The Micrograph was an inexpensive tin-plate microscope supplied with miniature photographs on glass slides. The images were small, though much larger than Dancer's microphotographs. Sets including the viewer and a box of ten slides were sold mainly by mail order for a price ranging from $1 to $1.50. Each slide contained ten photographs and there were ten slides in each series, including portraits of the Presidents of the United States, scenes of everyday life or religious stories and photographs of notable buildings.

The Micrograph was invented and manufactured by Dwight Lyman Smith in Waterbury, Connecticut. Smith superintended the factory of the Waterbury Buckle Company where buckles were manufactured from tin plate—experience that is evident in the design of the Micrograph. He held several patents for buckles and related items (Stevenson 2019).

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