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Today on Celebrate the Bible:
VIEW-MASTER: Bible Stories in 3D.
View-Master was the fun 3D viewer that brought everyone’s favorite Biblical stories into our homes, schools and churches.
With View-Master reels, one could enjoy viewing and learning about: The Christmas Story; The Easter Story; Noah’s Ark; The Holy Land; Moses and the Ten Commandments; Jesus Christ: his youth, disciples and Miracles, Bible Heroes; and The Bible Story of Creation; just to name a few … and all in 3D.
If you are listening to this as a podcast, and you would like to view the photos included with this episode, just go to celebratethebible250.com. Type View-Master into the search box, and the matching article should come up.
The view-master stereoscope system was invented by William Gruber from Portland, Oregon, USA. It was introduced to the public at the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair. Through View-Master, people would be capable of travel around the world in 3D. They would visit places like Europe, Africa, North and South America, Australia, the Philippine Islands, India, and the Holy Land.
As for how it worked, View-Master used round reels which held small 16mm pieces of film. Each reel contains 14 transparencies. These are organized in 7 pairs of stereo views. One image is for the left eye, and one image is for the right eye. When viewed through one of the many view-master viewers, the images are perceived as 3D.
This was much different than that of the 3D stereo view cards of the 1800’s and early 1900’s. The earlier technology, stereographs, were mostly reflection media. That means that light was reflected off the card to the viewer’s eyes. The View-Master stereo film reels were transmission media: light was transmitted through the film to the viewer’s eyes.
View-Master wasn’t the first of such 3D film viewers. That designation was held by a hand-held 3D stereoscope called the Tru-Vue. Tru-Vue was introduced to the public during the height of the great depression in 1931. I will give these viewers and their associated memorabilia their own show in the future. They also have some really great 3D stereoscopic Bible stories.
Christian 3D view-master content was plentiful in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s. It was always prominently promoted right alongside all of their popular world travel reels. You could walk into many department stores, and buy your favorite Bible story in 3D.
Many times a Bible story would be represented by live actors, set in authentic geographic locations. Other times, a Bible story would be made up entirely of sculpted dioramas. These would be photographed in View-Master’s own studios. Many times these were photographed, initially, onto 4 x 5 inch Kodachrome film transparencies.
Film and images weren’t the only items that were produced back in the day. Each film reel included its own associated text. This text was placed on the reel, and would show up in the view-master text window. This allowed people to read, and learn about, what they were looking at. Because of this, scripts had to be written — many times in several languages.
There was also studio art work and typography that had to be created in the production of retail packaging, booklets, and advertising.
Each 3D picture also had text in a free booklet enclosed in each set of view-master reels. Here’s an example of the quality writing one would find in a View-Master packet:
As follows:
“Long before the time of Christ, a young widow named Ruth followed her also-widowed mother-in-law. They journeyed from the land of Moab to Bethlehem. Speaking those often quoted words of faithful love “Whither thou goest, I will go…”. There, in Bethlehem, Ruth gleaned in the fields of Boaz, who later married her. Their grandson had eight sons, the youngest of which was David. This was the David who left his sheep to slay Goliath. And to become the first king of all Israel.”
I would like to close out this lecture by reading an excerpt from a view-master package called “The Story of Creation”:
In the beginning, God created he heavens and the earth.
The earth at first was without form, and it was empty of land or life. Darkness brooded over the deep abyss. But the Spirit of God, the Creator, swept over the face of the waters like a wind.
Then God spoke. LET THERE BE LIGHT! He said. And there was light.
God saw that the light was good; and He separated the light from the darkness. He called the light “day” and the darkness “night”.
So evening came, and morning came, ending the first day of creation.
So, until we meet again, and for Celebrate the Bible 250, this is Francis Douglas. If you’re interested in learning more about the History of the Christian Holy Bible in America, please like, share and subscribe:
America 250 Semiquincentennial Bible Celebration 