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LIVING PICTURES AND PEEP SHOWS 21
pate in the affairs of the infant industry. He dealt in peep-show cabinets and films, and, when projection machines and cameras entered the market, added them to his line of merchandise, renting and selling both domestic and foreign products, including screen pictures, of which he became the largest importer. The necessities of his business kept him in touch with manufacturers of machinery and with producers and exhibitors of film in the United States and Europe, and his knowledge of pioneer conditions was broader than that of any other individual in the industry.
Edison, Biograph, and Kleine kept records of their operations, but other early manufacturers and traders were small and transient, and whatever records they may have made have since been lost, so that to establish exact dates and statistics of some details of screen history is difficult, if not impossible. In my investigations I have found George Kleine's records and data to be reliable, and he has told me that "1896 marked the beginning of all moving picture things in business."
For a year or two after 1896, the commerce depended largely on the rental and sale of Edison and Vitascope projectors, with a tiny stream from a few other inventors or imitators. The trade in films, at first confined to Edison and the American and foreign imitators of the kinetoscope, was expanded within two or three years by the entrance of a few new manufacturers at home and abroad. Little by little, under the pressure of increasing demand, a few cameras somehow came into existence, and anyone who could rent, buy, or borrow any form of "box" that would hold a lens and a roll of film could become a picture producer and enter immediately into the enjoyments of prosperity. The producer needed no experience or training in art, nor was he put to the trouble of engaging experienced actors or creating expensive artificial settings or scenic effects. All that was required was to set up the camera anywhere, "shoot" almost anything in motion, develop the negative, print the positives, and sell them at practically his own price.
Edison lawyers insisted that all inventors and manufacturers