The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

Page 18 The Educational Screen allel rows mechanism of pictures moved the a library of other pictures to be run upon it. While these items are long since forgotten even by those who knew the facts best—just as the once celebrated "Edison Con- quest Family Program" of clean theatrical motion pictures has passed from recollection—the circumstances in which his memory may be slighted by some person ignorant of what he really did for visual instruction, justify a reminder of the facts in this place and on this anniversary occasion. In the pio- a^ neer motion H^ picture per- ^H iod of the Hi first two dec- B| ades of the "" present cen- tury, when there was small dif- ferentiation between theatrical and non-theatrical films, nobody thought much about all this. It was just taken for granted that Edison had an organization that produced entertainment films with machines that he had devised in a sort of recreational way between times, and that he was too busy with more impor- tant things to supervise or even to decide on "picture plays" that were turned out. There was, besides, a prevailing contempt for pictures, fine critics holding that the crowd went to see them mainly because the hoi polloi didn't know anything about Art. Nevertheless, the Edison Company, in common with all other cinematographic enterprises of that colorful time, produced many subjects that nowadays would fall readily into the non-theatrical class, under such headings as Geography, Social Science, and Literature. There were, for instances, the patriotic "history" reels: "The Minute Man," "The Capture of Fort Ticonderoga," and "The Declaration of Independence." Those theatrical pieces were made, of course, at the Edison Bedford Park Studio in Manhattan's Borough of the Bronx, and not in his main plant at West Orange. Then it was a prevailing practice for a producing organization to make films for any customer who happened along, in addition to the regular theatrical output; and, again in the case of the Edison Moving Picture Company (which was just one of many businesses bearing the inventor's name), no outsider attributed to Edi.son person- ally such basely commercial reels as that which his film studio made in 1914 to advertise Skinner's Silks and Satins. The Skinner film is mentioned particularly because in it occurred a passing study of the silkworm. Other indus- trial subjects, in which scientific demonstration became necessary, led to the shooting of more footage of an obviously "educational" nature. And, if Edison was not personally responsible for the being of such material, he was at least made aware thereby of especial camera opportunities for popular learning. I do not at all doubt that these excursions into advertising pictures for large industrial accounts had much to do with the subsequent production of teaching films that really were Edison's. Impelled by his own special interests in matters such as electricity, chemistry and "dynamics," rather than by any survey of the school field—which at that time was virtually non-existent anyway—Edison produced experimentally quite an impressive list of "scientific" subjects. The titles included: "Magnetism and the Electro-Magnet" (in six reels); "Crystals: Their Habits and Beauty" (first of A specimen Home Kinetoscope film. The actual size is indicated above at left. Enlargement shows three par- which were projected as the film up and down its length. the natural and physical science series, released in December, 1914) ; "The Cecropia Moth," "The Cabbage Butterfly," "Draining Meadow Land," "Getting Acquainted With Bees," "Hydrostatics," "Ants and Water Bugs," "The Housefly," "Insect Life," "Microscopic Pond Life: Algae," "Lady Beetles," "The Sea Horse," "Sea Lions," "The Larvae," "Spiders," "An Ocean Recluse: the Hermit Crab," and one, as I recall, concern- ing sharks. The em- phasis was on nature study, it seems from this list; but it contain- ed plenty of "elec- tricity, chemistry and 'dynamics'" neverthe- less. It would be difficult to say what these films cost, for they were frankly experimental and involved many long hours of valuable attention apart from the daily laboratory stint. Five dollars a foot, at a time when many a feature was made under two, is a very meager estimate. The more technical sub- jects were put forth un- der Edison's personal direction, by Sheldon ("Skeets") Warner, a tall lanky scientist who subsequently left the Edison employ to go into business for himself, and whom I last knew as a maker of precision gauges for Henry Ford at his own plant in West Orange, New Jersey. As to what has become of the films, I cannot say positively offhand; but George Kleine was distributing some of them well into the nine- teen-twenties. ■pUT IT was "Bill" Waddell who initiated the train of ■*-' events which led to production of the Edison Home Kinetoscope. Waddell was another of those monkey- wrench scientists who are so inextricably connected with the progress of American invention. While "the Old Man" was astounding the world with the magic of his regular theatrical Kinetoscope, Waddell was tinkering with a couple of simple sprockets out of which he hoped to evolve a toy projector for children. It was not an idle dream, either. I have often said that, if he had not been turned aside from it, the Edison plant would not have been large enough by several acres to meet the probable market demand. When the idea came up for Edison's consideration, the plaything objective was dismissed in favor of making a projector that might be used by adults in the home, the classroom, and in all those other conceivable places which we now call non-theatrical. "Billy" Gaul, the laboratory expert on machine design who had acquired a personal interest in what his friend Waddell was doing, was given the gadget for official development. Under his careful supervision the Home Kinetoscope came into being. The nature of that machine is clearly shown in the illustrations accompanying this article. There were sizeable orders for it hither and yon and, to encourage users, a large number of theatrical films made by the Edison studios were reproduced by optical {Concluded on page 35)