Bob Boyd (Emeritus) is a former Army intelligence officer and Vietnam veteran. He is the author of numerous papers and articles on subjects ranging from local Pennsylvania history and genealogy to unconventional warfare. His interest in the Great War was aroused when he discovered a set of letters from his great-uncle, who was an aircraft mechanic in France. Bob lives in Virginia and contributed the majority of the original research found on this site. Bob has since made the decision to retire from the field and remove his name from the Collection.
Doug Jordan (1961-2020) was a retired petroleum engineer whose career involved working in several locations around the world. He was an avid collector of WWI-related books and stereoviews, and first became interested in stereoviews as a child while playing with an uncle’s Holmes-style viewer and cards. His wife’s grandfather fought with the American forces in France. The Boyd/Jordan Collection resided with Doug until early 2020, as did the responsibility for maintaining this web site and updating its contents as new information was discovered. He lived in Texas with his wife.
Ian Ference (Curator) is a professional archivist, as well as a freelance photographer, historian, and lecturer. He spent over a decade studying abandoned asylums & industrial sites throughout the United States, and documenting them prior to demolition. He became interested in stereography as a child, when he realized that he could free-view the nude stereoviews on display at the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY. Since the late 2000s, his primary interest has been in amateur & glass views of the Great War, and the newly-reformed Jordan/Ference collection resides with him in the climate-controlled annex to his flat. He lives in New York City with his wonderful wife Stacey.
The Jordan/Ference Collection had its genesis in the mid-1990s. Bob and Doug were independently collecting First World War-related stereoviews and ended up bidding against each other on the newly-created eBay site. Unhappy with this situation, they made contact (in those days eBay let you know who you were bidding against!) and came up with a new strategy. As Bob was primarily interested in the research aspects, he would scan his purchases and sell them along to Doug. In turn, Doug would refrain from bidding on “Bob’s” lots and instead bid on others that Bob hadn’t found or bid on. They then shared image scans and any information they could find regarding the manufacturers and set contents, resulting in the image library and lists on this site. After the acquisition of a particularly interesting – and difficult – set of badly damaged amateur views was added to the collection, Ian signed on as Lead Research Archivist, and has now been placed in charge of the collection’s future. His first priority was to finish a project he and Doug had aimed to have completed by 2024 – a keyword-searchable Image Gallery. Through a partnership with the Western Front Association, this became a reality, and recently the focus has been on the recent site redesign, addition of new images to the Image Gallery, and the addition of several crucial staff members:
Paul Bond (Realistic Travels Subject Specialist) is a former principal scientist involved in medical research. An interest in local history and photography led him to discover stereo photography. After purchasing a ‘complete’ box of Realistic Travels views, he subsequently discovered that nobody could tell him how many different views had been published. Inspired by the challenge to find the answer, he has spent many years researching and collecting these with the aim of writing the definitive guide. He is still writing, as his research has uncovered much more than he expected both in complexity and volume. Living with his wife in Haverhill, England, Paul has kindly agreed to share his collection with the Jordan/Ference Collection. Paul can be reached at HDGirdwood@gmail.com
Stacey Doyle Ference (Associate Director of Archives) is an archivist with more than ten years of field experience handling paper, film, and photographic collections at various institutions. In addition to her work with the Jordan/Ference Collection, she is employed as a Processing Archivist for the New York Public Library, handling diverse collections for the library system’s various research branches. She is an avid film historian with an interest in mid-century design, pin-up art, and the English Romantics. Stacey can be reached at sdoyle02@gmail.com
Sophia Lemon (Permanent Archival Intern) is a freshman at Louisiana State University. She loves American and World history and is excited by this opportunity to further her knowledge of conflict history, stereography, and the Great War. Sophia may be contacted at lemonspersonalemail@gmail.com
Ralph Reiley (Keystone & Underwood Subject Specialist) earns his living as a licensed architect in Atlanta. He is an avid amateur historian and the military history of the 1914-1918 era has been a particular interest of his for many years. He has been collecting stereoviews of the Great War since the mid 1980’s. He has had twenty articles printed about stereography, winning the National Stereoscopic Association 2009 Ray Zone Award for Best Stereo World Article on Historical Stereoscopy for his article “The Great War and the First Tanks,” as well as the 2012 Ray Zone Award for his Stereo World article “Giants in the Sky: Zeppelins.” In 2019, Reiley received the National Stereoscopic Association William C. Darrah Award for Distinguished Scholarship and Extraordinary Knowledge of Stereoscopy. Ralph can be reached at reileys@att.net
André Ruiter (French Commercial Glass Subject Specialist & Web Developer) André Ruiter is a Dutch photographer specialised in conceptual black & white photography. From 2009 to 2019 he worked on three photo projects about the First World War battlefields in France. While working on these projects he discovered French glass stereoviews. He developed an interest in collecting stereo photography from 1850 to 1930, with a focus on French commercial glass stereoviews of the Great War. He has a special interest in the history of the photography section of the French army, La Section Photographique de l’Armée. André can be reached at info@andreruiter.nl
