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leisure occupation for those seeking self-education and
improvement. The microscope slides produced for this
audience, offering such sights as crystallized urine,
blood cells, or an uncanny encounter with a housefl y,
offered access to a new visual domain and the opportu-
nity to gain fi rst hand experience of nature’s inner truths.
Studying nature in the nineteenth century was, above
all, a visual process, involving extracting greater truths
through visual observation and comparison.
The meaning of the microphotograph must be
situated in this broader context of spectacle and optical
entertainments. But where does the balance between
scientifi c intent and specular indulgence fall with respect
to microphotography’s various forms? In one respect,
the microphotograph was unlike its closest relatives, the
microscope slide or photomicrograph in that it drew on
a separate visual tradition. Whereas histology imagery
would seem to invoke the scientifi c logic of precision
and accuracy, the microphotograph offered pleasant illu-
sions more akin to a magic lantern show. Dancer’s roots
as a producer of magic lanterns, and the easy fi t between
microphotographs and souvenirs support this idea. And
yet observations taken through the microscope, recorded
by whatever means, were considered to be of question-
able ontological value by many contemporary scientists.
Due to a lack of standardized documentation procedures,
images of microscopic specimens were regarded at best
as a highly suspect form of visual evidence. Photography
did little to change this situation. The “objective” im-
age recorded by the camera did not meet contemporary
criteria for scientifi c accuracy and precision. Advocates
from the domain of popular science, on the other hand,
tended towards the grandiose in their estimation of the
value of microscope images. They promote the edifying
effects of gazing through the microscope objective both
on aesthetic and scientifi c grounds. Moreover, in popular
texts, microscope slides and illustrations were rarely
organized and viewed in a way that could be called sys-
tematic or methodical. The average bourgeois viewer’s
experience with a microscope probably proceeded in
much the same way. Microscopy and photomicrography
both catered to a public whose appetite for new visual
experiences outpaced its desire for education. In result,
within the popular context the kind of attention directed
to a microscope slide and a microphotograph seems
closer than expected.
Contemporary discourse on microscopy offers rea-
sons to further discriminate between the magical allure
of optical trinkets like the Stanhopes and the practice
of studying miniaturized photographs under the micro-
scope. Microscopy between 1850–1870 was embedded
in a cogent, power-laden political discourse on Nature
that was used to recruit mass audiences for domesticated
life science. In public discourse microscopic study was
touted as an optimal means for training the public in a
faculty it was sorely lacking—the ability to see inde-
pendently and objectively, and thus develop vision into
a tool of rational thought. Dancer’s microphotograph
slides often appeal to quantitative analysis, saying, for
example, that 112 eminent men could be identifi ed, or
that a slide contains 1687 letters. The point was prob-
ably not to actually count but to suggestively appeal to
this logic whereby microscopic study would develop
the viewer’s ability to synthesize discrete analysis and
meta-observation.
The monuments, heroes, and landmarks featured
in both souvenirs and slides likewise offer edifying
content, yet seem to reveal a slightly different set of
desires at play. The scopic pleasure offered must have
been one of discovering what is human and familiar in
the otherwise alien spaces of microscopic observation.
It has even been suggested that these subjects refl ect
the colonial impulse of the age. Amateur literature on
microscopy of the period is fi lled with reveries to the
hidden worlds and exotic adventures the expanded vi-
sion microscopy made possible. If, therefore, amateur
microscopy domesticated nature by bringing it into the
space of the parlor, the projection of human artifacts and
accomplishments into otherwise alien territories reads
as a metaphoric attempt at domination.
Whatever the content of the image, the primary allure
of the microphotograph was the possibility of experienc-
ing a technical marvel. As tiny, perfect copies, micro-
photographs evince a pleasure akin to that offered by
other kinds of miniatures including toys, dioramas, and
staged panoramas. Souvenirs and religious effects ap-
propriated this pleasure as a purely magical indulgence,
whereas microphotography’s other forms invite the
viewer to play at being a scientist. Utilizing the micro-
scope, focusing the objective, waiting for something to
come into view, and scrutinizing the results, the viewer
enacted the scopic logic of the natural sciences without
actually submitting themselves to the intellectual rigors
of scientifi c study.
Stacy HandSee also: Photomicrography; Nature; Science;
Photographic Jewelry; Tourist Photography; Brewster,
Sir David; Dancer, John Benjamin; Shadbolt, George;
Sidebotham, Joseph; Lenses: 1. 1830s–1850s; Lenses:- 1860s–1880s; and Markets, Photographic.
Further Reading
Benjamin, Marina, “Sliding Scales: Microphotography and the
Victorian Obsession with the Miniscule.” In Cultural Bab-
bage: Technology, Time and Invention, edited by F. Spufford,
and J. S. Uglow. London: Faber and Faber, 1996.
Bracegirdle, Brian, A History of Microtechnique, Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press, 1978.
Breidbach, Olaf, Representation of the Microcosm—The Claim