As I was looking for some images to illustrate issues related to censorship for Banned Books Week, I stumbled upon this stereoscopic image of a parade float re-enacting the trial of John Peter Zenger.
Stereoscopy was around since the beginning of photography, but this particular parade image was copyrighted 1909, or 174 years AFTER Crown v. Zenger.
This parade is described as held in New York, so that would mean a local connection with Zenger trial and acquittal, or there is the possibility, pre-World War I, that it might some sort of ethnic festival be related to the German population (Zenger was a German immigrant).
I began thinking of events from more than 150 years ago that we might be able to recreate so fulsomely today, and all I could come up with were Civil War re-enactments.
But I would love to see some more information about this "large pageant" and the population as familiar with this celebration of colonial intellectual freedom represented by this souvenir stereoscopic image.
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Edited
Good questions and wonderful investigation for students Wendy Stephens. You sent me searching in Chronicling America and I found found a 1909 article about a historical pageant in the New York Daily Tribune, First Land Parade Scenes from History. I’m wondering if that is describing the pageant from the Stereograph? If not exact, it certainly was a similar parade. If you read down to the last paragraph where it lists the “cars” you’ll see that number 24 is Trial of John Peter Zenger.
Having students use Ask a Librarian would probably help answer this question.
I’m also appreciating some good discussion around Banned Books Week here in our Network.
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