Performance in the Pacific Northwest

The magic lantern was a popular slideshow machine used extensively throughout colonial British Columbia from the 1860s onward. This device, also known as a stereopticon, combined abstract art, moral “edutainment,” and political propaganda. From religious proselytizing to children’s shows, the magic lantern played an active role in shaping nineteenth-century visual culture in the pacific northwest. Many of the first shows were performed at the Mechanics’ Literary Institute in Victoria, BC.

Magic Lantern Shows

Research by Matthew Tomkinson

Introduction

History

Reactivations

Media

Discussion

Bibliography

Introduction

According to the Magic Lantern Society of the US and Canada, by the late nineteenth century, the “stereopticon” was used in up to 150,000 performances a year in the United States. As Chad Evans observes, “During the nineteenth century magic lantern entertainments were common, both in public and private, and were often used for educative purposes” (187). Their widespread use, however, was far more idiosyncratic — and far less innocuous — than this description suggests. Indeed, scholars have yet to address the centrality of the magic lantern within the visual culture of colonial British Columbia. 

While Evans suggests that the first lantern show in BC occurred in the early 1870s, newspaper articles indicate that this technology had been used locally throughout the preceding decade. Many of the earliest shows took place at the Mechanics’ Literary Institute, which was Victoria’s first public library. As for their aesthetics: though Evans characterizes magic lantern slides as a form of “static realism,” these images were not always static or realistic. On the contrary, they featured everything from abstract patterns to dancing skeletons, complete with “magnificent movable effects” (156).

Evidently, many of these lantern shows had a disciplinary function, used for religious proselytizing and colonial propaganda. In Nanaimo, for example, children gathered on November 29th, 1862 to gaze upon “incredibly beautiful views, representing places and scenery in Palestine and the Holy Land,” through a magic lantern provided by the Bishop (3). The Reverend W. H. Pierce of the Methodist Church in Vancouver was given a magic lantern by a fellow clergyman in 1894, who purchased the device while in England, along with a “full set of slides,” hoping “to make effectual use of them in his evangelical work among Indigenous populations” (3).

On other occasions, the devices were used to accompany lectures, or provided light entertainment for children and parents. One of the earliest advertisements for a magic lantern show in BC was billed as a “juvenile entertainment” to be held at the Theatre Royal in Victoria, on Wednesday, December 30th, 1868 (2). The story to be performed was “Cinderella and the Glass Slipper,” as illustrated by the scientific-sounding Oxyhydrogen Magic Lantern (notably on loan from a local Reverend, Mr. Jenns). This show also featured chromatrope slides with colourful kaleidoscopic patterns.

A journalist for The British Colonist reported on the details of this particular performance, wherein the magic lantern is still described as “new,” though its earliest iteration traces back to the 17th century. Other images that appeared included “Mount Vesuvius in eruption; the Mill — showing even the rippling of the stream and the mill wheel in motion; the beautiful chromotrope, almost dazzling in its effect; the Crystal Fountain” (3). The journalist remarks that “the hour and a half which it lasted passed away as rapidly as the dissolving views” (3). This term refers to fading out one slide while fading in another, using multiple lanterns as proto-projectors. These slides were made of glass — some black and white, and others hand-painted in colour.

Elizabeth Hartrick provides necessary context for this technology in her study of magic lanterns in colonial Australia: “Internationally the magic lantern and its practice were located in contemporary discourses of education and entertainment, leisure, class, modernity and visuality; discourses which held particular relevance in the context of colonial cultural concerns, conditions and values” (21).

In the sections that follow, I will trace some of the different practices associated with the magic lantern throughout BC in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and its role in the construction and propagation of colonial culture.

History

According to Hartrick, “Volcanic eruptions were immensely popular as subjects for the special characteristics of the dissolving view technique” (49). Slides would fade between shots of Vesuvius, first covered in snow, and then fire. Such slides were commercially produced, so it is no surprise that BC was also invested in this visual trope, which, according to Hartrick, “came close to constituting a genre” (49).

Among many venues that held shows featuring this technology — including churches, homes, and community halls all over the province — the magic lantern was particularly prominent in philharmonics and other music venues, where shows were advertised to families with children, whose admission was usually half-price (fifty cents and twenty-five cents, respectively). Tickets were sold at a nearby music store, and the lantern shows were often accompanied by choral music and instrumentals.

