At the turn of the 20th century, the American company Underwood & Underwood (U&U) was the world’s pre-eminent publisher of 3D stereocards.
Established in Ottawa, Kansas in 1882, U&U’s roots in Britain were established in the early 1890s when co-founder Bert Underwood opened a branch office in the transatlantic port city of Liverpool.
Courtesy of Bruce Underwood.
As in America, a network of its sales agents then travelled the country from door-to-door selling sets of cards and hand-held stereoscopes through which to view them.
Following my 2021 doctoral thesis on how U&U’s stereoscopic images shaped early press photography, its activities continue to occupy my photohistory research
Only last week, an opportunity arose to view some of the 11,000 stereos that form part of the Bernard Howarth-Loomes Collection in the care of National Museums Scotland.
However, it was in a box of the collection’s ephemera that I made a surprising discovery: that of a rare U&U sales brochure.
Titled A Tour Round The World and marked ‘Liverpool 1894,’ the brochure offered the opportunity to view “vivid representations of the scenes, life and customs of different countries” in three dimensions.
Despite being unillustrated by actual stereographs, the 72 views listed “constitute our set … and are numbered and are kept uniform.”
As the U&U company went on to create the globally successful Underwood Travel System combining multi-card box sets with illustrative maps, this brochure offers an early insight into its future business model.
Appropriately, the tour started with a view of ‘The Landing Stage, Liverpool (Departure)’ taken by Bert Underwood himself, who became a skilled stereographer whilst resident in the city.
Looking at this image, it’s possible that the group walking towards camera included Bert’s wife Susie (right).
From Liverpool, the U&U world tour crossed the Atlantic to the United States and Canada before taking in views from China, India, Africa, Egypt and finally Europe including England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
Among the European scenes was another that can be credited to Bert Underwood titled ‘The Famous Roulette Saloon, Casino, Monte Carlo.’
This may have been among the first stereos Bert captured following a crash course in stereography from a Monseiur Abel in the neighbouring Mediterranean resort of Mentone.
My thanks to Julie Gibb, Assistant Curator, National Museums Scotland, for hosting my visit and granting permission to reproduce material from the Bernard Howarth-Loomes Collection in this blogpost.
Pressphotoman 
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