ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how and why the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS), with its far-flung and heterogeneous membership, became active in lantern slide production, circulation and popularisation as a scientific teaching technique. Tracing the use of lantern slides in the organisation’s history as it changed from a ‘parliament of science’ in the 1850s to a new purpose found in empire and scientific education, it explores the scientific outlets for lantern slides in the nineteenth century and suggests the importance of the BAAS as a broker of scientific visual culture.
