Stereograph

Description

This interior view of the Shaker summer (girls) school at Mount Lebanon shows a number of young scholars with two of their teachers. The Sister on the left is Dorothy Wright (1843-1905) who was likely the assistant to the Sister on the right, Amelia Calver (1844-1929). There are several views by Buell that are dated in pencil on the back, "August 10, 1872," [see: noc023304] that presumably dates this view as having been made at that time or earlier. In The Shaker Image by Pearson and Neal, a similar view appears on page 75 (photograph number 39). There are a number of significant differences in the two photographs--people and things have been moved around. It seems unlikely that the two photographs were made by two different photographers, but rather by one photographer reposing the photograph. In the second edition of The Shaker Image, the annotator says that the photograph is by James Irving also make the observation that, "A stereoview by A. J. Alden, and an identical imge, presumably a copy, by O.B. Buell of Pittsfield, MA (active in 1870s), also exists." The problem with this observation is that Buell appears to have been working in the early 1870s and Alden in 1879 -- therefore if any copying was done it was probably Alden copying Buell's work, however, there is no mention of an interior view of the school room on any of Alden's published views. His "Group of School Girls," is an exterior view taken in front of the Mount Lebanon School.