The patent applications made in 1891 by Edison for “an apparatus for exhibiting photographs of moving objects” and his Kinetograph camera were granted in the Spring of 1893.
The premiere of Edison’s Kinetoscope did not take place until April 14, 1894. That first night was one of the most significant for magic shadows because out of the Kinetoscope and the Kinetograph camera evolved the modern motion picture devices.
Edison supplied the peep-show Kinetoscope to his agents, Raff & Gammon at $200 each, and they were retailed to showmen at prices from $300 to $350. Andrew M. Holland, a Canadian, acquired ten Kinetoscopes and opened up the first Kinetoscope Parlor at 1155 Broadway, New York City. The location previously was occupied by a shoe store and a half century later it was again a shoe store. (Illustration on [opposite page].)
The Kinetoscopes on Broadway were successful. $120 was taken in the first night. The original show of films was a kind of “double feature” in that the spectator was charged 25¢ to see the second line of five Kinetoscopes. The films included the famous “Fred Ott’s Sneeze.”
In the Century Magazine for June, 1894, there was an article by Dickson and Antonia Dickson on “Edison’s Invention of the Kinetophonograph.” Edison wrote a forward which said in part that he had the idea that it was possible to devise a sight and sound combination apparatus in 1887. “This idea, the germ of which came from the little toy called the Zoetrope (i.e., the Plateau-Stampfer magic disk) and the work by Muybridge, Marie (i.e., Marey) and others has now been accomplished, so that every change of facial expression can be recorded and reproduced life-size. The Kinetoscope is only a small model illustrating the present stage of progress but with each succeeding month new possibilities are brought into view.” Edison then prophesied that with his work and that of others “grand opera can be given at the Metropolitan Opera House at New York without any material change from the original, and with artists and musicians long since dead.”
On June 16, 1894, the Electrical World reported on “The Kinetophonograph” and on the nickel-in-the-slot peep-show models on display at the Broadway store. The review was not enthusiastic even then. It concluded: “As to the future of this most ingenious and interesting bit of mechanism, time only will demonstrate whether it is to be a new scientific toy or an invention of real practical value.”
Time did demonstrate all that and more.
The reaction to Edison’s Kinetograph in Paris, showplace of the world, was much more enthusiastic than in New York. In La Nature the wonderful mechanical perfection of the film peep-show apparatus was praised with special note given to the fact that it was driven by electricity. The Werner firm had opened a demonstration of the Kinetoscope at 20 Boulevard Poissonnière, Paris, and the machines were in use all day and every evening.
The Kinetoscope also went on display in Oxford Street, London, in October, 1894, brought there from New York by two Greeks, George Georgiades and George Trajedis. From the showings of the Edison peep-show in New York, Paris, and London, there arose an increased interest in the motion picture. Out of these demonstrations grew projection machines which at last brought the shadow art-science before the world in full development.