Based on the typical price of admission and the lantern’s presence at many fundraising events during the period, this technology was in most cases a thoroughly middle-class entertainment, though Hartrick stresses that the lantern’s community presence had the effect of eroding class barriers (123). For those who could afford a household lantern, one could be purchased for twenty-five dollars in 1895, the price equivalent of a laptop today. A local bookstore in Victoria, T.N. Hibben & Co., advertised large-sized lanterns in the newspaper.

Soon enough, the technology itself became a metaphor for other situations involving rapid, flickering changes: reproducing an article from the Ottawa Citizen, a Daily Colonist article from May 28, 1896 describes “lightning change politicians” undergoing “chameleon-like changes” in their trade policy — a “series of dissolving views” that “goes on from day to day” (2). Another metaphor comes from Sir George Dibbs, the Premier of New South Wales, who visited BC in 1892 and remarked that he had never viewed “such magnificent scenery,” which he likens to “dissolving views, lasting for a hundred hours” (1). In this pre-cinematic example of hyperreality, the real source of Dibbs’s “wonder and admiration” are the apparently boundless “engineering possibilities,” and the railway workers who “forced a pathway for their steel rails through those great masses of stone and earth” (1). Here, one also begins to see evidence for the magic lantern’s role in encouraging land development and thus hastening environmental degradation.

The Magic Lantern as a Children’s Toy

Though the lantern had more practical and serious applications, as future sections will address, it was most commonly used for light entertainment and sold as a toy. Advertisements for lantern shows would often list the content of the slides to be featured that evening. As suggested earlier, many of these events were held as benefits. An 1881 fundraiser for a Protestant orphanage, for example, boasts an “improved oxyhydrogen lantern” showcase, featuring images including: big trees, Yosemite, Niagara, 1000 Isles, comics, Vesuvius once again, and the “seven stages of modern girlhood” (3). 

According to an extensive catalogue of lantern slides from 1890, published by McIntosh Battery and Optical Company Co., these “seven stages” depict a changeling child who transforms into a bouquet of flowers, but soon becomes overtaken by vanity and loses herself among a fairy kingdom in a rugged land. Here, the audience was presented with a desert scene, in which the child faces a “long, dreary waste of cheerless desolation” (172). The girl is eventually saved by the power of true love, and makes her way up “the solemn cathedral aisles” (172). Already one can see that such toys were never without a moral lesson.

A colonial society in Victoria, known as the Ancient Order of Foresters, held a Christmas party at their local chapter hall. According to the paper, “The entertainment opened with a magic lantern exhibition by Brother Norgate which was very interesting. It was noticeable that the juveniles applauded the church scenes much more than they did the soldiers and the snakes, which augurs well for the future welfare of Victoria” (7). Once more, it is clear that such shows were motivated by certain principles of good citizenship, which is why Christmas lantern shows, as Hartrick puts it, also fall into the category of “rational amusement” (97).

Evidently, the youth were not as uninterested in wartime imagery as their church elders might have hoped, since matinee lantern shows were arranged specifically for children to witness “The War in Egypt,” with slides covering a variety of military scenes: “Bombardment of Alexandria and effects of — Battle of Kassassin — Charge of Horse Guards — Battle of Tel-el-Kebir — Highland Brigade at close quarter — Review of Troops and many others” (2). Another show depicted “Heroes of the Cross,” presented by Captain Barr on behalf of the Salvation Army (5). If the magic lantern, as Hartrick suggests, was also “deployed as an instrument of propaganda” for conscription, then such shows for children were a means of early indoctrination (290).

Lantern Lectures and “Interesting Entertainment”

Beyond its theatrical implementations, the device was also used regularly in so-called “lantern lectures.” A reverend with the unfortunate name of “Mr. Beanlands” delivered a lecture on the “history of money” with illustrations by magic lantern on March 9th, 1886 (3). “The reverend gentleman,” according to the paper, “traced the origin of money from its earliest source, and illustrated his remarks by means of photographs of coins enlarged by means of a stereopticon” (3).

Another lecture in March of 1897, by one Mr. Leslie, contained “upwards of 150 large and perfect lantern views.” The talk was titled “Around the World in 100 Minutes” and offered audiences “a glance at many lands” (5). Not only did the lantern meet a “huge demand for descriptions of distant lands,” as Hartrick puts it, but it also served to “inform prospective immigrants, settlers and investors of conditions in the colonies” (222).

