The Ingersoll View Company

The Ingersoll View Company of St. Paul, Minnesota was owned and operated by Truman Ward Ingersoll. He was born Feb 19, 1862 and lived in St. Paul most of his life. Ingersoll died in St. Paul. June 9th, 1922.

Views will be found in a variety of mounts including cabinet mounts, flat and curved mounts on various color stock and several varieties of lithoprint views. Between 2500 and 4000 titles were produced. Ingersoll views are generally of high quality and contain scenes not commonly photographed by other companies. In early 1900 Ingersoll changed his focus to lithoprint views, likely as a cost measure. Lithoprints are the most commonly found. Older views and real photo views although produced in quantities are not common. Subject categories varied but are mostly of the west and fishing and hunting scenes. Yellowstone appears to have been a favorite.  Views were sold by canvasers and by special order.

Company names changed several times and the business resided at three locations in St. Paul from the mid 1880’s into the 1910’s.

40 East Third Street

56 East Sixth Street

27 East Third Street

Ingersoll patented a new design of stereoscope crossbar retainer claiming patent #766698 and issued August 2, 1904. The patent was later assigned to H. C. White Company. White would continue to use the Ingersoll crossbar retainer up into the 1920’s. The H. S. Walbridge Company produced all the viewers sold by Ingersoll.

Ingersoll Crossbar Retainer

The most common stereoscope found today has an aluminum hood with the following design embossed at the center of the hood along with other scroll work. This same model was sold by R.R. Whiting Company again having been produced by H. S. Walbridge Company. I suspect that Ingersoll sold most of his stereoscopes unmarked. Not many of the viewers shown below will be found.

Of special interest to collectors is this quarter sawn oak cased boxed set of 200 real photo world views by Ingersoll with two matching stereoscopes made of sycamore and produced about 1903.

Ingersoll sold the remains of his company to either H C. White or the Keystone View Company sometime in the 1910’s. Some negatives from Ingersoll are reportedly still in the photo archives of the Keystone Mast collection at the University of California, Riverside.

© 2006 - Del Phillips