National Treasure: Progress and the Past
Hover over images for details. Click Here for References
Keystone View Company, Looking Northwest from City Hall Tower, Philadelphia, PA, ca. 1927.
Keystone View Company, Looking Northwest from City Hall Tower, Philadelphia, PA, ca. 1927.
This text affirms the value of the city’s history, even though it describes Philadelphia firmly in terms of modern progress with regard to the greater vision for the future of America. It also suggests a shift in the publisher’s motive to discuss historical sites; not in reverence to history or for revitalizing patriotism, as was intended by such earlier retrospections, but primarily for commerce and tourism.
Keystone View Company, Looking Northwest from City Hall Tower, Philadelphia, PA, ca. 1927.
The stereograph acts as a means for this commerce by offering “armchair” pictorial tourism. Moreover, as a stereograph that was likely part of the Keystone Company’s teaching series, the photographs commodify education.