Stori-Viewer | Church-Craft Pictures | Stori-Views | 1950s St Louis, MO, United States

Church-Craft Pictures Stori-Viewer

United States, 1940-50s

The original black, bakelite Stori-Viewer was a product of Church-Craft Pictures, Inc. in St. Louis, Missouri. Church-Craft Pictures was started with $200 of borrowed money by parochial school teacher Henry G. H. Kiehl, his sons, Reverend Paul Kiehl and Reverend Erich Kiehl, and his son-in-law, Reverend Victor Growcock.

By the mid-1940s, the family business had prospered and was well-known for all kinds of educational and religious visuals. In 1946, they decided to branch out into 3D. They hired camera crews, actors, and set builders.

In 1966, Paul Kiehl, as part of Church-Craft, would obtain US patent #3264154 for creating cardboard picture slides. That patent # can be found on some of the stereoviews which were produced under a separate company of theirs called Stori-Views. The Stori-Views company also produced an earlier Pixie-Viewer.

Both the Church-Craft and Stori-Views companies would eventually become divisions of a larger company that Henry Kiehl had incorporated in 1947 called Visual Data Corporation, and this company hierarchy is sometimes printed on the viewer packaging. Later stereoviews, like the Chiquita All-Star set from the 1970s, would only carry the Visual Data Corporation company name. Visual Data Corporation would continue operation for several decades, with Robert Kiehl serving as President from 1973 to 1994, and eventually dissolve in 2002.

Primary Material: Bakelite (early), Plastic (later)
Media Format: Card-mounted film chip
Light Source: Natural light
Focus: Fixed
Interocular: Fixed

Black, Bakelite Stori-viewer

As far as we’ve seen, this is the only Church-craft viewer imprinted with the official designation of “Stori-Viewer.” All their other viewers (shown farther down below) were made by Church-Craft for use with Stori-Views, but usually were generically referred to as an accompanying “plastic 3D viewer” on the packaging.

Black Stori-viewer: Hawaii Set

Black Stori-viewer: Examples of Separately Packaged Stori-views Sets

Black Stori-viewer: Example of a Stori-view Album Set

Black Stori-viewer: Very Early Stori-views Master List

Black Stori-viewer: Stori-views Master List Brochure

Black Stori-viewer: Scenic Wonders of America Stori-views List

Black Stori-viewer: Bible Stori-views List

Black Stori-viewer: Rare Baseball & Howdy Doody Stori-views Sets

A 1951 article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch tells how Paul Kiehl was reluctant to do a baseball set (first photo below) because it was a far stray from their typical material. He was eventually convinced, and in the process of shooting the pictures, saw his first major league baseball game at Yankee Stadium. The article goes on to say how the hardest shot was catching Phil Rizzuto mid-air catching a high line drive — a shot that took many tries until Paul finally caught him at 1-200th of a second with his “double camera.”

Black Stori-viewer: 1955 Plymouth Automobile

Black Stori-viewer: 1957 Plymouth Automobile

Black Stori-viewer: Cardio-Views | The American Heart Association

Small Plastic Stori-Viewer

This version is the smallest of all the plastic Church-Craft viewers and we have a red and turquoise blue in our collection. There were even matching plastic storage cases for the views! The cases could accommodate both the single-view cards and the double-view cards (most of the earlier Church-craft Pixie-Views were double-view cards) , as shown in the photo below.

Small Plastic Stori-viewer: Examples of Separately Packaged Stori-Views

The first set below shows famous antique cars photographed at Horn’s Cars of Yesterday in Sarasota, Florida. The girl on the front of the package is actually holding the larger Pixie-Viewer while the back of the package depicts the smaller, plastic Stori-Viewer. (It wasn’t uncommon for Stori-Views packaging to re-use graphics from earlier packaging.) However, in the packaged set with the fun Bozo graphics, the boy is pictured with the correct viewer.

Small Plastic Stori-viewer: Bible Stories

Bible stories were Church-craft’s specialty. This is one of the special “look-through” package designs and is where we see this smaller viewer actually referred to as a “Stori-Viewer” even though the name is not printed on the viewer itself. The views are also referred to as “Stori-slides” instead of “Stori-Views” and Church-craft is listed as a division of Visual Data Corporation.

Small Plastic Stori-viewer: 1964 New York Worlds Fair

Stori-Views collaborated with Photo Lab, the official licensee of the 1964 New York World’s Fair, to publish two series of cards: Series A and Series B.

Small Plastic Stori-viewer: Advertising Sample

Here we see Stori-Views begin to branch out into offering branded viewers to companies to advertise their products in 3D. There’s a sample viewer with “Your Company Name Here” and a placeholder address printed on it. It came with sample stereoviews of assorted greeting arrangements. It also came with a few of the regular Stori-Views sets in envelopes.

Small Plastic Stori-viewer: Post Cereal Set

This turquoise blue Post Cereal-branded set was manufactured in Canada for Stori-Views. It comes with matching branded storage cases for the views.

Small Plastic Stori-viewer: Merck, Sharp, & Dohme - 3D Viewer & Audio Set

Large Plastic Stori-Viewer

Not only is this version of the Stori-Viewer larger, it’s a bit more creatively designed with its top and bottom indents. It’s also where we see Stori-Views get into their Wonders of the World marketing. We have red and yellow versions of this viewer in our collection.

Large Plastic Stori-viewer: Wonders of the Animal World Set

Here’s another example where there are 2 different viewers shown on the package. The boy on the front of the box is holding the small plastic Stori-Viewer (same graphic from the look-through Bible Stories packaging above) but the viewer on the back is the larger version that’s actually in the box. Another interesting note is the reference to Stori-Views being a division of Visual Data Corporation, similar to how Church-Craft was listed as a division of Visual Data Corporation on the Bible Stories look-through box above. Note the collaboration with the Chicago Natural History Museum printed at the bottom of the steroviews.

Large Plastic Stori-viewer: Wonders of the World Set

There’s no reference to Stori-Views at all on this look-through box except for printed at the very bottom of the slides pictured on the back. The box references Visual Data Corporation, without mentioning that it’s a division of Stori-Views. There’s also a reference to American Optical Company for making the lenses.

Large Plastic Stori-viewer: Wonders of the World Subscription Service

This stereoview subscription service was part of their Wonders of the World marketing campaign and designed for the viewer above. These were ordered directly from the Stori-Views company.