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==Further history== ===Early adopters=== Before 1671, only a small circle of people seemed to have knowledge of the magic lantern, and almost every known report of the device from this period had to do with people that were more or less directly connected to Christiaan Huygens. Despite the rejection expressed in his letters to his brother, Huygens must have familiarized several people with the lantern.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rossell |first=Dean |date=2001 |title=The True Inventor of the Magic Lantern |url=https://www.magiclantern.org.uk/new-magic-lantern-journal/pdfs/4008747a.pdf |journal=The New Magic Lantern Journal |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=8–9}}</ref> In 1664 Parisian engineer [[Pierre Petit (engineer)|Pierre Petit]] wrote to Huygens to ask for some specifications of the lantern, because he was trying to construct one after seeing the lantern of "the dane" (probably Walgensten). The lantern that Petit was constructing had a concave mirror behind the lamp.<ref name=Petit/> This directed more light through the lens, resulting in a brighter projection, and it would become a standard part of most of the lanterns that were made later. Petit may have copied it from Walgensten, but he expressed that he made a lamp stronger than any he had ever seen.<ref name="rossell2002"/> Starting in 1661, Huygens corresponded with London optical instrument-maker [[Richard Reeve]].<ref name=rossell2002/> Reeve was soon selling magic lanterns, demonstrated one in his shop on 17 May 1663 to [[Balthasar de Monconys]],<ref name="picturegoing">{{cite web|url=http://picturegoing.com/?p=4885|website=picturegoing.com|title=Journal des voyages de Monsieur de Monconys » Picturegoing|date=6 October 2016 |access-date=28 August 2017}}</ref> and sold one to [[Samuel Pepys]] in August 1666.<ref name="pepysdiary">{{cite web|url=http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1666/08/19/|website=pepysdiary.com|title=Sunday 19 August 1666 (The Diary of Samuel Pepys)|date=19 August 2009 |access-date=28 August 2017}}</ref><ref name="pepysdiary2">{{cite web|url=http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1666/08/22/|website=pepysdiary.com|title=Wednesday 22 August 1666 (The Diary of Samuel Pepys)|date=22 August 2009 |access-date=28 August 2017}}</ref> [[File:Optic Projection fig 404.jpg|thumbnail|left|Illustration from Kircher's 1671 ''Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae'' - projection of hellfire or purgatory]] [[File:1671 kircheri - ars magna lucis et umbrae - 769.jpg|thumb|left|Illustration from Kircher's 1671 ''Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae'' - projection of Death]] One of Christiaan Huygens' contacts imagined how [[Athanasius Kircher]] would use the magic lantern: "If he would know about the invention of the Lantern he would surely frighten the cardinals with specters."<ref>{{cite book|url=http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/huyg003oeuv03_01/huyg003oeuv03_01_0031.php#191T|title=letter from Pierre Guisony to Christiaan Huygens |date=25 March 1660 |language=fr}}</ref> Kircher would eventually learn about the existence of the magic lantern via Thomas Walgensten and introduced it as "Lucerna Magica" in the widespread 1671 second edition of his book ''Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae''.<ref name="ars magna">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gki6ZIbrgQ8C|title=Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae|first=Athanasius|last=Kircher|year=1671|language=la |access-date=19 August 2010 |pages=767–769|publisher=Univ Santiago de Compostela |isbn=9788481218428}}</ref> Kircher claimed that Thomas Walgensten reworked his ideas from the previous edition of this book into a better lantern. Kircher described this improved lantern, but it was illustrated in a confusing manner:<ref name=Rendel /> the pictures seem technically incorrect—with both the projected image and the transparencies (H) shown upright (while the text states that they should be inverted), the hollow mirror is too high in one picture and absent in the other, and the lens (I) is at the wrong side of the slide. However, experiments with a construction as illustrated in Kircher's book proved that it could work as a point light-source projection system.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.luikerwaal.com/kircher_uk.htm|title=Magic lantern - The mistery of the misplaced lens|website=www.luikerwaal.com}}</ref> The projected image in one of the illustrations shows a person in purgatory or hellfire and the other depicts Death with a scythe and an hourglass. According to legend Kircher secretly used the lantern at night to project the image of Death on windows of apostates to scare them back into church.