Descriptive Summary
Biographical/Historical Note
Administrative Information
Related Archival Materials
Scope and Content of Collection
Indexing Terms
Descriptive Summary
Title: Israel Stollman collection of stereographs
Date (inclusive): 1850-1979, undated
Number: 2005.R.11
Creator/Collector:
Stollman, Israel
Physical Description:
61.4 Linear Feet
(84 boxes, 2 flatfile folders, 1 roll)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles 90049-1688
reference@getty.edu
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: Comprising over 9,100 items, the
majority of which are card stereographs (mounted photographic prints), the Israel Stollman
collection of stereographs focuses on views of cities and urban areas, especially in the
United States. As such the collection is not only a significant resource on the development
of modern urban sites, but it also encapsulates the history of the production of
stereographs, which flourished from the 1850s through the 1930s. The collection also
contains a small number of transparencies and images printed on glass in the form of
stereographs and lantern slides, a collection of stereo viewers, and small amount of related
ephemera.
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Language: Collection material is in English with some French and German.
Biographical/Historical Note
Israel Stollman, FAICP, was an American urban planner. He was born in 1923 on the Lower
East Side of New York, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. Stollman completed a BS in
social science with an independent major in housing and planning from City College of New
York in 1947 after taking two-and-one-half years off during World War II to serve in the
Army Air Corps. The following year he received a master's degree in city planning from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Stollman was then hired by the Cleveland Planning Commission as a junior planner and he
also taught at Western Reserve University. In 1951, he became assistant planning director
for the city of Youngstown, Ohio and rose to the position of planning director before
joining the faculty of Ohio State University in 1957, where he was instrumental in
establishing its graduate program in city and regional planning. He directed that program
for the next decade.
Upon the death of Dennis O'Harrow in 1968 Stollman became the executive director of the
American Society of Planning Officials (ASPO) in Chicago. During the 1970s, Stollman
concentrated on recruiting Black urban planners to the board of the ASPO, opening the
planning field to minorities, and preparing the merger of the ASPO with the American
Institute of Planners (AIP), which resulted in the formation of the American Planning
Association (APA) in 1978. Stollman served as executive director of the APA until his
retirement in 1994, after which he remained active in the organization. In 1999, he became a
charter member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) College of Fellows. He
also continued his teaching career at the University of Virginia Northern Virginia Center at
Falls Church. Stollman died in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2005 while he and his wife Mary
were visiting one of their three daughters.
Administrative Information
Access
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
The Israel Stollman collection of stereographs, 1850-1939, The Getty Research Institute,
Los Angeles, Accession no. 2005.R.11.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2005r11
Acquisition Information
From the stereo collection of Israel Stollman. Acquired in 2005.
Processing History
The collection was processed by Beth Guynn, Lily Tsukahira, Linda Kleiger, and Jan Bender
in 2009 and 2014. Guynn wrote the finding aid.
Related Archival Materials
The Getty Research library also holds another smaller collection of materials assembled by
Israel Stollman, accession number 2009.R.18, Israel Stollman Collection of Stereographs and
Postcards, 1860-1930, containing approximately 398 stereographs and one postcard album of
approximately 383 postcards. Additional large stereograph collections assembled by the
repository include accession numbers ZS 1, Expositions Stereograph Collection; ZS 2 Cities
and Sites Stereograph collection; ZSG 2 Cities and Sites Glass Stereograph Collection; and
ZS 1 Expositions Stereograph Collection.
Scope and Content of Collection
Israel Stollman began building the present collection in 1957 when he was hired by Ohio
State University and charged with establishing a new graduate program in city and regional
planning. He intended the collection to be used as a teaching and study tool in the broadest
sense of the word, and continued to add to it throughout his career. In addition to using
the collection for teaching urban planning, Stollman often used the perspectival qualities
of stereographs to convince his private clients of particular design solutions.
Comprising over 9,100 items, the majority of which are card stereographs (pairs of mounted
photographs of the same image taken from two slightly different perspectives), the focus of
the collection is views of cities and urban areas, especially of the United States. As such,
the collection is not only a significant resource for the development of modern urban sites,
but it also encapsulates the history of the production of stereographs which flourished from
the 1850s through the 1930s. Disseminated widely for both personal entertainment and as
teaching aids, stereographs were influential conveyors of information that helped form
popular perceptions about a region, an object, or another culture. Their images were often
reinforced by the texts printed on their versos which usually conveyed a specific cultural
bias.
