Journal of Design History Vol. 15 No. 2 © 2002 The Design History Society.

All rights reserved

Viewing Souvenirs
Peepshows and the International Expositions

Amy F. Ogata

This article considers how the international exposition was represented in peepshow
souvenirs, folding paper devices that gave a three-dimensional view of the interior. Using
Walter Benjamin's notion of the world's fair as a phantasmagoria, I argue that the optical
souvenirs produced for international expositions reconfirmed the enchanted visual experience

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in a way that other mass-produced souvenirs could not and, moreover, that this held
implications for both popular consumption and collective memory.
Keywords: Benjamin, Walter—expositions universelles—international exhibitions—
peepshows—popular entertainment—souvenirs

The international expositions that marked the indus- material culture of the fair and an important means
trial age were carefully designed spectacles organized for the way it was subsequently remembered.4 The
to teach through visual impression. Grandiose dis- peepshow, a foldout paper construction with printed
plays of technology, people and the commodities of scenes and a peephole, not only answered the
industrial manufacture regularly drew visitors to the tourist's desire for a memento, but allowed the
capitals of Europe and Britain as major tourist spectator to relive the visual experience of the
attractions. Indeed, the spectacular qualities of nine- exhibition. In light of this, I wish to explore how
teenth-century expositions made them not only a peepshow souvenirs reified the concept of the 'phan-
way to inculcate lessons of nationalism and principles tasmagoria' for both popular consumption and col-
of taste and consumption, but also provided a form lective memory.
of successful entertainment.1 In his Passagen-Werk (or Benjamin uses the term 'phantasmagoria' to sug-
Arcades Project), an outline for the history of thegest the deceptive and spectacular experience of
nineteenth century, Walter Benjamin observed that commodities and capitalism in the nineteenth cen-
world's fairs 'provide access to a phantasmagoria tury.5 Building on Marx's discussion of the magical
which a person enters in order to be distracted.'2 quality of commodities and their power over the
Benjamin's emphasis on the magical, even deceptive, consumer, Benjamin offers the notion of the phant-
aspects of optical experience offers a useful means for asmagoria as a means of theorizing the visual and
reconsidering the visual culture of world's fairs. psychological effects of capitalism on social life.6
Beyond just spectacle, the phantasmagoria is a Phantasmagorias, however, were also actual perform-
dreamlike construction that renders physical things, ances in which spectral representations, created with
such as exposition buildings and objects on view, the aid of an optical device such as the magic lantern,
into a play of representations. While scholars have appeared in a darkened room.7 Figures that receded
examined the politics of vision and the commodity dramatically or rushed forward in partial light seemed
culture of expositions, the optical—and social—effects three-dimensional, but were in reality only phant-
of popular souvenirs have not been addressed.3 As a asms or visual tricks. While the magic lantern was
tourist industry developed around the expositions, continuously popular during the eighteenth and
souvenir objects became an intrinsic part of the nineteenth centuries, by the end of the nineteenth

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 Amy Ogata

century the word 'phantasmagoria' suggested some- series of images, to crowds. The peepshow man,
thing less technological than metaphorical.8 In the usually an itinerant figure romanticized in popular
twentieth century, Benjamin and others associated songs, prints and even porcelain, travelled from
with the Frankfurt School adopted the term 'phantas- village to village with his apparatus and was a
magoria' to unmask the intense visual experience as favourite attraction at fairs and festivals.15 His peep-
the illusory nature of the commodity itself.9 Benja- show pictures of exotic places, historic events and
min, moreover, explores the particular relationship monuments were usually accompanied by a spoken
between dreamlike images and built forms. Shopping narration. Audiences gathered around a large box and
arcades, domestic interiors and international exposi- for a small price would view the printed scenes that
tions became bourgeois spaces of enchantment could be changed by an internal mechanism. By the
where the viewer experienced dreamlike representa- early nineteenth century, the elaborate boxes had
tions that veiled social realities. From display win- given way to inexpensive smaller devices that were
dows to the city of Paris itself, the phantasmagoria intended for the individual, bourgeois, viewer.16 The
allowed solid objects to become spectral representa- polyorama panoptique, for example, was a wooden

