Kilburn, B. W. (Benjamin West), 1827-1909

One of the stereographs located in the Arkansas History Commission General Photograph File. Stereographs, composed of two photographs made by a camera with two lenses 2 1/2" apart mounted on a single card. As stereographs were popular as a source of photographs from around the world, they were mass produced and distributed. Views of Arkansas immortalized in stereoscopic views included locations in Eureka Springs, Hot Springs, Little Rock and Siloam Springs.

From the description of Arkansas State Building, Columbian Exposition [graphic] / B.W. Kilburn [photographer]. 1893. (Arkansas History Commission). WorldCat record id: 47274198

In 1882 Elmer and Ben Underwood set up an office on Ottawa, Kansas to distribute Eastern photographers' stereographs to the Western market with door-to-door salesmen. By 1891, they had established a plant in Ottawa to manufature stereo photographic cameras, stereo views and stereoscopes; moved their headquarters to New York City, opened branch offices in Baltimore, New York, and Liverpool. By 1901, Underwood and Underwood was manufacturing packaged sets of stereo views--25,000 a day (more than seven million a a year), and 300,000 stereoscopes a year.

See Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, "Stereographs and Stereotypes: A 1904 View of Mormonism," Journal of Mormon History 18 (Fall 1992): 155-76.

From the guide to the Underwood and Underwood stereographs, bulk 1903-1905, 1903-1905, (L. Tom Perry Special Collections)