The individual stereographs in Series I form the core of the collection. Stollman collected
these stereographs individually or in small groups. Stereographs of North America form
almost half of this series. The cities of New York, Chicago, and Washington D.C. are
prominently represented. Major European cities and sites, especially those of France,
Germany, Great Britain, and Italy are also well-represented. Broadly speaking, over 95
percent of the stereographs deal with urban themes. Other subjects including landscapes and
rural views, ancient sites, famous personalities, interiors, railroads, views of monuments
and works of art, views of significant events, and genre scenes and representations of local
peoples can be found within the individual countries represented in the collection.
Views of national and international expositions ranging from the Crystal Palace (London,
1851) to the Century of Progress Exposition (Chicago, 1933-1934) are also present. These
stereographs help to reinforce the relationship of the design of world's fairs and the
development of urban planning as a profession.
Nearly every major publisher of stereographs is represented in this series including the
American Stereoscopic Company; B. W. Kilburn Company (Kilburn Brothers); Breveté; E. &
H. T. Anthony; Ferrier et Soulier; H. C. White Co.; Griffith & Griffith; Keystone View
Company; Léon et Lévy; London Stereoscopic Company; Stereo-Travel Co.; Underwood &
Underwood; Universal Photo Art Company; and the Universal Stereoscopic View Company.
Photographers of note include Charles Bierstadt; Adolphe Braun; Abel Briquet; Giacomo
Brogi; Francis Frith; Frank Mason Good; B.W. Kilburn; Eadweard Muybridge; Alfredo Noack;
Robert Rive; Giorgio Sommer; James Valentine (Valentine & Sons); and George Washington
Wilson. Approximately ten percent of the views are unique, that is taken by amateur or
little-known photographers. These include early European views and American views by
small-town photographers.
Series II comprises boxed sets, that is stereographs purchased as sets and usually sold
housed in special boxes. In addition to a Keystone View Company,
Tour
of the World
set, there are sets for individual countries, a set of stereographs
documenting medical conditions, small format sets, and sets of film positive
stereographs.
Small groups of glass format stereographs and lantern slides representing a variety of
countries are found in Series III. Most of these items are unsigned, but stereograph makers
include Ferrier & Soulier and Brevité. A number of the glass lantern slides are
hand-colored. Stollman collected a variety of stereoviewers ranging from free-standing
pedestal viewers to handheld viewers to compact collapsible viewers; these objects are found
in Series IV. Some of the viewers were made to accompany the stereoscopes produced by a
specific publisher and are of a more mass-produced nature, while others, especially the
nineteenth-century models made by opticians and cabinet makers as parlor pieces, exhibit the
qualities of small pieces of finished cabinetry.
Finally, Series V comprises various materials loosely related to stereographs such as a
printed sheet of stereoviews, price lists, and steorograph club literature.
Arrangement
Organized in five series:
Series
I: Individual stereographs, 1850-1960;
Series II: Boxed sets, 1890-1970s;
Series III: Glass stereographs
and lantern slides, 1860-1930;
Series IV: Stereoviewers,
1860-1979;
Series V: Prints, objects and
ephemera, 1893-1977, undated.
Indexing Terms
Subjects - Names
Good, Frank Mason, 1839-1928
Frith, Francis
Kilburn, B. W. (Benjamin West),
1827-1909
Braun, Adolphe, 1812-1877
Bierstadt, Charles, 1819-1903
Brogi, Giacomo,
1822-1881
Briquet, Abel
Rive, Robert
Wilson, G. W. (George
Washington), 1823-1893
Sommer, Giorgio, 1834-1914
Noack, Alfredo, 1833-1896
Valentine, James,
1815-1879
Subjects - Corporate Bodies
B.W. Kilburn Company
Ferrier et Soulier
Breveté
American Stereoscopic
Company
Keystone View Company
Stereo-Travel Co
Universal Stereoscopic View
Co
Universal Photo Art
Co
Griffith &
Griffith
London Stereoscopic Company
Léon et Lévy
Louisiana Purchase Exposition (Location of
meeting: Saint Louis, Mo.). Date of meeting or treaty signing: (1904 :.)
Pan-American Exposition (Location of
meeting: Buffalo, N.Y.). Date of meeting or treaty signing: (1901 :.)