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tions venerated by an audience that was itself on box with paper bellows; miniature panoramas were
display. The experience of phantasmagoria is, there- also related to this type of device.17 Peep eggs, made
fore, useful in describing a nineteenth-century visual of alabaster, were even smaller and more portable.18
impression and for understanding the conditioned The most common form of nineteenth-century
relationship between viewers, commodities and peepshow was made of flexible folding paper or
representations. linen bellows with lithographed or engraved, and
often hand-coloured, scenes placed in succession to
give the visual effect of receding space. Although it is
Optical devices impossible to know how many were published, they
Optically constructed images of the world in minia- were common, and inexpensive, if not cheap.19 This
ture were pervasive long before the first international genre could be stored flattened and, importantly, no
exhibition. The peepshow flourished in its most longer required a showman to operate. Instead, it
popular form in the late eighteenth and nineteenth could be held by the individual or placed on a table,
centuries.10 Early peepshows were large boxes with a offering an intimate viewing in the privacy of one's
small hole on one face, which, when light was own home.
admitted, allowed a regulated view of the interior Jonathan Crary has argued for the historical speci-
space.11 The drawn and printed images, usually cut ficity of vision in the production of the observer.
out and placed in succession in a wooden box, Tracing the rise of optical devices such as the
offered the viewer three-dimensional scenes of phenakistiscope, kaleidoscope and stereoscope in
cities, battles, landscapes or biblical events. Widi the early nineteenth century, Crary shows how
the Enlightenment, as visual information was increas- scientific experiments employed some of the same
ingly assimilated through edifying diversions and techniques of popular optical diversions.20 Although
'philosophical amusements', peepshows flourished all kinds of devices flourished with the nineteenth-
as elaborate optical devices involving various lenses, century delight in visual entertainment, the paper
mirrors and engraved scenes that both amused and peepshow did not share the mechanical complexity
instructed.12 Model theatres, peepshow-like devices, of many of its contemporaries. The peepshow,
captured landscapes and also detailed interior moreover, did not have a counterpart in nine-
spaces.13 teenth-century empirical science but rather emerged
Late eighteenth-century peepshows were known from an older tradition of printed scenic views prized
by many different names and took different forms, by eighteenth-century antiquarians. The bourgeois
but had in common an appeal both for educated elites peepshow observer who looked into the miniatur-
and popular audiences.14 While gentlemen collected ized fair buildings—which housed an encyclopedic
engravings and optical devices for their private array of products and oddities—inherited the per-
amusement, peepshow men exhibited their large spective of the collector and a legacy of viewing
viewing boxes, which often held several different cities or scenes like objects in a kunstkatnmer.

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 Viewing Souvenirs: Peepshows and the International Expositions

The nineteenth-century paper peepshow was not the peepholes, a viewer could join the crowd of
the public attraction that the travelling peepshow had other tourists depicted in the deeply receding space
once been, but it maintained associations with fairs of the two pedestrian tunnels that were lit by gas.
and festivals and the subjects depicted continued to be This shift, then, towards the inexpensive private
large scale. Monuments of engineering, such as apparatus coincided precisely with the public valor-
bridges and tunnels and the large buildings erected ization of monumental industrial structures. Yet in
for world's fairs, were miniaturized for Victorian peepshow representations, the spectator's relationship
tourists in a series of paper planes. A favourite to the gigantic building is inverted; a feat of modern
theme for paper peepshows of the 1830s and 1840s, industrial technology is transformed into an
for example, was Marc and Isambard Brunei's enchanted miniature world. As a souvenir, the peep-
Thames Tunnel, which was inaugurated in 1843, show is not only a commodity, but it also allows the
and continually celebrated with an annual fair to physical experience of the space to dissolve into an
commemorate its opening [I]. 2 1 Peering through idealized, dreamlike memory.

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Fig 1. A Perspective View of the Thames
Tunnel; History of the Thames Tunnel,
Azulay, London, c. 1844

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 Amy Ogata

The Great Exhibition arranged cards to appear as a three-dimensional

scene when viewed through the peephole. Careful
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All observation, meticulous rendering and clever con-
Nations, or the Crystal Palace Exhibition, in 1851 struction project an impression of spectral authenti-
stimulated a new spate of "paper views'. Published city. An example designed by T. J. Rawlins, and
under the names of 'telescopic view' or 'perspective published by C. A. Lane in London, reveals the visual
view', these devices ordered the gaze to conform to effect of Paxton's girders, and Owen Jones's colour
the broad vistas that the Crystal Palace, erected in scheme, disappearing into the distance.27 A view of
Hyde Park in central London, itself offered to visitors. the central aisle shows the presence of the Queen,
Like the Thames Tunnel, Notre Dame de Paris, Saint under her canopy on opening day, cut out in the
Paul's Cathedral and other structures depicted in middle ground. Rawlins also includes the crowd
peepshow formats, the Crystal Palace's form lent crushed against the brightly coloured goods installed
itself to the impression of infinite recession.22 The in the balconies. And, in another, there are glass
large iron-and-glass structure, designed by Joseph fragments applied to the image of the glass 'crystal'

