14171417
UNDERWOOD, BERT AND ELMER
was built by David for Boutan. An alcohol lamp was
placed in a glass bell-jar secured to the top of a wooden
barrel. An external reservoir of magnesium powder was
connected to a metal tube placed just in front of the lens
fl ame. Using a rubber bulb, Boutan was able to blow the
magnesium powder into the fl ame to produce his fl ash
illumination. A scale model of Boutan’s camera and
the “barrel” fl ash is on permanent display at the Musée
de la Plongée, Sanary-Sur-Mer, France. A later system
utilised carbon-arc lamps power by banks of batteries.
Boutan described in some detail his methodology for
making underwater images. Descending to the bottom
in a diving suit, he selected the area to be photographed,
then signalled to the dive boat for the apparatus to be
sent down, stand fi rst then on signal the camera box and
illumination source. Once set up, Boutan then signalled
that he had commenced the exposure and waited for a
signal from the boat to tell him when the required time
had elapsed.
In 1898 he published the fi rst book on underwater
photography: Photographie sous-marine et les
progrès de la photographie, Schücher Frères, Paris.
The following year Boutan obtained sharp images
of underwater vegetation at night and, using battery-
powered arc lamps, images of a plaque at a depth of
50 metres. The exhibition of slides of his underwater
photographs at the Expositions Universelle, Paris in 1900
and publication by Charles Mendel of more images
in La Photographie sous-marine, with text by Pierre
Guichard, served to further Boutan’s reputation as the
foremost underwater photographer of the time.
Robert Deane
See also: Saville-Kent, William; and Expositions
Universelle, Paris (1854, 1855, 1867 etc.).
Further Reading
Auer, Michèle and Michel Auer, Photographers encyclopedia
international, 1839 to the present, Editions Camera Obscura,
Hermance, Switzerland, 1985.
Baker, Nick William Thompson—The world’s fi rst underwater
photographer. [cited 2 February 2006] Available from World
Wide Web: http://www.thehds.com/publications/thompson.html.
Bron, Pierre and Philip L. Condax, The photographic fl ash. A
concise illustrated history, Bron Elektronik AG, Allschwil,
Switzerland, 1998.
Boutan, Louis, “Memoire sur la photographie sous-marine”
[“Note on underwater photography”], in Archives de zoolo-
gie expérimentale et générale [Archives of experimental and
general zoology], 3eme series, vol. 1, (1893), 286–289.
Boutan, Louis, “Submarine photography” in The Century Illus-
trated Monthly Magazine, The Century Company, vol. 56,
May 1898, 42–49. [cited 8 February 2006]. Available from
World Wide Web: http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/browse.
journals/cent.1898.html.
Boutan, Louis, La photographie sous-marine et les progress de
la photographie [Under-water photography and photographic
advances], Paris, 1898.
Chenz, Christian Peteron and Claude Rives, La prise de vue
sous-marine [The underwater snap-shot], Paris: Edition
Denoel, 1978.
Gernsheim, Helmut and Alison, The history of photography,
1865–1914, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969.
Lenman, Robin, The Oxford companion to the photograph, New
York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005.
Saville-Kent, William, The Great Barrier Reef of Australia:
Its products and potentialities, London: W. H. Allen & Co.
Limited, 1893.
Weinberg, Steven, Phillipe Joseph Dogue, and John Neuschwander,
100 ans de photographie sous-marine [100 years of underwa-
ter photography], Edition Alain Schrotter, 1993.
Un peu d’histoire [A little history][cited 2 February 2006].
Available from World Wide Web: http://www.cinemarine.
net/Abode/historique.pdf.
The antique camera collection of Sylvain Hagland. [cited 7
February 2006] Available from World Wide Web: (www.col-
lection-appareils.com/avoscrayons/html/photosm.php.UNDERWOOD, BERT (1862–1947) AND
ELMER (1858–1943)
Manufacturer of ten million stereo cards and
300,000 stereo viewers a year (1901)
The Underwood brothers built a Stereoscopic produc-
tion and sales organization that surpassed all that had
preceded them. By learning the door to door selling
techniques of B. W. Kilburn of Littleton, New Hamp-
shire, the Underwoods took the lead in the creation
of the world’s largest stereo view business. Even The
Stereoscopic Company in Great Britain could not match
their success.
Elmer and Bert Underwood, sons of the Reverend
E. Underwood, were born in northern Illinois Elmer in
1859 and Bert in 1862.
Elmer started a publishing business there in 1879
whilst Bert worked in a grocery and then for the White
Sewing Machine Company in Kansas City before
becoming a sales agent for a medical book which he
peddled from door-to-door throughout his assigned
area on the edge of Indian Territory. A natural sales-
man, Bert became known among the farmers as “that
boy who sells a book to everyone:’ During his book
selling trips in 1881, he met an agent for stereoscopic
views and became convinced that if the merits of the
then “out-of-date” stereoscopic views could be prop-
erly presented to the public they would prove to be fast
sellers. Ordering a stock of views and a stereoscope he
began to formulate a system for selling them that proved
immediately successful.
Bert’s sales grew so fast that within a few months
he persuaded his brother to sell his publishing business
and join him in expanding the stereo view business into
other areas. At that time, the Underwoods were selling
the stereo views published by Charles Bierstadt (Niagara
Falls), J. F. Jarvis (Washington, D.C.) and the Littleton