Edison Patents Kinetoscope: Movies Are Born
Thomas Edison filed a patent for the Kinetoscope on August 31, 1897, though the device had been in commercial operation since 1894. The Kinetoscope was a peephole viewer that allowed a single person to watch a short loop of film. It was not a projector; each customer looked through an eyepiece into a cabinet containing a 50-foot strip of film running over a series of spools at 46 frames per second. The first Kinetoscope parlor opened at 1155 Broadway in Manhattan on April 14, 1894, where customers paid 25 cents to view five films in a row. Edison had deliberately chosen not to develop projection, believing the one-viewer-per-machine model was more profitable. The Lumiere brothers proved him wrong within two years.
August 31, 1897
129 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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