On Saturday afternoons in 1859 Manhattanites trooped to Hope Chapel at Broadway and Eighth Street. At the door "scholars" paid 6¢, all others 15¢. Inside they climbed a dark stairway to a big covered platform. Hidden gas lamps above lit a circle of landscapes 15 ft. high. Soon a lecturer appeared and talked steadily through the audience's vicarious "Tour Through Italy." The canvas cylinder moved slowly, exposing seriatim the start in Boston Harbor, the rolling Atlantic, several hundred views of Italy and finally the return home to New York Harbor.
In this last...
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