Double Vision

Check out these "deep" photographs, which show a nosy neighbor getting his due!

The stereograph or stereogram is a pairing of two almost identical images mounted side-by-side on a card. When viewed through a stereoscope (or stereo viewer), the two photos merge into one image that appears three-dimensional.

Stereographs were devised about the same time as the invention of photography and were perfected in the early 1850s. By the late 1800s, mass production and marketing had made stereographs available to just about anyone and they became popular entertainment.

View more fun stereographs in our online exhibition American Photographs: The First Century.

Pictured top: William H. Rau, 1855–1920, Eavesdroppers, n.d., stereograph card (2 mounted albumen prints), 3 1/8 x 3 1/4 in. each, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum Purchase from the Charles Isaacs Collection made possible in part by the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment.

Pictured bottom: William H. Rau, 1855–1920, Eavesdroppers Dropped, n.d., stereograph card (2 mounted albumen prints), 3 1/8 x 3 1/4 in. each, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum Purchase from the Charles Isaacs Collection made possible in part by the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment.