When the peep-box man comes to town, an appreciative audience is not far away: inquisitive gentlemen, jittery children and languishing ladies crowd around his "dark box," this whimsical contraption. In the Age of Enlightenment, between 1720 and 1800, more and more people were thirsting for education. And with such a "seeing machine" one comes a good deal closer to the treasure of knowledge of the big, wide world in an amusing way and without much effort. Peep-boxes, camera obscura and other "optical curiosities" were the popular precursors of today's television sets.
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