Summer is blockbuster movie season, but that wasn't always the case. Prior to the invention of motion pictures, audiences might gather instead for a magic lantern show. Developed in the 17th century as an entertainment, magic lantern shows used a light source, which reflected off of a concave mirror, to direct light through a glass slide bearing an image.
While commercially produced printed slides began emerging around 1820, the first glass slides were hand-painted, and these continued to be popular options. While many of these slides showed static images, others used simple mechanical devices to create moving images like the scene shown here. The motion in this seafaring scene from a ca. 1825 slide was created via a slip panorama slide technique. These kinds of slides worked by painting an image on one glass pane, and then a second image on a longer pane that could be moved horizontally across the projected image.
This item is part of Hagley Library's Alexis du Pont stereoviews and lantern slides (Accession 2016.303) collection, which was previously assembled by Alexis "Lex" du Pont (1928-2016), the son of Du Pont Motors founder E. Paul du Pont (1887-1950). The founder of New Garden Aviation and New Garden Flying Field in Pennsylvania, Alexis "Lex" du Pont was also a collector and dealer of motorcycles, automobiles, and antique aircraft.
A selection from this collection has been digitized and hosted in the Hagley Digital Archives. Many of the items included there are mechanical lantern slides, including other slip panorama slides, as well as glass phenakistiscope discs, a choreutoscope, an astronomical rackwork slide, single and double slip slides, and slip panorama slides. Animated video files accompany these items to demonstrate them in use.