While the lantern was a source of entertainment, it was also an object of fascination in its own right. One advertisement in 1878, for example, promises an evening of “interesting entertainment” (a fitting oxymoron), during which the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court would explain how the lantern works (1).

At least one lantern’s make and model is named among these articles, though most are not. An 1884 article states that a children’s Christmas event was “illustrated by one of Browning’s large magic lanterns” (2).

In the British Colonist of October 16, 1887, one journalist writes: “Mr. Schnaudery, the liberal caucus king, in order that political lecturers can no longer suffer under the reproach of being dry, has purchased fifty sets of magic lantern slides and the necessary lantern to now occupy part of the luggage of every liberal lecturer. The rousing address of Irish lecturers will be followed by blood-curdling scenes of Irish evictions” and the “conservative lectures are now followed by dissolving views of cattle maiming and moonlighting” (1). In this regard, lantern shows were not only a form of boosterism, but they were also part of a performance practice intended to keep audiences engaged while the proverbial booster was administered.

The lantern was also used to “construct a sense of regional identity” (223) as Hartrick puts it, by depicting BC back to itself in the form of lectures on Kootenay and the “Mines of British Columbia” (5). About this lecture, another journalist writes: “Victorians should take advantage of the opportunity of hearing from the lips of a scientist who has examined the whole country, a geologist as well as a mineralogist, the facts of the province’s wealth in mines that indicate its future progress” (5). It goes without saying that this regional identity was a colonial fiction painted on top of Indigenous territory, much like the slides themselves.

The Magic Lantern as a Religious Medium

According to Hartrick, as a populist medium, the magic lantern was highly suited to evangelism (196). Emphasizing the theatrical nature of the device, the author quotes a pair of lanternists who refer to themselves as “spiritual Barnums” providing popular entertainment (196). As early as 1866, religious lanternists in BC presented slideshows to Sunday School children, who “witnessed exhibitions of a sacred and instructive character” (2).

An article from 1898 defines the magic lantern as “an instrument of imparting the truths of religion,” and the James Bay United Church in Victoria used this instrument to accompany a sermon on John Bunyan’s 1678 Christian allegory, The Pilgrim’s Progress (2). It is no surprise that this book, which takes the form of a dream sequence, would be visually represented by a magic lantern, since the device was especially suited to depicting phantasmagoric sequences. 

Though it seems quaint in hindsight, William Thomas Stead said in 1895 that “the lantern may become as indispensable as the pulpit itself” (qtd. in Hartrick, 172) — and yet Hartrick shows much evidence to the contrary, suggesting that many saw the magic lantern as both mundane and profane, with no place in clerical activity. Although numerous newspaper articles from the period mention Christian lantern shows for children in BC, there are considerably fewer references to similar shows for adults, with the exception of missionary performances organized by colonists for the religious indoctrination of Indigenous peoples.

The Magic Lantern as a Colonial Apparatus

In another news article discussing recent immigrants from Britain, one writer highlights the magic lantern’s contribution to colonial settlement through advertisements for land. “The magic lantern exhibitions which were got up by Sir Donald, showing the Dominion as an agricultural country, which needed chiefly brawn and muscle and the knowledge of crops and cattle, brought home to the people in a vivid and effectual way the situation which had to be confronted” (7). At the same time, shows were held in Victoria as of 1893 that depicted “A Day in London,” illustrated by “magnificent dissolving views placing Victorians (6,000 miles from it) immediately in the World’s metropolis for twenty-five cents” (“The City” 5).

In 1897, Sir Donald Smith was the Canadian High Commissioner in London, where he would “enlighten the public on the other side as to the class of immigrants desired in Canada” by means of lantern shows. The journalist continues: “There was everything encouraging in this, particularly when the pictures were supplemented with the exhibition of the cereals and roots indigenous to the several provinces” (“Early Immigrants” 7). As Hartrick suggests, such images can be read “as a testament of proprietorial appropriation of land and the celebration of possession, occupation and profitable development of natural resources” (222). 

