Several NCA-goers practically tackled me in the crowded hallways of the Chicago Hilton this past weekend, wanting to know whether I'd seen the story in USA Today about the discovery of "new" photographs of Lincoln at Gettysburg. It is pretty exciting. The images are not really photographs but glass stereoviews -- 3-D images meant to be viewed with a stereoscope, which is the 19th century equivalent of your childhood ViewMaster. A civil war photography historian found them online (!) while searching in the Library of Congress database. He "found" Lincoln (thank god for that stovepipe hat) by using digital imaging software to zoom in. Way, way in. Here are the images as you'll find them in the Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs database (click to enlarge, but I guarantee you won't see Abe):
L of C, CHP #s 1159-1160
USA Today offers its own interactive view where you can see how they zoomed in and what information the images yielded. And here's information from the Library of Congress about how they digitize stereoviews. You can view them online in all their 3D glory if you have 3D glasses!
I love this story because it reminds us that the archive can yield amazing things, if only somebody comes along and really looks. And, best of all, these stereos are part of the Library of Congress collection, which means nobody can try to buy or sell them for jillions of dollars. They belong to you and me.
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