The Days of '49 in California Moving Picture History
Edward Muybridge Mates World's First Moving Pictures and Projects Them Oh
a Screen
Edward Muybridge, of California, was the first cincmatographer to project moving
pictures, his own/ on a screen from revolving" glass plates. That 'was in 1877. The
world's first moving pictures for screen exhibitions were made in California by Mri
Muybridge in 1872. ,.=;...,* ;
After Muybridge showed the way, C. Francis Jenkins, of Washington, D. C, .on
June 6, 1894, gave the" world's first projection of moving pictures" from celluloid film ori
the wall of a jewelry store in Richmond, Indiana.
On March 5, 1896, Thpmas A. Edison agreed to manufacture'the Jenkins machine
with improvements made by Thomas Armat under the name of the Edison Vitascope. ;
Muybridge, of California, invented the projection machine, Jenkins" perfected it, and
Thomas Edison first manufactured it in large numbers with added improvements of
his own.
Not only is California the center of the world's moving picture industry, the state
where two-thirds of the world's pictures are made, but it was in California that the
first moving pictures, made in California, were thrown upon a screen by a projection
machine.
The first moving pictures to be thrown upon a screen were made in the summer
of 1877, on the Sacramento race track, in the presence of. Governor Leland Stanford,
by Edward Muybridge, an Englishman, living in California, and employed by the United
States Government Geodetic Survey service.
The pictures, which showed a white horse running against a specially constructed
black fence as a background, were made by a battery of 24 cameras, placed in a row,
the shutters of which were operated by threads placed across the track at intervals
and snapped by the horse as it galloped.
The projection machine which threw these moving pictures on a screen was also
invented by Edward Muybridge. The world's first projection of moving pictures on
a screen also took place in California, in a studio, the world's first moving picture
studio, built by Governor Leland Stanford for Mr. Muybridge.
This studio stood, until a few years ago, on the site of Governor Stanford's race¬
course at Palo Alto, California, where now stands Leland Stanford University. .
Previous to Edward Muybridge's invention of the "Zoopraxoscope," which threw
pictures on a screen by means of an oxy-acetylcne light set up with a condensing lens',
there were no projection machines. Muybridge's projection machine consisted of a
large glass disk with reproductions of photographs set along its margin. Each photo-
'graph showed a slight progression in movement.
Moving photographic prints had been shown, to one person at a time, in a stereo¬
scope or "peep hole machine" in 1860 by Dr. Lellers of Philadelphia, but it was Muybridge
who first showed moving pictures to an audience of more than one person.
Muybridge's first audience consisted of more than a hundred wealthy Californians:
racing men who were invited to the world's moving picture premiere by Governor
Leland Stanford.
Before he showed his first moving pictures to the world's first moving picture
audience, Muybridge obviated the blurring of his pictures when they were rapidly
revolved before the lens by placing before the picture disc another metal disc.
When the two discs were revolved in opposite directions, apertures in the metal
disc coinciding with the glass disc's pictures completely gave the idea of motion by
reason of the persistence of vision.
Muybridge of California was the inventor of the modern projection machine. It
remained for others to substitute a strip of film for the revolving glass disc and to per¬
fect Muybridge's primitive shutter.
Several years later, "the grandfather of moving pictures," on February 27, 1886, took
his now perfected Zoopraxoscope to Thomas Edison, the inventor of the phonograph, and
asked him if the Zoopraxoscope and the phonograph could not be synchronized so as to
give the world its first "talking pictures."
Even in 1893, at the World's Fair in Chicago, Muybridge carried off the honors.
Muybridge was able to project his pictures on a screen in Zoopraxical Hall. The best
others could do was an Improved "Peep-Hole Machine" which showed moving pictures on
celluloid film, but which, nevertheless, could be seen by only one person at a time.
It cannot be contested that Muybridge of California was the first maker of moving
pictures to throw them upon a screen. Until Muybridge came only one person at a time
could view the stereoscopic peep shows. Muybridge gave the world's first screen exhibi¬
tion to a number of persons.
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