Each July 4th Americans celebrate their country’s independence with fireworks. And each July 4th our social media feeds fill up with iPhone pictures of these fireworks displays from backyard sparklers to the Boston Pops. Today’s digital cameras can photograph crisp, colorful images at high ISOs, but in the early days of film photography, cameras were slow and photographing at night required long exposure times. As a result, photographs of fireworks were hard to come by. The photographs below were made in 1904. While we can’t be certain that these are the oldest fireworks pictures, they are the oldest ones in the Library of Congress. These stereograph cards were made with a camera with two lenses that exposed side-by-side images onto a single negative. There are subtle differences between the two images and when viewed through a stereoscope, they give the illusion of depth, rendering the celebratory rockets in all of their glory.
Festival Hall and Terrace of States with fireworks. World’s Fair, St. Louis, MO. C.L. Wasson, 1904. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
The finale of the exposition. Fireworks display in the terrace gardens. Louisiana Purchase Exposition. C.H. Graves, 1904. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Rain of Fireworks. NYC Bridge. Author unknown, 1904. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Williamsburg Bridge, NYC. Author unknown, 1904. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.