Carl Lewis Altmaier Lantern Slides

Carl Lewis Altmaier was a professor at Drexel Institute. He was born in August 1866 to Peter A. and Verona Altmaier. Casper Warren Briggs made lantern slides and magic lanterns in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was born in Norton, Massachusetts, the son of Dr. Daniel H. Briggs. In 1872, they bought the magic lantern business of Frederick Langenheim. Casper Briggs developed the “slip slide,” which imparted horizontal movement to lantern slides, now acknowledged as a development in the making of motion pictures. However, he resisted lures to get involved in the emerging movie business and died in New Jersey in 1942, age 95. The illustrator Joseph Boggs Beale, also of Philadelphia, did many drawings for Briggs’ lantern slides, but it is not known if he created the Napoleon slides in this set.

    
This collection consists of a group of lantern slides which illustrate Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, scenes from the French Revolution, and scenes from the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. The Dickens set is actually entitled “Marley’s Ghost,” probably an attempt to avoid copyright infringement. Each slide is numbered and has a caption, and some slides are missing. A Napoleon slide set, with numbers and printed labels, are the illustrations for a printed script about him. A handwritten note on the script records that it was written by C.L.A., and the slides were printed by Casper Briggs of Philadelphia. (Some slides are missing from this set as well.) Another set of slides about Napoleon is in wooden mounts; the pictures are in color. Slides illustrating the life of Napoleon and scenes from the French Revolution round out the collection.