THeoTHRS231-NEWNEW2DQNN.doc - effect of this work are...

effect of this work are wonderful; examined through a tube, on a level with the eye, the
illusion is complete to one familiar with the Falls.” Henry T. Tuckerman, Book of the
Artists: American Artist Life (New York: G.P. Putnam and Son, 1867), 386. The “tube”
that Tuckerman refers to enabled visitors to focus more easily on specific details in the
painting. Akin to rolling up a piece of paper and peering through, this was a less
sophisticated, lens-less version of opera glasses, which will be discussed at greater
length in the next chapter. 26. Gregory M. Pfitzer, Popular History and the Literary
Marketplace, 1840–1920 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008), 3, 4.
Whereas the average print run had been 2,000 books early in the century, by mid-
century 30,000 to 100,000 copies were routinely published. Ibid., 4. 27. Benson Lossing,
“Art,” as cited in Independent Examiner, February 24, 1855, GA-28, Box 3, Lossing
Papers, Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library, Premont, Ohio, quoted in Gregory M.