<ref name=luikerwaal>{{Cite web|url=https://www.luikerwaal.com/wonder1_uk.htm|title=The miracle of the magic lantern.|website=www.luikerwaal.com}}</ref> Kircher did suggest in his book that an audience would be more astonished by the sudden appearance of images if the lantern would be hidden in a separate room, so the audience would be ignorant of the cause of their appearance.<ref name=Rendel>{{cite web|last2=Rendel|first2=Mats|first1=Athanasius|last1=Kircher|title=About the Construction of The Magic Lantern, or The Sorcerers Lamp|url=http://www.phonurgia.se/rendel/mageng.html}}</ref> ===Educational use and other subjects=== [[File:Fotothek df tg 0003764 Optik ^ Lochkamera.jpg|thumb|Illustration of a lantern slide depicting [[Bacchus]] in Sturm's ''Collegium experimentale sive curiosum'' (1677)]] The earliest reports and illustrations of lantern projections suggest that they were all intended to scare the audience. Pierre Petit called the apparatus "lanterne de peur" (lantern of fear) in his 1664 letter to Huygens.<ref name=Petit>{{cite web|last=Petit|first=Pierre|title=Letter to Christiaan Huygens|date=28 November 1664 |url=http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/huyg003oeuv04_01/huyg003oeuv04_01_0132.php}}</ref> Surviving lantern plates and descriptions from the next decades prove that the new medium was not just used for horror shows, but that many kinds of subjects were projected. Griendel didn't mention scary pictures when he described the magic lantern to [[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz]] in December 1671: "An optical lantern which presents everything that one desires, figures, paintings, portraits, faces, hunts, even an entire comedy with all its lively colours."<ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/346310|chapter=Sense and Nonsense in the use of Technology in Media History|first=Deac|last=Rossell|title=Die Medien und ihre Technik. Theorien, Modelle, Geschichte|date=2004|editor-first=Harro|editor-last=Segeberg|publisher=Schüren|location=Marburg, Germany|via=Academia.edu}}</ref> In 1675, Leibniz saw an important role for the magic lantern in his plan for a kind of world exhibition with projections of "attempts at flight, artistic meteors, optical effects, representations of the sky with the star and comets, and a model of the earth (...), fireworks, water fountains, and ships in rare forms; then mandrakes and other rare plants and exotic animals." In 1685–1686, Johannes Zahn was an early advocate for use of the device for educational purposes: detailed anatomical illustrations were difficult to draw on a chalkboard, but could easily be copied onto glass or mica.<ref name=rossell2002/> [[File:Études prises dans le bas peuple ou les Cris de Paris - Lorgue de Barberie.jpg|thumb|1737 etching/engraving of an organ grinder with a magic lantern on her back by [[Anne Claude de Caylus]] (after Edme Bouchardon)]] By the 1730s the use of magic lanterns started to become more widespread when travelling showmen, conjurers and storytellers added them to their repertoire. The travelling lanternists were often called Savoyards (they supposedly came from the [[Savoy]] region in France) and became a common sight in many European cities.<ref name=rossell2002/> In France in the 1770s [[François Dominique Séraphin]] used magic lanterns to perform his "Ombres Chinoises" (Chinese shadows), a form of [[shadow play]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Castle |first=Terry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Cu5kvnn6kTsC |title=The Female Thermometer: Eighteenth-Century Culture and the Invention of the Uncanny |date=1995 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=1-4237-5848-X |location=Oxford, England |pages=146 |oclc=252550734}}</ref> Magic lanterns had also become a staple of science lecturing and museum events since Scottish lecturer [[Henry Moyes]]'s tour of America in 1785–86, when he recommended that all college laboratories procure one. French writer and educator [[Stéphanie Félicité, comtesse de Genlis]] popularized the use of magic lanterns as an educational tool in the late 18th century when using projected images of plants to teach botany. Her educational methods were published in America in English translation during the early 1820s.<ref name="mitpressjournals">{{Cite journal |last=Ganter |first=Granville |date=2014 |title=Mistress of Her Art: Anne Laura Clarke, Traveling Lecturer of the 1820s |url=https://direct.mit.edu/tneq/article/87/4/709-746/16013 |journal=The New England Quarterly |language=en |volume=87 |issue=4 |pages=709–746 |doi=10.1162/TNEQ_a_00418 |issn=0028-4866 |access-date=28 August 2017 |s2cid=57561922|doi-access=free }}</ref> A type of lantern was constructed by [[Moses Holden]] between 1814 and 1815 for illustrating his astronomical lectures.