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Paxton, was built on a cruciform plan. Under the fountain, which when viewed with oblique light
long barrel-vaulted roof that enclosed several elm would suggest the glistening appearance, 'as if it had
trees, visitors encountered a magical crystalline been carved out of icicles', which Mayhew and
space. Henry Mayhew and George Cruikshank, in Cruikshank had observed.28 On the top card, in an
their story of the Sandboys family and their trip to the affectionate hommagc, Rawlins includes a peepshow
Great Exhibition, commented: man—dressed in the royal standard—who pulls aside
the curtain (revealing the peephole) for the figures
the very name of the Crystal Palace had led people to gathered in the foreground [2]. The exposition
conjure up in their minds a phantasm that could not be building is shown in a pale outline, as if located far
realized . . . Then to stand in the centre of the huge crys-
from the observers. By contrast, the interior of the
tal pile, and cast the eye thence in any direction, was
indeed to behold a sight that had no parallel in excel- structure, seen through the hole, is vivid and lifelike.
lence. The exquisite lightness and tone of color that per- The disjunctive visual relationship between the exter-
vaded the entire structure was a visual feast, and a rare ior and interior underscored the way memory itself
delight of air, colour, and space.23 operated. At once elusive and immediate, the experi-
ence of seeing—and remembering—transformed
The association between the building and a 'phant- images of the exhibition into a haunting phantasma-
asm' or 'fairy tale' palace, words that were widely goria.
repeated at the time, suggests that the spectacular Many peepshows were designed so that the view
visual effects were owed in part to a romantic image through the peepholes approximated the perspective
that visitors anticipated.24 Representations of the of a visitor to the exhibition. In a peepshow
Crystal Palace reinforced this perception of enchant- assembled as a series of freestanding cards, for
ment. Many exterior views depicted the luminous instance, the top card shows the exterior of the
qualities of the structure and its large size, which was Crystal Palace as a massive presence on the horizon
particularly apparent when viewed from a distance.25 dwarfing the tiny figures below [3]. Through each of
The interior was rendered equally marvellous in the five holes that puncture this image, one can see
views that emphasized the building's scale, fragility similar figures depicted •wandering down the side
and exotic colour. Benjamin himself remarked that aisles, the central nave or the balconies. Rendered
the watercolour representations of the Crystal Palace in a peepshow format, the ethereal form and effect of
depicted 'how the exhibitors took pains to decorate the building's interior is portrayed as a dazzling
the colossal interior in an oriental-fairy-tale style'.26 universe that encompasses the products of the world's
In the peepshow memento, the three-dimensional manufacture. These views, like the fairs themselves,
illusion and modulated light further animated the reinforce a particular way of understanding what was
interior world of the exhibition. seen. Looking down the vaulted space, layers of
Precise lithographic printing and careful hand- goods and activities occupy the optical field; the
coloured embellishment cause the successively exaggerated perspective gives the sublime sensation

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 Viewing Souvenirs: Peepshows and the International Expositions

Fig 2. Telescopic View of the Great

Exhibition of 1851, C. Moody, London,
£.1851

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of bewildering height, orderly crowds and endless objects.'30 While visual consumption was the exercise
displays of things. of the exposition, a commodity culture also flourished
For Benjamin, the commodities at world's fairs, in the form of souvenirs and sentimental objects.31
displayed on pedestals and in glass structures, were Representations of the buildings, attractions and even
exhibited not only as the fetishized objects of indus- the experience of looking was commemorated, man-
trial capitalism, but also as a shimmering representa- ufactured and sold in the form of goods such as
tion of burgeoning consumer desire. Although the albums, prints, fans and toys.
goods on display at international fairs were exhibited
to stimulate consumption, few items were actually for
sale. Benjamin commented that 'the world exhibi-
Souvenir views
tions were training schools in which the masses, As the nexus between expositions and tourism was
barred from consuming, learned empathy with established in die nineteenth and twentiedi cen-
exchange value. "Look at everything; touch noth- turies, entrepreneurs, publishers and department
ing." >29 The deliberately elaborate exhibition pieces, stores provided all types of souvenir maps, guide-
working machines and raw materials that were dis- books and objects for the home that commemorated
played conveyed the abstract potential of the com- die experience of attending an exhibition, in stock
modity. The transformation of commodities from views of die major attractions. Collectible souvenir
banal goods to high spectacle, which Thomas images of single buildings and scenic views were
Richards argues took root as a principal lesson of available already for eighteenth-century tourists.
the Great Exhibition, was confirmed within die con- Travellers on die Grand Tour habitually assembled
text of a fundamental shift in viewing that favoured collections of Giovanni Battista Piranesi's vedute of
me phantasmagorical. He comments that 'at the Great die monuments of ancient Rome to take back to
Exhibition anything that interferes with die direct their libraries. Representations of important sites can
perception of manufactured objects has conveniendy also be found in other forms. A matching suite of
fallen away; there is a contraction of perception as the jewellery from about 1810 shows how the edifices
subject becomes the exclusive consumer of material of Rome were depicted in tiny mosaic chips for