This two-way “exchange of visual information” (191) across the ocean served to showcase empire to the British public, and, conversely, to promote imperialist values to colonial subjects. On this point, Hartrick adds:

The magic lantern not only maintained white colonial audiences’ vital connection to what might be termed a British Imperial world vision, it also brought the colonised into an understanding of their position as subjects within the colonial/imperial universe […] This had additional relevance in the colonies where British subjects were to varying degrees in direct contact with the indigenous peoples the Empire needed to subjugate and colonise. (247)

Lantern lecturers routinely accompanied their sermons with slides, travelling to multiple residential schools and missionary outposts throughout the province, where Oblate priests addressed crowds of up to 500 Indigenous spectators, preaching sermons “illustrated by magic lantern projections” that would run for up to two and a half hours (“Canoe Creek” 95). In the hands of Catholic missionaries, then, the lantern was a “modality of power” (to use Lynn Alison Blake’s term) and these sermons carefully harnessed the iconophilia of the church — its belief in the “power of the visual to teach, to move, and to persuade” (21). This is to say nothing, however, of how such shows were actually received by Indigenous spectators, since any descriptions to this end found in colonial newspapers are inherently unreliable. 

Case in point: an 1892 article in the Daily Colonist describes a man with the title of Prof. F. Alexcu — “the Indian lecturer” — who gave an “entertaining” lecture on the “curious customs and traditions of a peculiar people,” illustrated “by means of a number of magic lantern slides, which were made by the lecturer himself” (“An Interesting Lecture” 3). These slides depicted Indigenous populations in the Northwest Territories as “man-eaters,” perpetuating a fictitious colonial trope of cannibalism. As Noel Elizabeth Currie writes, “cannibalism is not a matter of simple observation, but instead functions as a discourse to justify colonial or imperial appropriation” (72). If indeed the church mobilized magic lanterns for their affective potential, then it is also true that lecturers weaponized this technology in service of racist colonial ideology. Therein lies the obvious danger of the magic lantern as a pedagogical tool, since these shows bore the convincing title of lecture while pursuing the dubious goal of entertainment.

The Magic Lantern and Its Portrayal of British Cities

Perhaps most curious of all is how an empire depicts itself. Another Daily Colonist article from 1893 mentions an illustrated lecture on “Slum Life, or How the Poor Live in a Great City.” Illuminated by limelight, the illustrations are promised to be “dissolving views of a very interesting nature” (7). This particular series of slides from 1892 is collected on LUCERNA, a magic lantern web resource. Writing about lantern slum shows, Igor Krstić suggests that the appeal was twofold: one point of interest was “photorealistic images of the spectacular sights of wretchedness,” and the other was “the documentary technology of capturing it” (59). As such, it is unclear whether the Victoria slum show was more interesting as a slice of life, or as slices of painted glass. Echoing one of Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s observations in Extraordinary Bodies (2017) — namely, that otherized bodies serve to reaffirm the normative status of the spectator — Krstić suggests that lantern slum shows allowed middle-class spectators to “distinguish themselves from the ‘Other Half,’” and to gaze voyeuristically at them from a safe remove (60). Despite the slum show’s popular appeal, an unacknowledged irony is contained within the lecture’s very title, which describes a great city made up of slums. One wonders how spectators reconciled such a contradiction, at once experiencing the thrilling “somatic reality-effects” of documentary-style imagery, while also acknowledging one of the animating principles behind colonialism: to make a place unlivable (260).

Reactivations

The resources below offer examples of scholarly and/or artistic engagements with the artifact and/or its associated histories. These materials are also valuable to consult for classroom discussion and further research.

Media

Discussion

Question 1

Find one or two lantern slides on LUCERNA (the Magic Lantern Web Resource). What strikes you visually? What can you find out about the photographer, or the immediate geographical context of the photo?

Question 2

Discuss the role of magic lantern shows in shaping public opinion about British Columbia’s natural resources. How might they have contributed to colonialism’s impact on the environment?

Question 3

Compare the lantern with modern forms of visual media and discuss the phenomenon of hyperreality. In what ways did the lantern contribute to “the death of the real” in Jean Baudrillard’s sense?

Question 4

Find two related or unrelated images that could function together as dissolving views. Try crossfading between them. What do you notice?

Question 5

Explore the magic lantern simulation on Massimo Riva’s website, “Shadow Plays: Virtual Realities in an Analog World”.

Bibliography

Blake, Lynn Alison. Let the Cross Take Possession of the Earth: Missionary Geographies of Power in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia. The University of British Columbia, PhD dissertation. https://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape17/PQDD_0034/NQ27108.pdf.

“An Interesting Lecture,” The Daily Colonist, 1 Oct. 1892, Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18921001uvic/page/n3/mode/2up.

