Israel Stollman collection of stereographs, 1850-1979, undated

Printable guide [HTML]

Summary

Creators:
Stollman, Israel
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.
Extent:
61.4 Linear Feet (84 boxes, 2 flatfile folders, 1 roll)
Language:
Collection material is in English with some French and German.

Background

Scope and content:

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.

Biographical / historical:

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.

Acquisition information:
From the stereo collection of Israel Stollman. Acquired in 2005.
Physical location:
Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the catalog record for this collection. Click here for the access policy.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Location of this collection:
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA 90049-1688, US
Contact:
(310) 440-7390
Website