday school lecture stuff, I'd guess. Or "let's go listen to a speaker" entertainment.

 

That's a good mystery ... I got nothing.

 

Very metaphysical. Off to the sides are illustrations that look to me like, on the left, references to the evolution of humans, human anatomy, classification of humans into racial types, with botanical references on the other side.

Most of the rings of the central illustration are labeled as death, the inner ones caught together in the vertical marker at the bottom. These look to me like they are occupied by 'lesser' forms of life. The mystery comes in the 2 outermost rings: how can life be eternal if it is followed again by death? Is the lecturer indicating that some beings overshoot the sweet spot & end up in outer darkness after all? Or is he taking a scientific, anti-religion stance that there is no eternal life?

Does this need a second card to be stereoscopic? If you had the other one, would the chairs be occupied? Or is the fact that no one is listening part of the point? I can't help suspecting the guy is someone in particular. Looks more like Edgar Allan Poe than Darwin.

 

It looks like a fairly early stereoview - likely an albumen paper print, on a fairly thin, flat card - 3rd quarter of the 19th century or so.

https://stereoscopicviews.com/reference/how-to-date-a-stereoview-card

 

hmm.. The Tree of Life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(biology)#Haeckel

 

the cards are not identical..

 

I was having a bit of fun finding the bits ...

 

Here's the full view. Taken with a camera with two lenses. Slightly different angles/exposures leads to the 3d effect. The size and style of mount, and some of the identified subject matter, seems to point to it being taken in the 1880s.

 

It's really quite interesting and, certainly worth exploring. A traveling lecture and, from the number of chairs, a popular one in his time (or he wishes to give that appearance.) He's wearing a buttoned frock coat with wide-legged trousers. The frock coat was popular from 1830-1880. Not sure about the trousers.

Debora

 

Wow, that is a great image -- I Love it!

 

So Haekel's 'Tree of Life' dates it to no earlier than 1879. And the lecture involved evolutionary thought. No wonder the expectation of a large audience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_creation–evolution_controversy

Debora

 

Apologies for the AI but this may be helpful:

Several prominent lecture series and individual lectures on evolutionary thought took place in the United States during the 1880s, playing a crucial role in the public and academic acceptance of the theory. Key figures included
Alfred Russel Wallace, John Fiske, and Thomas Henry Huxley.

Key Lecture Series and Lecturers

• Alfred Russel Wallace's US Tour (1886-1887): Wallace, the co-discoverer of natural selection, conducted a ten-month, transcontinental lecture tour across the United States. He lectured extensively on "Darwinism" (his specific, strict selectionist view), biogeography, and spiritualism, in cities including New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Kansas City, and San Francisco. His lectures were well-received and helped popularize evolutionary theory among the American public and scientific communities. The material from these lectures was later incorporated into his book, Darwinism (1889).
• John Fiske's Lectures: A philosopher and historian, John Fiske was a very popular public lecturer known for reconciling science and Christianity through the lens of evolution. He argued that the U.S. represented the culmination of a historical evolution toward a free democratic republic, a theme in his popular American history lectures in 1879. His ability to clearly explain complex ideas, including the compatibility of theistic belief and the evolutionary process, made him a prominent voice in the 1880s.
• Thomas Henry Huxley's Lectures: Though his most famous lectures in the U.S. took place in New York in 1876, Thomas Henry Huxley, "Darwin's Bulldog," significantly influenced the American understanding of evolution. During these lectures, he presented fossil evidence, specifically the horse series shown to him by American paleontologist O.C. Marsh, to argue that evolution was no longer a speculation but a "statement of historical fact". The impact of these lectures carried well into the 1880s as the ideas were disseminated and debated.
• University and Seminary Lectures: Evolutionary thought was also a subject of university and theological seminary lectures. Asa Gray, a Harvard botanist and a Christian who supported a form of theistic evolution, delivered lectures at the Yale College Theological School in 1880, later published as Natural Science and Religion: Two Lectures. Other figures associated with American naturalism, such as the Neo-Lamarckians (e.g., Alpheus Hyatt, Edward Drinker Cope), presented their own non-Darwinian evolutionary ideas in scientific circles and public forums during this period.

These lectures, both by prominent figures and in academic settings, demonstrate that by the 1880s, evolution was a mainstream topic in American scientific and public discourse, with ongoing discussions about its mechanisms, implications for humanity, and relationship with religious faith.

Debora

 

Your fellow may have been on the other side of the debate. Forgive the AI again:

In the 1880s United States, anti-evolutionary sentiment was present in public discourse, often expressed through theistic perspectives that sought to reconcile Christian faith with scientific understanding or outright rejected "Darwinism" (specifically natural selection as a purely naturalistic process)
. This era predated the highly publicized anti-evolution campaigns of the 1920s.
Key aspects of anti-evolutionary thought and lectures in the U.S. during the 1880s include:

• Theistic framing: The core of much of the opposition was theological, arguing that a purely naturalistic explanation of life's origins removed God from the process of creation. Critics like the prominent Presbyterian theologian Charles Hodge of Princeton Seminary argued that "Darwinism," as a natural explanation, was tantamount to atheism, while still allowing for the possibility that God could have used an evolutionary process if divinely directed (theistic evolution).
• Scientific challenges: Many opponents, often educated individuals including some scientists, raised scientific objections to Darwin's theory of natural selection itself. Common arguments included that natural selection could only eliminate traits, not create them, and that the geological timescale necessary for gradual change was too long.
• Prominent figures and lectures:
  • Louis Agassiz (who died in 1873, but whose influence continued) was a major opponent of evolution, advocating for a theory of divine, successive creations (catastrophism).
  • B.B. Warfield, also of Princeton, while open to the idea of evolution as God's method of creation, was skeptical of the scientific proof for it in the early 1880s.
  • Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverer of natural selection, visited the U.S. for a lecture tour in 1886-1887. His lectures were generally welcomed, but he publicly expressed his belief that natural selection could not explain higher human faculties (moral, artistic), suggesting a non-materialistic, possibly spiritual, cause for them.
  • Henry Ward Beecher, a popular Congregationalist preacher, gave lectures, later published as Evolution and Religion (1883), which incorporated a form of theistic evolution into his sermons. This indicates the debate often centered on whether evolution could be reconciled with faith, rather than outright rejection of the concept.
• Shift in focus: Around 1875, as it became clear that the majority of naturalists were embracing evolution, some Protestant religious contributors began rejecting Darwin's theory more strongly, specifically due to concerns about scriptural veracity.
• Context: The debate in the U.S. during this period was primarily among academics, theologians, and the educated public, with a focus on whether the theory was compatible with a theistic worldview. The mass-market, public-focused anti-evolutionary crusades (such as those led by William Jennings Bryan and T.T. Martin) would not gain prominence until the 1920s.

Debora

 

https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/ernst-haeckel/

 

"The diagram was soon translated into English and appeared, among other places, in the 1879 London edition of Haeckel’s book (third image). The portrait shows Haeckel later in life (he lived until 1919)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tree_of_life_by_Haeckel.jpg

Debora

 

Great image Kronos. I would've jumped on a late 1860's-thru 1870's date,but Debora's evidence seems to support 1880's.
Look at Roaring's collage-whoa !

 

The School and Family Chart was published in 1890.

https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2018694995/

Debora

 

View turned out more interesting than I originally thought. Thanks all.

Here's another interesting one. Two women painting in a large room filled with art. Watertown Wisconsin area. 1880s. One of them could possibly be Mary Ann Wright.