Five Cent Fantasies: Photographic Experimentation in Illustrated Song Slides

Abstract

This article examines the production and consumption of illustrated song lantern slides. Motivated by the commercial success of Tin Pan Alley songs, slide companies began illustrating songs with live action photography in the early years of the twentieth century. Shown between reels of film, the slides were an attraction themselves and an integral part of the filmgoers’ experience. The photographic experimentation in these slides, especially that of the firm Scott and Van Altena, is surprisingly novel. They frequently use multiple photograph negatives to exaggerate spatial and scale differences or frame narrative scenes. The author concludes that the layering and scale differences frequently seen in these slides allowed the company to expedite manufacture by recycling photographic images and also appealed to a popular taste for visual tricks in modern American visual culture. Although the imagery was nostalgic and conventional, the compositions challenged the viewer to see in a new, fragmented way. The often surreal effects show that the line between avant-garde experimental photography and commercial photography was not so clearly drawn.