THE MYRIOPTICON
First edition of this historical panorama of the US Civil War, a complex marriage of education, play, and propaganda.
Very good.
Price: $6,000.00
THE MYRIOPTICON
"To counter the reluctance to join the regular forces, thrilling accounts of great heroism shown during the Civil War [...] were commercially published as incentives for would-be soldiers." – Richard Cheek
This moveable panorama is more than a toy: it is loaded with socio-cultural implications, from efforts to unite public opinion about the results of the Civil War to encouraging the next generation of soldiers. While the name "Milton Bradley" immediately calls to mind toys and games to a 21st-century onlooker, to a 19th-century buyer, Milton Bradley was also a maker of school supplies and educational material. This lent the events depicted in the MYRIOPTICON an additional sense of authority.
Using images of the War from HARPER'S WEEKLY, the MYRIOPTICON presented the viewer with a narrative that "made visible the struggle involved and the resiliency required to put down the rebellion" (Milanick 194). Moving through the events of the Civil War in chronological order, it includes depictions of battles such as Bunker Hill, as well as vignettes focusing on the importance of technology and medicine: the erection of a telegraph pole, doctors working with the wounded at Antietam. The MYRIOPTICON also features two vignettes of Black US Americans, the first depicting formerly enslaved people in a covered wagon and the second featuring the Fifty-Fifth Massachusetts Colored Regiment.
This copy, with its intact panorama, is a beautiful example of the subtle and overt propaganda of Civil War materials in the 19th century.
Read more: Richard Creek, Playing Soldier: The Books and Toys that Prepared Children for War; Margaret Fairgrieve Milanick, "Big Ideas in a Little Box: Nation Building in Milton Bradley's Myriopticon," Buying and Selling Civil War Memory in Gilded Age America.
The Object
Springfield, Mass: Milton Bradley & Co, [1866]. Full title: The Myriopticon, a Historical Panorama of the Rebellion. 5.25'' x 8.25'' x 2.25'' (proscenium); 5.5'' x 8.5'' x 2.5'' (box). Original black cartonnage proscenium with viewing window. Hand-colored lithograph of theater curtains and figures pasted on. Hand-colored lithograph panorama on two rollers. One wooden peg turnkey. Lacking original 7-page script, sheet of admission tickets, and advertising poster, as typical. With later descriptive card with owner name "Miss Mary D. Bates" loosely laid in. In original black cartonnage box with hand-colored lithograph title plate to lid. Contemporary owner name to bottom of box, "D. W. Topley." Box with soil to title plate, general edgeware and rubbing; one corner of lid tender. Proscenium with some edgewear, rubbing around turnkey holes. Roll with some tape repairs. A functional piece with vibrant colors.
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