On Monday, Feb. 16, St. Olaf Distinctive Collections and College Archive staff celebrated the launch of their new “Armchair Exhibitions” virtual exhibit by hosting an experience for students to engage with the exhibit through stereography and reproductions of featured postcards. The exhibition centers around travel literature, and has a physical component in the Reference Room to accompany the virtual exhibition.
Charlie Knieff ’26 and Abi Lindquist ’28, the hosts of the event, are Archives Staff on the outreach and support team. They are involved with facilitating class experiences and exhibitions. “I basically came up with the topic because I was really into stereography,” Knieff explained in relation to the inspiration for the event. The interest and collaboration with the archives resulted in a “broader travel theme exhibit to include travel literature and postcards… The exhibit really shows a lot about how people connect with each other in an increasingly globalized world,” Knieff said.
Initially, the College Archives only had a small collection of stereographs featuring a St. Olaf band trip to Norway in 1917. The collection has now more than tripled in size with stereographs from all over the world, including a collection of images of Palestine in the 1920s, WWI images, general travel images, and more.
Stereography is the illusion of creating three-dimmensional depth from two-dimmensional images.
“A stereograph is a set of two different images taken about ¾ of an inch apart to mimic the space between the human eye,” Knieff said. “The stereoscope includes a space between lenses to play with how we see depth and trick the brain into putting the images together into one, three-dimensional image.”
Another type of stereographs at the experience were “Hold to Light” stereographs which were popular in 1860s France, and function by holding up a light to the back of the card which illuminates the images and might highlight certain colors.
The exhibition showcases the unique angle of human connection through travel, photography, and physical media. The virtual exhibit is now available for students to explore and engage with at https://wp.stolaf.edu/archives/.
