Bud Lake and Randy Brewer lantern slides, 1880-1918

Twenty-two lantern slides in this collection have information on the slide identifying the photographer or publisher. For eighteen of the images, no information is provided about who produced the slide. Lantern slides were made from many sources: photographs, published works, drawings, paintings, etc., and were used for commercial and educational purposes. The following photographers/publishers are included in this collection of lantern slides:

Aloe’s, St. Louis, MO.

Printed on the Aloe’s slides is “Advertising and Lecture Slides Makers.” One slide in this collection is an image of Indians dancing with a title “Bishop Hare wrote under this photograph ‘This is what we began with.’” The title probably refers to William Hobart Hare (1838-1909), the Protestant Episcopal Church Missionary Bishop of District of Niobrara, Nebraska from 1873 who was called Apostle to the Sioux.

The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society (DFMS)

The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society (DFMS) was established in 1821 by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. In 1835, it was legislated that every Episcopalian was a member of the DFMS to emphasize that the Church as a whole was called to mission.

Erker Brothers Optical Company

This optical company was started in 1879 by A.P. Erker, who was later joined by his brother, Olympic gold medalist August Erker. A.P. Erker was one of the official photographers of the 1904 World's Fair. The company is still run by the Erker family in St. Louis, Missouri.

Keystone View Company

The Keystone View Company, located in Meadville, Pennsylvania, was a major producer of stereographs and lantern slides. The company was started by Benneville Lloyd Singley (1864-1938) and by 1905, the year of its incorporation, it was the largest business of its kind in the world. All manufacturing was done in Meadville, but branch offices were in New York; St. Louis; San Francisco; Portland; Oregon; Chicago; Toronto, Canada; and London, England.

William Herman Rau (1855–1920)

Rau was an American photographer, best remembered for his stereo cards of sites around the world, and for his panoramic photographs of sites along the Pennsylvania Railroad. He was born in Philadelphia in 1855, and learned photography from his older brother, George, who operated a photography studio out of the Rau house. In 1885, he set up his own studio in Philadelphia, and operated this studio for the remainder of his life, producing stereo cards, lantern slides, and silver prints. He was official photographer of the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, and of the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland in 1905.