Voorstelling van een soldaat liggend voor een tent in Klipdrift, 12 februari 1900

This is an anonymous stereograph, made around 1900, showing a British field telegrapher in Klipdrift, South Africa. Stereographs like this one provided a kind of early virtual reality experience for viewers back home, allowing them to feel like they were on the front lines of the Second Boer War. But what does it mean to experience war through this kind of carefully mediated image? The photo romanticizes and sanitizes the war, focusing on the industriousness of the individual soldier rather than the violence of the conflict. Consider the institutional context: this was produced by Underwood & Underwood, a company that mass-produced and distributed these images. The image's value, then, lies less in its artistic merit and more in its role as a piece of propaganda. Images like these helped to shape public opinion and garner support for the British Empire's military campaigns. We can research these histories through archive collections held by the British Library, the National Army Museum, and other institutions.