Historical Note

The Keystone View Company was a major distributor of stereographic images, and was located in Meadville, Pennsylvania. From 1892 through 1963 Keystone produced and distributed both educational and comic/sentimental stereoviews and stereoscopes. The Company primarily marketed themselves to schools in the early twentieth century. As of 1905 the Company was the world's largest stereographic company.

Dozens of staff photographers were employed in the early 1900s. Also in the early 1900s, when stereoviewing was declining and other companies were in trouble, Keystone bought their stocks and incorporated them into their own holdings. Notable amongst many such purchases were the huge and varied inventories of B. W. Kilburn, the H. C. White Company, and Underwood & Underwood. As a result, Keystone claimed to have had some 2 million negatives by the mid-1930s.

By the 1920s the Keystone Company was the sole surviving major producer of conventional card-mounted views anywhere in the world. They had offices in London, Paris, Sidney, Capetown, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo. Part of this prominence was derived from the sale of World War I stereograph sets, as Keystone was one of the only publishers to secure permission to photograph battlefields and military operations.

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