73
 Amy Ogata

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Fig 3 . Exposition de Londres, London Exhibition

display on the body [4]. Nineteenth-century world's panorama, die grand, seemingly endless, view was also
fair souvenirs followed in this tradition, objectifying closely associated widi the world's fairs.32 In 1867,
the buildings erected for die fairs onto incongruous Nadar took his famous photographic views of die city
products such as scarves, fans and plates. Many of Paris from a balloon high above die circular
examples showed die fair buildings, such as die exposition building. A French peepshow from diis
Crystal Palace or die Palais de l'Industrie from exhibition also offers a variation on diis panoramic
1855 [5], in perspective. The gigantism of die perspective of die exterior and die interior [6].
structure, depicted in perspective to enhance its Indeed, visitors came to world's fairs to look at bodi
size, is necessarily inverted to fit onto die surface goods and vistas. By 1889, when visitors ascended die
of die fan, yet die disjunction between die immense Eiffel Tower to look down on die city of Paris,
facades and die products of personal adornment viewing the exposition from above had become a
shows how die ephemeral souvenir existed in a quintessential experience of fair tourism. A guidebook
continual discourse with die monumental. commented on diis particular scene:
The huge scale of die international exposition,
viewed from an omniscient perspective, was a favour- The exhibition with its marvellous palaces and pavilions,
ite dieme for nineteendi-century souvenirs. Like die its gardens and terraces, is seen to the greatest advantage,

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 Viewing Souvenirs: Peepshows and the International Expositions

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Fig 4. Parurt with Views of Ancient Monuments of Rome, c.1810

and produces an effect of confused architectural magnifi- Moreover, the 'confused architectural magnificence'
cence never to be forgotten, recalling in many ways one could be easily simulated in souvenir versions con-
of those fantastical panoramas conjured up by the vivid structed of folding paper planes.
imagination of Martin in his extraordinary pictures of The impression of confusion, which one might have
ancient Babylon, Rome and Jerusalem . . . Hie night
observed from a vantage point high in the air, could
panorama from the Eiffel tower is even more wonderful
than that to be seen by daylight.33 also be represented in three-dimensional moveable
souvenirs. A pop-up from the World's Columbian
Likened to a panorama, the real view has come to Exposition in Chicago in 1893 shows the Administra-
approximate the artful manipulation of the spectacle. tion Building, the Machinery Hall and Illinois Building

75
 Amy Ogata

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Fig 5. Souvenir Fan with Views of 185 5 Paris International Exposition

in a carefully arranged composition, but one that this sense, we can see the concept of the phantasma-
would actually have been impossible to see on the goria most clearly at work—for the peepshow souvenir
level topography of the Chicago site [7]. The pictur- is at once the commodity itself and an illusory optical
esque grouping of facades, depicted in perspective, is experience that the commodity generates, and that
set into a receding space that piles them on top of each generates desire for the commodity.
other. This assembly of monuments, then, turns the Illustrated catalogues, lithographed albums and
fair buildings into a collection of objects removed from maps were among other souvenirs that were created
their physical context on the south shore of Lake for exposition tourism. Like the lavish lithographed
Michigan. The souvenir, as Susan Stewart has portfolios produced to commemorate the fairs, the
argued, is necessarily fragmentary.34 Like other souve- paper peepshow ensured that viewing the temporary
nirs, too, the paper peepshow and pop-up souvenirs exhibition would continue indefinitely.36 The effect
that were made for world's fairs operate metonymi- of the peepshow, however, set it apart from other
cally. That is, they offer a singular, fragmentary, view- souvenirs such as fans or leather-bound albums. The
point that stands for the whole experience of attending multi-volume catalogues and commemorative
an international exposition. By experiencing the albums from 1851 and after were not only unwieldy
gigantic structures as miniature environments, the in size, but the survey of the objects and installations
viewer becomes all-powerful, and the buildings was revealed only as each page turned, and could not
become portable mementoes. The process of minia- fix the impression as a singular, spectacular experi-
turization renders the abstract visual experience into a ence. By contrast, peepshows isolated the viewer and
neatly collectible commodity. Thus, while Benjamin directed the gaze towards the interiors of individual
argued that 'possession and having are allied with die buildings and, by extension, upon individual, sub-
tactile, and stand in a certain opposition to the optical', jective experience itself. Moreover, while albums and
the optical souvenir transcends, and even subsumes, catalogues gave exacting details about the individual
the experience of the mobile observer or flaneur?* objects, manufactured goods and national displays,
Aldiough peepshows privilege the experience of the peepshow eschewed specificity in favour of the
sight, they were produced as objects for purchase. In overall visual impression.