“An Interesting Lecture,” The Daily Colonist, 26 Mar. 1893, Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18930326uvic/page/n5/mode/2up

“Auction Sale Today,” The Daily British Colonist, 31 Dec. 1868. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18681231uvic/page/n1/mode/2up.

“Benefit for the Protestant Orphanage,” 28 Dec. 1883, Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18831228uvic/page/n1/mode/2up.

“Benefit of the Protestant Orphanage,” Daily British Colonist, 4 May 1881. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18810504uvic/page/n1/mode/2up.

“A Children’s Entertainment,” The Daily Colonist, 18 Jan. 1884, Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18840118uvic/page/n1/mode/2up.

“Canoe Creek.” Kamloops Wawa, December 1901, pp. 95.

“The City,” The Daily Colonist, 19 Feb. 1896, Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18960219uvic/page/n3/mode/2up.

“The City,” The Daily Colonist, 16 Mar. 1897, Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18970316uvic/page/n3/mode/2up.

“The City,” The Daily Colonist, 8 Nov. 1893, Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18931108uvic/page/n3/mode/2up.

Currie, Noel Elizabeth. “Cook and the Cannibals: Nootka Sound, 1778.” Lumen, vol. 13, 1994, pp. 71–78. https://doi.org/10.7202/1012522ar.

“Down From the North,” The Daily Colonist, 4 Dec. 1894. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18941204uvic/page/n1/mode/2up.

Evans, Chad. Frontier Theatre: A History of Nineteenth-Century Theatrical

Entertainment in the Canadian Far West and Alaska. Sono Nis Press, 1983.

“Early Immigrants,” The Daily Colonist, 29 Apr. 1897, Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18970429uvic/page/n5/mode/2up.

“Entertainment to Sunday School Children,” The Daily Colonist, 24 Dec. 1866, https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18661224uvic/page/n1/mode/2up.

Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. Columbia University Press, 2017.

“God in His Temples,” The Daily Colonist, 13 Feb. 1898, Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18980213uvic/page/n1/mode/2up.

Hartrick, Elizabeth. Consuming Illusions: The Magic Lantern in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand 1850-1910, 2003. The University of Melbourne, PhD dissertation. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/162212193.pdf

“Illustrated Catalogue Of Magic Lanterns.” Chicago: McIntosh Battery and Optical Company Co., 1890. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18960628uvic/page/n5/mode/2up.

“Interesting Entertainment,” The Daily Colonist, 5 Sept. 1878, Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18780905uvic/mode/2up.

“Juvenile Entertainment at Nanaimo.” The Daily British Colonist, 29 Nov.1962. Internet Archive,
https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18621129uvic/page/n1/mode/2up.

Krstić, Igor. “Slums on Screen : World Cinema and the Planet of Slums.” OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks), Edinburgh University Press, 2016, https://openresearchlibrary.org/content/d3929d1b-3595-46fb-9bb0-1dcaf99653eb.

“Lightning Change Politicians,” The Daily Colonist, 27 May. 1896. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18960527uvic/page/n5/mode/2up.

“Lucerna Magic Lantern Web Resource,” lucerna.exeter.ac.uk, item 5032971.
https://lucerna.exeter.ac.uk/slide/index.php?id=5032971.

“Magic Lantern for Sale,” The Daily Colonist, 23 Feb. 1895. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18950223uvic/page/n7/mode/2up.

“Our Cable Letter,” The Daily Colonist, 16 Oct. 1887, Internet Archive,
https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18871016uvic/mode/2up.

“Oxyhydrogen Lantern,” The Daily Colonist, 2 Nov. 1869. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18691102uvic/mode/2up.

“Sir George Dibbs,” The Daily Colonist, 16 Aug. 1892. Internet Archive,
https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18920816uvic/mode/2up.

“Toys Toys Toys,” The Daily Colonist, 16 Dec. 1900. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist19001216uvic/page/n3/mode/2up.

“A Well Loved Guest,” The Daily Colonist, 31 Dec. 1890, Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18901231uvic/page/n7/mode/2up.

“The History of Money,” The Daily Colonist, 10 Mar. 1886, Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18860310uvic/page/n1/mode/2up.

“1885 Ad: John Browning Magic Lantern Projector Victorian Laterna Magica YNM4.” Period Paper, www.periodpaper.com/products/1885-ad-john-browning-magic-lantern-projector-victorian-laterna-magica-ynm4-230587-ynm4-011.