Looking in at West entrance, by Electric light, No. 1550 from the series "St. Paul Ice Carnival"
1886/88
Medium
Albumen print, stereo
Dimensions
Each image: 10.1 × 7.5 cm (4 × 3 in.); Card: 10.7 × 17.8 cm (4 1/4 × 7 1/16 in.)
Classification
photography
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
198436
Art Historical Context
Step into the festive glow of the 1886 St. Paul Carnival with Henry Hamilton Bennett's *Looking in at West entrance, Electric light, No.1550*. This stereo albumen print captures a thrilling nighttime view of the carnival's grand ice palace entrance, part of the inaugural event launched by St. Paul residents to celebrate Minnesota's harsh winters and rival Quebec's famed festivities. Bennett, a pioneering American photographer renowned for his stereographic views, documented the carnival's elaborate ice structures and joyful crowds, preserving a slice of late-19th-century Midwestern exuberance....
About the Artist
Henry Hamilton Bennett · 1843–1908
Henry Hamilton Bennett (1843–1908) was a pioneering American photographer whose breathtaking images of the Wisconsin Dells transformed a rugged river gorge into one of the nation's premier tourist destinations. Born in Farnham, Quebec, Canada, on January 15, 1843, Bennett moved with his family to Brattleboro, Vermont, before settling in Kilbourn City (now Wisconsin Dells), Wisconsin, in 1857 at ag...