<ref>{{cite DNB|wstitle= Holden, Moses |volume= 27 |last= Sutton |first= Charles William |author-link= Charles William Sutton |page= 121 |year= |short=1}}</ref> ===Mass slide production=== In 1821, Philip Carpenter's London company, which became [[Carpenter and Westley]] after his death, started manufacturing a sturdy but lightweight and transportable "Phantasmagoria lantern" with an Argand style lamp. It produced high quality projections and was suitable for classrooms. Carpenter also developed a "secret" copper plate printing/burning process to mass-produce glass lantern slides with printed outlines, which were then easily and quickly hand painted ready for sale.<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.victorianmicroscopeslides.com/pdf/pcarpenter.pdf|title='The Perfectionist Projectionist': Philip Carpenter, 24 Regent Street, London|first=Stuart|last=Talbot|journal=Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society|issue=88|date=2006|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111007153815/http://www.victorianmicroscopeslides.com/pdf/pcarpenter.pdf |archive-date=7 October 2011}}</ref> These "copper-plate sliders" contained three or four very detailed 4" circular images mounted in thin hardwood frames. The first known set ''The Elements of Zoology'' became available in 1823, with over 200 images in 56 frames of zoological figures, classified according to the system of the Swedish scientist [[Carl Linnaeus]]. The same year many other slides appeared in the company's catalogue: "The Kings and Queens of England" (9 sliders taken from David Hume's History of England), "Astronomical Diagrams and Constellations" (9 sliders taken from Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel's textbooks), "Views and Buildings", Ancient and Modern Costume (62 sliders from various sources).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Carpenter |first=Philip |authorlink=Carpenter and Westley |title=A Companion to the Magic Lantern: Part II |year=1823}}</ref> Fifteen sliders of the category "Humorous" provided some entertainment, but the focus on education was obvious and very successful.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Roberts |first=Phillip |date=2017 |title=Philip Carpenter and the convergence of science and entertainment in the early-nineteenth century instrument trade |url=http://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/browse/issue-07/philip-carpenter-and-the-convergence-of-science/ |journal=Science Museum Group Journal |language=en |volume=7 |issue=7 |doi=10.15180/170707 |s2cid=164263399 |issn=2054-5770|doi-access= |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Through the mid-19th century, the market for magic lanterns was concentrated in Europe with production focused primarily on Italy, France, and England. In 1848, a New York optician began advertising imported slides and locally produced magic lanterns. By 1860, however, mass production began to make magic lanterns more widely available and affordable, with much of the production in the latter half of the 19th century concentrated in Germany.<ref>{{cite journal|title=A Refersher on German Toy Lanterns|last=Koch|first=Joe|page=26|journal=The Magic Lantern Gazette|volume=21|issue=3|date=2009|issn=1059-1249|url=https://library.sdsu.edu/pdf/scua/ML_Gazette/MLGvol21no03.pdf}}</ref> These smaller lanterns had smaller glass sliders, which instead of wooden frames usually had colorful strips of paper glued around their edges with the images printed directly on the glass.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Lantern Slides |url=http://www.magiclanternsociety.org/about-magic-lanterns/lantern-slides/ |access-date=2022-09-22 |website=Magic Lantern Society}}</ref> ===Waning popularity=== The popularity of magic lanterns waned after the introduction of [[film|movies]] in the 1890s, but they remained a common medium until [[slide projector]]s became widespread during the 1950s.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Chamberlain |first=Amelia |date=2020-02-09 |title=Stillwater History: Magic Lanterns and Technological Obsolescence |url=https://stillwaterliving.com/stillwater-history-magic-lanterns-and-technological-obsolescence/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200920131201/https://stillwaterliving.com/stillwater-history-magic-lanterns-and-technological-obsolescence/ |url-status=usurped |archive-date=20 September 2020 |magazine=Stillwater Living |language=en-US |access-date=2022-09-20}}</ref>
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