1866 Milton Bradley Rolling Panorama of the History of the American Civil War

This is Milton Bradley's 1866 Myriopticon, a rolling pictorial panorama summarizing the history of the American Civil War (1861 - 1865). Released not long after the end of the war, the Myriopticon ranks as one of Milton Bradley's first products. Mounted on two rollers, twenty-two events from the war, including the Confederates firing on Fort Sumter, Grant's victory at Fort Donaldson, the first battle between the ironclads, and the horrors of the Battle of Antietam, pass before the viewer's eyes. All these are framed by bunting and curtains painted on the box to create the illusion of a theatre.

Civil War Panoramas

Milton Bradley's Myriopticon borrowed its aesthetic and theme from larger panoramas created for adult audiences. Panoramas were popular attractions in the United States from the late eighteenth century. The advent of the war did not change their popularity, only shifted their content, from travelogues to patriotic spectacles with technical-sounding names. Panoramas promoting the war appeared in both the North and the South. Titles of some Northern panoramas include the 'Polyrama of the War,' the 'Grand Panorama of the War,' 'The Mirror of the Rebellion,' the 'Diorama and Polopticomarama of the War,' and 'A Cosmorama of Battles of the Civil War.' Southern audiences were treated to panoramas entitled 'The Grand Panopticon Magicale of the War and Automotan Dramatique,' Panthechnoptemon,' and 'Southern Moving Dioramic Panorama.'

Publication History and Census

The Myriopticon was first sold by Milton Bradley in 1866, just in time for Christmas, when it appeared in advertisements in publications like Colman's Rural World in St. Louis. A half-dozen entries for the Myriopticon appear in OCLC and date it anywhere from 1866 to 1868. The object appears in more than a dozen institutional collections, including those at Yale University (which has also digitized the script, tickets, and broadside), the Morgan Library and Museum, the New-York Historical Society, Brown University, the Library of Congress, the Newberry Library, and the Clements Library at the University of Michigan. Examples are scarce but do occasionally appear on the private market.