Photography curator Carol Johnson spotted this evocative photograph.
Carol comments: “The Swan Boats have been a fixture in the Boston Public Gardens for more than 100 years. Harking back to simpler times, the boat rides offer a peaceful break from busy city life.”
The photographs shows half of a stereograph card. If you were to look at the full stereo card (two nearly identical versions of the photograph mounted side-by-side) with a stereo viewer, it would appear in 3-D, putting you directly in that peaceful scene!
Learn more:
- Read about the development of stereographs and the scope of the Library of Congress collection of stereograph cards.
- In addition to stereograph cards, our collections include stereograph negatives. View a selection of stereo negatives relating to the Civil War that we shared a couple of years ago on Flickr.
- View more pictures of swan boats. The popularity of swan boats seems to have extended beyond Boston, even into the realm of satire.
- View other scenes of boating in urban settings (a pleasant, if only vicarious, diversion for those of us experiencing a typically warm Washington, D.C., summer!)