Popular Visual Shows 1800-1914: Picturegoing from Peep Shows to Film

This book tells the story of the growth of picturegoing as a popular habit between 1800 and 1914. Encouraged by urbanisation and changes in transportation, education, and leisure patterns, the regular and widespread provision of exhibitions and shows became a defining characteristic of cultural life. Painted panoramas and dioramas awed with enormous tableaux; the stereoscope immersed viewers in a 3D world; the many varieties of peepshow promised a marvellously garish experience of patriotic...