Century of Progress International Exposition
(Location of meeting: Chicago, Ill.). Date of meeting or treaty signing: (1933-1934
:.)
H.C. White Co.
E. & H.T. Anthony
(Firm)
Inter-State Industrial
Exposition of Chicago
Great Exhibition (Location of meeting:
London, England). Date of meeting or treaty signing: (1851 :.)
Exposition universelle de Paris
en 1855
World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial
Exposition (Location of meeting: New Orleans, La.). Date of meeting or treaty signing:
(1884-1885 :.)
World's Columbian Exposition (1893 : Chicago, Ill.)
California Midwinter
International Exposition (Location of meeting: San Francisco, Calif.). Date of meeting or
treaty signing: (1894 :.)
Centennial Exhibition (Location of meeting:
Philadelphia, Pa.). Date of meeting or treaty signing: (1876 :.)
Exposition universelle de 1867 à
Paris
Exposition universelle (Location of meeting:
Paris, France). Date of meeting or treaty signing: (1900 :.)
Subjects - Topics
Exhibitions
Subjects - Places
Venezuela -- Description and travel
Uruguay -- Description and travel
Ukraine -- Description and travel
Sweden -- Description and travel
Wales -- Description and travel
Puerto Rico -- Description and travel
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines -- Description and travel
South Africa -- Description and travel
Sri Lanka -- Description and travel
Sudan -- Description and travel
Pakistan -- Description and travel
Panama -- Description and travel
Iceland -- Description and travel
Gibraltar -- Description and travel
Indonesia -- Description and travel
India -- Description and travel
Greenland -- Description and travel
Grenada -- Description and travel
Greece -- Description and travel
Hungary -- Description and travel
El Salvador -- Description and travel
Egypt -- Description and travel
Finland -- Description and travel
England -- Description and travel
Ireland -- Description and travel
Iran -- Description and travel
Ecuador -- Description and travel
Dominica -- Description and travel
Cuba -- Description and travel
Czechoslovakia -- Description and travel
Denmark -- Description and travel
Djibuti -- Description and travel
France -- Description and travel
Georgia (Republic) -- Description and travel
Colombia -- Description and travel
Congo -- Description and travel
Singapore -- Description and travel
Scotland -- Description and travel
Russia -- Description and travel
Portugal -- Description and travel
Poland -- Description and travel
Peru -- Description and travel
Palestine -- Description and travel
Philippines -- Description and travel
Norway -- Description and travel
Netherlands -- Description and travel
Yugoslavia -- Description and travel
United States -- Description and travel
Turkey -- Description and travel
Syria -- Description and travel
Switzerland -- Description and travel
Spain -- Description and travel
Malaysia -- Description and travel
Martinique -- Description and travel
Lebanon -- Description and travel
Malta -- Description and travel
Jordan -- Description and travel
Korea -- Description and travel
Nicaragua -- Description and travel
Outer space -- Description and travel
Italy -- Description and travel
Jamaica -- Description and travel
Jersey -- Description and travel
Israel -- Description and travel
Morocco -- Description and travel
Japan -- Description and travel
Mexico -- Description and travel
Monaco -- Description and travel
Bosnia -- Description and travel
Bolivia -- Description and travel
Bulgaria -- Description and travel
Brazil -- Description and travel
China -- Description and travel
Asia -- Description and travel
Bermuda -- Description and travel
Belgium -- Description and travel
Middle East -- Description and travel
Chile -- Description and travel
Canada -- Description and travel
North American -- Description and travel
Oceania -- Description and travel
Argentina -- Description and travel
Algeria -- Description and travel
Africa -- Description and travel
Australia -- Description and travel
Austria -- Description and travel
Genres and Forms of Material
Lantern slides -- 20th century
Lantern slides -- 19th century
Collotypes -- 19th century
Photographic transparencies -- 20th century
Collotypes -- 20th century
Photomechanical prints -- 19th century
Photomechanical prints -- 20th century
Albumen prints -- 19th century
Tissue stereographs -- 19th century
Stereographs -- 20th century
Stereographs -- 19th century
Hand-colored photographic prints -- 19th century
Relief halftones -- 19th century
Gelatin silver prints -- 19th century
Photographs, Original
Stereoscopes -- 19th century
Stereoscopes -- 20th century
Gelatin silver prints -- 20th century
Contributors
Stollman, Israel