All very interesting I’m
sure. Much information
of the Perkens and Rayments. But then John Rayment
sent me a copy of an article entitled, ‘Prepare To
Shed Them Now’, written by a Mr. Calder Marshall. The writer had a rather downbeat opinion of
the lantern, but on the other hand, had obtained some vivid photographs of
lantern slides and other transparencies.
He had purchased some slides and borrowed others from the Guildhall Book
Shop at St. James, Kingston upon
Thames Surrey.
My inquiry to the Guildhall Book
Shop brought forth a reply from a Miss Dale Wood, who informed me (May 1969)
that she could give me no further information concerning the transparencies
shown in ‘Prepare To Shed Them Now’, as Mr. Marshall had purchased some slides
and borrowed others, but at the time of her reply to me he had not returned the
borrowed slides.
A dead end? I thought so for many years. Then Herman Hecht joined the American Society
in 1982 or 1983. I took it upon myself
to write him a letter of welcome.
July 9, 1983. Herman Hecht wrote, “How nice to receive your
letter. Collecting and researching into
magic lanterns can be a lonely and perhaps self-indulgent occupation…by sheer
coincidence something strange happened.
Just the day before your letter arrived, a bookseller acquaintance of
mine, who lives in Wilbech in Cambridgeshire
next door to my brother-in-law, sent me some correspondence you had with the
Guildhall Book Shop in 1969, together with the blue print (reproduction) of the
‘Elephant’s Revenge’ which you had sent to him.
Life is extraordinary!”
Herman continued, “Fourteen years
later it may be of little help, but the story and the drawings originated with
that great German illustrator, Wilhelm Busch.
Your slides (how interesting that you should call them ‘running slides’;
I have always called them ‘panorama slides’ which, come to think of it, means
something else altogether) are exact copies of the original illustrations which
I have in front of me as I write.”
So at last the loose ends are
met. Now I know somewhat about Perken, Son & Rayment and a
little about Calder Marshall. Further,
thanks to the consideration of Herman Hecht, I now know of the origin of the
‘Elephant’s Revenge’. The lone letter
from Herman Hecht was, I had hoped to be the first of many, but fate decreed
otherwise. One letter can prove the
value of correspondence. That is good
enough for
The Old Projectionist
~ Traveling Men ~
Before the turn of the century,
life, day-by-day was quite different from today’s average American family. In an earlier time, the American family was a
self-contained unit. Very much so on the
plains of middle America. Individual families built their own
homes. Sod houses at first, and later,
wood framed. In company with neighbors,
they raised their barns; grew crops and stock, stretched their barbed wire
fences over hill and dale. Wives and
mothers put together the families home spun clothes. After all this, they had enough energy to
defend themselves against all comers.
They also entertained themselves. On any given Friday or Saturday evening,
those neighbors living on the adjoining homesteads would come
calling. Violins and guitars were
brought along and music filled the home.
Spoons and bones would add to the rhythm. Songs were sung, tales were told, and
recitations were declaimed. Dramatic
offerings would be made by many a farm bound, hopeful, would be actor. In this manner, the heritage and culture of
the family unit was passed on to the new generation. Such gatherings came to be known as the “Literaries.”
The people out on the open spaces
would sometimes see peculiar wagons going by but seldom had the chance to
observe a Medicine Show. But if you
lived in the village, the Medicine Show would come to you. The “traveling doctor or professor” would
extol the wonders of his universal embrocation, which
held the promise of cure for any and all ailments of the human race. Admittedly, it was difficult to make a choice
as to what was the best entertainment, his loud and outrageous spiel or the
homespun humor of his traveling show.
The Medicine Show and the patent
medicine quack preceded the Chautauqua, but they in turn had to make way for
still another traveling man. This person
was the magic lantern traveling projectionist.
When the final stories are
recounted of those early days, at least a few paragraphs, or perhaps a full
page, must be saved for such a man as B. A. Bamber
and his great Dime Show with “new attractions and better than before”. He featured travel, art, history, astronomy,
fun and electricity! There was no
additional charge for the electricity, which came from a very fine galvanic
battery. Bamber’s
flyer touted the electric current as being a cure for “rheumatism, neuralgia
and headaches.” Mr. Bamber
spotlighted in his program the “grand stereoptical
dissolving slides”. He never bothered to
tell his audiences, if indeed he knew, that Mr. H. L.
Child used similar slides in 1840, or that a Dutch mathematician had worked
with like devices nearly one hundred years earlier.
