Beschreibung:

Lot includes case of 71 glass slides (4 x 3.25 in.), 48 of which are definitely by Bentley, plus two accompanying binders of information. Wilson Bentley (1865-1931), "The Snowflake Man," was one of the first photographers of individual snowflakes. His assertion, in collaboration with Prof. George Henry Perkins, that no two snowflakes are alike, caught the public imagination at the turn-of-the-century and remains his lasting legacy. Bentley was born and spent much of his life on a farm in the small village of Jericho in northern Vermont, and began taking his famous photographs in 1885 after figuring out a way to combine a dry plate bellows camera and his beloved microscope. By 1898 he had made over 400 microphotographs of individual ice crystals and believed they provided him a unique insight into meteorological science, which he then attempted to disseminate to universities and scientific journals. Although many scientists initially ignored his work due to his lack of any academic training, Bentley would go to receive the first research grant ever awarded by the American Meteorological Society, in 1924. He prepared thousands of lantern slides which were used in university classrooms across the country and also as inspiration in the design studios of jewelers, engravers, and clothing designers. This collection was used as a visual aid to science courses at the University of Wisconsin in the 1920s and later. 48 of the slides are definitely Bentley's, while the remainder show related diagrams as well as buildings that may be the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison. The two accompanying binders provide information on Bentley as well as the UW professors who were known to use the slides in their lectures.