Today in History: Edison's Movie Camera

[Callalily]

Edison’s Movie Camera

August 31, 1897

While overseeing the world’s debut film studio, Thomas Edison received a patent for his motion picture camera, the kinetograph. Edison filed the requisite paperwork in 1891, shortly before opening the Black Maria, a production hub in West Orange, New Jersey, where his team shot more than 250 short films. The kinetograph was the first camera to capture footage on a moving strip of 35mm film. Typically, the device was paired with another in-house invention, the kinetoscope, which allowed a single viewer to behold the recorded, silent action.

Historians have suggested that Edison’s onetime assistant, photographer William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, performed the majority of creative work on both innovations and designed the Black Maria studio. Dickson later left Edison’s laboratory to co-found a rival studio, the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. After Edison was awarded the kinetograph patent, he sued the newer entity for patent infringement. In 1902, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Edison owned the rights only to the sprocket system that fed film through the kinetograph, not the whole movie camera. Edison and Dickson later reconciled to form the short-lived Motion Picture Patents Company. During his lifetime, Edison amassed 1,093 individual or shared patents.

[Jim G.]

1. Edison's Winter Home In Ft. Meyers...

Is one of the most interesting places I've ever been.

[hunter]

2. Hollywood became the movie capital of the world...

... as artists fled the stranglehold Edison had on the industry.

Filmmakers in New York and New Jersey who tried to make films without Edison's authorization were likely to have their expensive cameras seized by Edison's agents.

West Coast law enforcement wouldn't enforce Edison's over-reaching patents or assist his agents. There was no FBI then and the Justice Department, which had been tasked with the regulation of interstate commerce, was severely understaffed and having trouble keeping up with crimes far worse than patent infringement.