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 Viewing Souvenirs: Peepshows and the International Expositions

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': INTERNATIONAL ^EXHIBITION' •::;E UNIVBREALE
UNIVERSELU at t&§7, PARI
:i UNIVERSAL

Fig 6. Optical Theater of the Exposition Universellc, Pans, ISbT

What distinguishes world's fair peepshows from peephole into the world of the fair, the viewer was
the myriad of other souvenirs produced for the given an idealized impression of both die visual
international fairs is that die act of looking, the very effects and social dynamics. Furthermore, the impres-
premise of expositions, is thematized. Tony Bennett sion of the world collapsed into a miniature, bour-
has suggested that the 'exhibitionary complex' holds geois version of itself, for the fair was heightened and
the power to open up the confines of knowledge and, inverted as it was further reduced in the peepshow.
in the case of the world's fair, to turn the dynamics of Positioned on the outside looking in, the viewer—
viewing back in on itself37 The Crystal Palace offered once an object on display along with the other
many places for looking and places for viewers to commodities—trained a gaze on die world with
observe others. As a result, Bennett argues, the crowd phantom objectivity.
itself became a self-regulating spectacle on display. As a popular optical amusement, die peepshow
Bennett's emphasis on the social effect of the visual flourished alongside die diorama, die panorama and
experience of space in international exhibitions seems die magic lantern, all of which reached die height of
borne out by the proliferation of inexpensive optical their popularity in die first half of die nineteendi
souvenirs such as paper peepshows that rendered the century. While die panorama and the magic lantern
crowd in separate planes, producing an appearance of traded on dieir ability to project an unfettered
casual, unthreatening, disorder. Peering through the illusion, die peepshow with its perspective view

77
 Amy Ogata

Fig 7. Scenographk \riew of

the World's Columbian
Exposition, 1893

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also offered a manipulated vision that seemed to recede tion in London began to supplant the engraved or
naturalisticaUy. However, the sequential, theatrical, lithographic image because they were inexpensive,
arrangement of cards and viewing hole made the portable and especially because they allowed the
peepshow a static, monocular, viewing device.38 viewer a more lifelike and vicarious experience of
Jonathan Crary suggests that the all-encompassing, exhibition attractions.39 The taste for souvenirs
'realistic' vision of the world, of which he argues the paralleled this desire for visual immediacy, but
binocular stereoscope is symptomatic, became the even when the peepshow fonnat shifted to a folding
dominant mode from the 1830s onwards. Just as the pop-up without a peephole in the late nineteenth
stereoscope afforded objects in the middle ground an century, this technique of viewing was traditionally
animated appearance, the peepshow souvenir placed scenic. Just as the paper peepshow was eclipsed by
the gaze squarely on the goods and parts of the newer technologies of viewing, even sophisticated
building that occupied the middle field. The peep- inventions such as the stereoscope, Crary argues,
show dream world offered up in paper and ink, waned in the second half of the nineteenth century
however, could not approximate the 'realism' and as spectators craved the 'phantasmagoric' effect that
mechanical complexity of the stereoscope. Britt its machine-like technology compromised, but
Salveson observes that the souvenir stereoscopic which became increasingly accessible in the form
views that became popular during the 1862 exhibi- of photography.140

78
 Viewing Souvenirs: Peepshows and the Internationa] Expositions

The desire for phantasmagoric illusion ran parallel interpretative history of habitation in 1889 aimed at
with the age of the international expositions. And it is showing the superiority of modern (or European)
in this context that the peepshow souvenir flourished practices over diose of the past. At the same time,
as an inexpensive commodity that opened up a however, important edifices of die past became a
magical world of visual experience. The simple standard feature at international expositions where
apparatus of extending paper cards offered a perspect- they were reverentially displayed. At die Centennial
ive diat rendered the entire exhibition into a spatial Exhibition in 1876, for example, an American log
phantasmagoria that dissolved boundaries between cabin was erected and stocked widi items of daily life
past and present. But as the taste for 'realistic' from the colonial era. Similarly, die Bastille was
photographic images of the exhibitions increased, reconstructed in wood and plaster at die Exposition
the optical games of peepshows were deemed appro- Universelle in 1889. Small picturesque 'villages' based
priate as entertainment for children/1 on medieval Brussels (1897), Paris (1900), Liege
The association with children has relegated peep- (1905), Merrie England and Old New York (1939)

