Object of the Month – April 2009
The Historical Society owns this home-version of the magic lantern, probably dating from the 1890s.
Magic Lantern images were projected from colorful hand-painted glass slides like this one.
Shows were originally performed in theaters; home versions were developed later
Magic Lantern:
The ‘movie projector’ of the 19th century
The magic lantern was the earliest form of the slide projector. They were probably invented as early as the 1500s. Horror shows – knows as phantasmagoria – were very popular in Europe by the late 1700s. The first Phantasmagoria show in the U.S. was in New York in 1803.
Magic lantern shows toured the country in the 19th century, though our lantern probably was a home version dating from the 1890s.
The oldest projectors used oil lamps as a light source, but by the 1870s, oil lamps had been replaced by limelight, produced by burning oxygen and hydrogen on a pellet of lime. Limelight was a fire hazard and was in turn superceded by the carbon arc lamp and later by the electric light.
The popularity of magic lantern shows died out with the invention of movies.