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LIVING PICTURES AND PEEP SHOWS 19
projector. Biograph's large film registered good photographs which gave a superior quality of projection, but, as camera and projector were intricate instruments, requiring extreme care in operation, Biograph's early policy was to install its apparatus in theaters only when its own trained men could be in charge of operation; and of course its large film could not be used by exhibitors whose projectors were made in the Edison factory or were imitations of the Edison model.
The parade of the movies in the first year or two of the screen was a bustling, hustling struggle of the paraders to keep abreast of the surge to exhibition rooms. Projection machines were coming too slowly from the Edison shops to satisfy the clamorous men who wanted to open shows, projectors were not for sale by Biograph and very few were obtainable from Lambda, still fewer were trickling into the market from abroad or from small new manufacturers at home. Edison and Biograph would neither rent nor sell cameras, and only an occasional French camera found its way across the Atlantic. No manufacturer anywhere was prepared to supply complete equipment for motion picture photography and screen exhibition. Film was obtainable from Edison and there was an increasing flow from abroad, but the demand was far in excess of the supply.
The longing of the people for amusement, now being satisfied for the first time in history by this weird novelty, caused more and more families to form the habit of visiting picture shows in back rooms and small upstairs halls. More and more of these show-shops were started in cities, and their apparent prompt success aroused desire in many men to obtain projectors and films and open exhibition rooms of their own. Other men, fascinated by the pictures themselves, became ambitious to obtain cameras and engage in photography. And still others were interested by the machines and wanted to try their hands at making cameras, projectors, and laboratory apparatus. Almost all of these ambitious, eager men were young; hardly one in a hundred