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shows to the margins of the history of visual culture. were theatrically produced and enacted to die delight
A historian writing in the 1940s remarked that after of fairgoers. Miniaturized for die amusement of
the eighteenth century the peepshow '. . . deterior- viewers, these attractions relied upon a collective
ated. From the status of a scientific toy made to nostalgia that sought relief in a romantic, seemingly
minister the curiosity of die educated wealthy, it timeless, vision of the past.
sank to the level of . . . children's entertainment."42 The visual experience of die peepshow, and its
Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century prints, however, meaning as a souvenir, is also implicated in this
show bodi adults and children peering into boxes. discourse of nostalgia. A viewer looking through
And, as Barbara Stafford has suggested, early modem die peephole can experience die fair as an event in
optical amusements were intended for a lifetime of bodi die past and die present. Representations of
learning.43 The experience of looking into a device buildings were often surrounded widi strolling fig-
that held a magical world in miniature opened up ures. The inclusion of diese surrogate viewers whose
possibilities for apprehending both die physical experience of die exhibition never ceases reinforces
aspects of die natural world and die power of the die impression oftimelessness.All souvenirs facilitate
imagination. As Benjamin observed, peepshows, as this temporal 'privatization' of history, but die appar-
well as dioramas and panoramas, 'lead die observer atus of die peepshow, which concentrates die visual
even more deeply into the mysteries of the world of sense on an arrangement of cards, heightens die
perception of space transcending time.46 Through
play than do marionettes.'44 It is precisely diis associa-
tion with dreamlike fantasy diat Benjamin saw oper- die peephole, even specific events, moments or
ating as phantasmagoria in die experience of die dates become subsumed into an illusory world. The
exposition. peepshow souvenir, moreover, was closely identified
with the tradition of the international exhibitions.
When it was revived as a souvenir for die 1939 New
Souvenirs, memory, time York World's Fair, the peepshow seemed to sum up
The elusive relationship between real experience and die complex experience of the exhibitions as firmly
memory is the conundrum of die souvenir. As Susan part of a history of historical events and as a statement
Stewart suggests, 'die double function of the souvenir of confidence in die present.
is to authenticate a past or odierwise remote experi- Just as the nationalistic micro-villages were staged
ence and, at the same time, to discredit the present.'45 to amuse, so the continuum of time could also be
World's fairs, if they celebrated contemporary represented spatially in die peepshow format. The
achievements and endlessly imagined a future that example from the New York World's Fair in 1939,
improved on the present, also represented the past as designed by die illustrators Warren Chappell and
an object of longing. Historical surveys mounted for Elizabeth Sage Hare, anachronistically takes die
exhibitions were an important means of suggesting form of a nineteendi-century paper peepshow [8].
material and social progress. The exhibition of die Unlike nineteenth-century views, however, the 1939
history of work in 1867 or Charles Garnier's highly example is not conceived as 'timeless', but self-

79
 Amy Ogata

Fig 8. The World of Tomorrow, 1939

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consciously devised to represent rime itself. A jester sits perception of vision as a transparent sense was
in as the peepshow man, offering the view to two employed as a means of persuasion at all fairs.
eighteenth-century figures, George and Martha When G. Brown Goode devised the motto 'to see
Washington. Gazing through the peephole, into 'the is to know' for the World's Columbian Exposition in
world of tomorrow' (the fair's motto), these viewers 1893, the primacy of viewing was already closely
encounter the image of the future. At the end of the associated with expositions.48 The peepshow is evid-
vista, past the giant statue of Washington, and standing ence not only of the intensely visual popular culture
as the culmination of human endeavour are the of world's fairs, but also of the carefully constructed
massive structures of the Trylon and Perisphere relationship between spectators, expositions and
that were the fair's emblems. This peepshow not memory. As documents of the culture of visuality
only represented the buildings erected for the 1939 and spectacle that emerged in the nineteenth century,
fair and the experience of looking down the formal peepshow souvenirs suggest the selective visual
par-terre of Constitution Mall. It also represented in experience that exposition organizers, architects,
visual terms the continuum of 150 years, from the draughtsmen, publishers and entrepreneurs deter-
time when Washington was inaugurated as the first mined. Moreover, as representations of architectural
President of the United States until 1939. In the space, world's fair peepshows demonstrate how min-
context of the end of the Great Depression, looking iaturization became an essential strategy in rendering
back to the end of the eighteenth century was surely a the fair both consumable and memorable. As sou-
strategy of reassurance. In this example, the peepshow venirs of viewing, peepshows also exemplify Benja-
directs the gaze from the past towards the future; it min's observations on the effects of capitalism. If the
keeps the trajectory of nostalgia flowing in the international exposition miniaturized the globe and
direction of hope and progress, obscuring mundane displayed it to viewers as a phantasmagoria, peep-
details or the profound uncertainties of American shows offered up a most apt souvenir of this visual
history. In the peepshow phantasmagoria, the fair is experience. At the fair, spectators learned to consume
a glorious celebration of its own mythic culture, and the carefully ordered information as amusement,
memories nourished on souvenir imagery take on the through a scrim of the phantasmagoria; gazing on it
reductive, self-congratulatory message of the fair itself. again through a peephole affirmed the lesson. While
As scholars have suggested, the emphasis on visual- peepshows suggest a carefully manipulated view of
ity at world's fairs is profoundly ideological.47 The the experience of the exposition, they also show how

