The Kinetoscope
Edison & Dickson
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In 1888 Thomas Edison set his assistant William Kennedy Laurie Dickson a poetic brief: build 'an instrument which does for the Eye what the phonograph does for the Ear'. After abandoning phonograph-style cylinders, Dickson's team settled on strips of celluloid film moved past a lens by a high-speed shutter. On May 20, 1891, Edison demonstrated the prototype — the Kinetoscope — to a meeting of the National Federation of Women's Clubs, and a patent was filed on August 24, 1891.
At the West Orange laboratory, Dickson built the world's first film studio in 1892 — a tarpaper shed with a rotating roof to follow the sun, nicknamed the Black Maria. There, subjects from boxers to strongmen performed 20-second acts for the camera. The viewing machine itself was a four-foot cabinet: you bent over the peephole, and a loop of film flickered past an electric light.
On April 14, 1894, the Holland brothers opened the first commercial Kinetoscope parlor at 1155 Broadway, New York — ten machines in two rows of five. Twenty-five cents bought a row; fifty cents bought all ten films, from 'Blacksmiths' to the strongman Sandow. It took in about $120 on its first day, with no advertising at all. The movies were a business before they were an art.
Frequently asked
What was the Kinetoscope?
Edison's peep-hole motion-picture viewer: a four-foot cabinet where one person at a time looked through an eyepiece at a loop of film lit by an electric bulb.
When did movies start as a business?
April 14, 1894, when the Holland brothers opened the first Kinetoscope parlor at 1155 Broadway, New York — ten machines, 25 cents a row, about $120 taken on day one.
Did Edison invent the movies alone?
No — Edison set the goal and funded the work, but his assistant William Kennedy Laurie Dickson did most of the inventing, and built the first film studio, the Black Maria.
Why it matters today
The Kinetoscope turned moving pictures into paying entertainment — the nickel it collected at 1155 Broadway grew into Hollywood and a global film industry.
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