Historioscope | Movable Panorama

Reconstruction-era historical panorama of the early colonization of North America and American Revolution, a complex marriage of education, play, and myth-making.

• [Springfield, Mass.]: [Milton Bradley & Co.], [circa 1868-1890].
• Original black cartonnage proscenium with viewing window, hand-colored lithograph of theater curtains and figures pasted on.
• Hand-colored lithograph panorama on two rollers, with original black cartonnage box bottom.

This moveable panorama is more than a toy: it is loaded with socio-cultural implications of myth-making the United States in the wake of the Civil War. While the name "Milton Bradley" immediately calls to mind toys and games to a 21st-century onlooker, to a 19th-century buyer, Milton Bradley was also a maker of school supplies and educational material. This lent the events depicted here an additional sense of authority.

The scenes of the panorama begin with a depiction of native peoples without any Europeans in sight, followed by a scene of the conquistadors. A landscape of the settlement at Jamestown is succeeded by the iconic intervention of Pocahontas on behalf of John Smith, then the landing of the Pilgrims in Plymouth. Treaty scenes and other interactions with native nations come alongside images of growing forts and colonies. The American Revolution arrives with an image of the Boston Tea Party and scenes of Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, and other major engagements (including one showing a Black man on the side of the British — who had promised freedom to any enslaved men who fought for their side). Washington and his soldiers are shown at Valley Forge, and of course we see Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown.

A number of the scenes were based on real paintings by Benjamin West, John Trumbull, and others. A beautiful example of American mythologizing in the form of visual education.