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 Viewing Souvenirs: Peepshows and the International Expositions

looking and the act of visual consumption can present 12 B. Stafford, Artful Science: Enlightment Entertainment and the
Edspse of Visual Education, MIT Press, 1994.
a broader vista into the study of culture.
13 Stafford & Terpak, op. cit., pp. 106-7, 338; W. Bom, 'Early
peep shows and me Renaissance stage', Connoisseur, no. 107,
Amy F. Ogata
February 1941, pp. 67-71, 161-4; Baker, op. cit., p. 18.
The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Aro,
Design, and Culture 14 In English, they were called peepshows or raree shows, in
German Guckkasten, nek in Russian, and in French vues
d'optique. See, for example, A. Steinmetz-Oppelland, 'Eine
Weltreise mit den Augen: Guckkajtenbilder des 18 und friihe
Notes 19 Jahrhunderts', Wettkunst, voL 66, no. 2, 1996, pp. 133-5;
U. Becker, 'Spielgelwdten-WeltenspiegeT, Weltkunst, vol. 63,
This originated as a paper presented to the Popular Culture
no. 18, 1993, p. 2376; C. Kelly, 'Territories of the eye: the
Association/American Culture Association at their annual meeting
Russian peep show (Raek) and pre-Revolutionary visual cul-
in Philadelphia in 2001. My thanks are due to those who attended
ture', Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 31, no. 4, 1998, pp. 49—74;
that session, to the students in my course on world's feus, and to
Les Vues d'optiques: Collection Muste Niepce, Chalon-sur-Saone,
James Goldwasser, Elizabeth J. Moodey, Peter N . Miller, Frances
Musee Nicephore Niepce, 1993; A. Milano (ed.), Viaggio in
Terpak and Jeremy Aynsley.
Europa attmverso le vues d'optique, Mazzotta, 1990.

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1 J. All wood. The Story of Exhibitions, Cassell & Collier Mac-
millan, 1977; P. Greenhalgh, Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions 15 F. Howe, 'Early American movies: peep shows and peep-show
UmverseOes, Grtat Exhibitions and World's Fairs, 1851-1939, prints', The Magazine Antiques, vol. 24, September 1933, p. 99.
Manchester University Press, 1988; R. RydelL All the WoHd's a 16 J. Barnes, Precursors of the Cinema, Catalogue of the Collection, Part I,
Fair, University of Chicago Press, 1984; World of Fairs: The Barnes Museum of Cinematography, Saint Ives, 1967, p. 59.
Century-of-Progress Expositions, University of Chicago Press,
17 Balzer, op. cit, p. 39.
1993; J. Auerbach, The Grtat Exhibition of 1851: A Nation on
Display, Yale University Press, 1999. 18 A. Fraser, A History of Toys, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1966,
p. 128. Fraser notes that common memes included die Clifton
2 W. Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. H. Eiland & Suspension Bridge and Nightingale Valley, and Noah's Ark.
K. McLaughlin, Belknap Press/Harvard University Press,
1999, p. 18. 19 Very little is known about the production of these objects. Like
meir eighteendi-century ancestors, nineteenth-century peep-
3 T. Richards, Commodity Culture of Victorian England: Advertising shows were published in England, France and Germany. They
and Spectacle 1851-1914, Stanford University Press, 1990; were, however, much less precious dian the model theatres of
R_ Williams, Dream Worlds, Berkeley and Los Angeles, Cali- the eighteenth century. An example of the Thames Tunnel
fornia, 1982. from 1828 cost rhree shillings, which would have been worth
4 Auerbach discusses the relationship between the various indus- about 2s.3d. in 1851, nearly the same cost as a worker's entry
tries involved in providing excursion travel to see die Great fee to die exhibition in August.
Exhibition. See Auerbach, op. cit, pp. 137—44. 20 Crary, op. cit, p. 112.
5 Rolf Tiedemann describes Benjamin's phantasmagoria as 'A 21 A Perspective View of the Thames and the Thames Tunnel; History of
Blendwerk, a deceptive image designed to dazzle, is already me the Thames Tunnel, Azulay, London, c 1844. There were many
commodity itself, in which the exchange value or value-form others published in England, France and Germany between
hides the use value. Phantasmagoria is me whole capitalist 1824 and at least 1844.
production process, which constitutes itself as a natural force
22 Dean's New Magic Peepshow Picture Book, Dean & Son, c 1859,
against die people who carry it out.' See Tiedemann, "Dialectics
claimed that it showed 'wonderful and lifelike effects of real
at a standstill: approaches to the Passagen-Werk', in G. Smith,
distance and space'.
(ed.), On Walter Benjamin, MIT Press, 1988, pp. 276-7.
23 H. Mayhew & G. Cruikshank, 1851: The Adventures of Mr. And
6 S. Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing, MIT Press, 1989, p. 81.
Mrs. Sandboys, Their Son and Daughter, Who came up to London to
7 B. Stafford & F. Terpak, Devices of Wonder, Getty Research Enjoy Themselves and to See the Great Exhibition, Stringer &
Institute, 2001, pp. 81-90; 297-306; J. Crary, Techniques of the Towraend, N e w York, 1851, p. 134.
Observer, MIT Press, 1990, pp. 132-3; T. Castle, 'Phantasma-
24 Queen Victoria herself described the building as 'incredibly
goria: spectral technology and the metaphorics of modem
glorious, really like fairyland'. See J. McKean, Crystal Palace:
reverie', Critical Inquiry, no. 15, Autumn 1988, pp. 26—61.
Joseph Paxton and Charles Fox, Phaidon, 1994. Benjamin also
8 Castle, op. cit., pp. 3 0 - 1 . cites Julius Lessing and Lothar Bucher's impressions of the
9 T. Adomo, In Search of Wagner, trans. R- Livingstone, Verso, Crystal Palace in me Arcades Project Benjamin, op. cit, p. 184.
1991, p. 90; A. Huyssen, After the Great Divide, Indiana, 1986, 25 Thomas Richards argua diat the most popular representations
pp. 39-40. of me Crystal Palace depicted i o exterior as opaque, likening it
10 The term 'peepshow' is used to describe many different to 'a gigantic glass case'. Pictures of the interior were, however,
devices, including me seventeenth-century Dutch boxes quite common and equally made use of the beD jar imagery. See
employed by artists such as Samuel van Hoogstraaten. See Richards, op. cit, p. 23.
D . Bomford, 'Perspective, anamorphosis and illusion: seven- 26 Benjamin, op. cit, p. 176.
teenm-century Dutch peepshows', Studies in the History of Art,
27 Rawlins, a watercolourijt and illustrator, was active in Britain
no. 55, 1998, pp. 124-35.
between 1837 and 1860; see S. Houfe, Dictionary of Nineteenth-
11 For a history of peepshows, see R. Balzer, Peepshows: A Visual Century British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists, Antique Col-
History, Abrams, 1998. lectors' Club, 1996.

81
 Amy Ogata

28 Mayhew & Cruikshank, op. ciL, p. 134. 40 Crary, op. cit., p. 132.
29 Benjamin, op. cit., p. 201. 41 Children were always, of course, potential viewers of peep-
30 Richards, p. 64. shows. There is evidence mat peepshows were given to children;
however, they were not perhaps purchased expressly for them.
31 This seems to apply to the early national tain as well. The An example of the Thames Tunnel from the early nineteenth
special collections division at the Getty Research Institute for century in the Dibner Collection at the Smithsonian Institution
the History of Art and the Humanities has a peepshow from the carries the inscription: 'Given to A. B. Tebbs Febr. 10th 1884 at
Paris exposiDon of 1844. age of 6 by Grandmar Ridley.' In the eighteenth- and nine-
32 There were panoramas exhibited at the world's fain of 1855, teenth-century toy theatres, printed devices similar to peep-
1889 and 1900. See S. Oettermann, The Panorama: History of a shows, were snipped out and constructed by children as at-home
Mass Medium, trans. D . Schneider, Zone Books, 1997, pp. 171— diversions. See Stafford & Terpak, op. cit., p. 105, and Kenneth
83, 221-3; B. Comment, The Painted Panorama, Harry Fawdry (ed.), Toy Theatre, Pollock's Toy Theatres, 1980. In the
N. Abrams, 1999. twentieth century, peepshow books were, however, designed
specifically for the amusement of children. Lesley Gordon,
33 Cited in D . MacCannell, The Tourist, rev. edn., University of
Peepshow into Paradise, John DeGrafF, 1953, pp. 216-21.
California Press, 1999, p. 122.
34 S. Stewart, On Longing, Duke University Press, 1993 (paper), 42 Bom, op. cit., p. 180.
pp. 136-8. 43 Stafford, op. cit., pp. 58, 288

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35 Benjamin, op. CIL, p. 206. 44 W. Benjamin, 'Old toys', in M.Jennings, H. Eiland & G. Smith
36 See the folio editions such as Dickinson's Comprehensive Pictures (eds.), Walter Benjamin Selected Writings, vol. 2, Belknap Press of
of the Great Exhibition of 1851, Dickinson Brothers, 1854 and Harvard University Press, 1999, pp. 99-100.
Talhs's History and Description of the Crystal Palace, and the 45 Stewart, op. cit., p. 139.
Exhibition of the World's Industry in 1851, 3 vob., John TalHs 46 Ibid., p. 138.
& Co, 1852.
47 Bennett, op. cit., pp. 60-9; C. Hinsley, "The wodd as market-
37 T. Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics, place: commodification of the exotic at the World's Columbian
Routledge, 1994, pp. 59-88. Exposition, Chicago, 1893', in I. Karp & S. D. Lavine (eds.),
38 Even in examples where theTe are multiple peepholes, they are Exhibiting Cultures, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991;
intended to be viewed with one eye. J. Herbert, 'The view of the Trocadero: the real subject of
the Exposition Internationale, Paris, 1937', Assemblage, vol. 26,
39 B. Salveson, '"The Most Magnificent, Useful and Interesting
April 1995, pp. 94-112.
Souvenir": representations of the International Exhibition of
1862', Visual Resources, vol. 13, no. 1, 1997, pp. 1-32. 48 Rydell, op. cit., p. 44.

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