We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
90 THE HOUSE THAT SHADOWS BUILT
constantly to drama and vaudeville; along with lawn tennis, which had succeeded baseball in his enthusiasms, the theatre was his favourite diversion. But he had never witnessed a moving picture except on a vaudeville bill. The seed planted by the May Irwin Kiss still lay dormant.
He was to edge toward the moving picture through a by-path. When in 1894 and 1895 Edison began general distribution of his peep-show-in-a-box, the “kinetoscope parlours” grew into “nickodeons.” Against one wall of these brilliantly lighted establishments stood a row of moving-picture machines; against the other, phonographs with ear-pieces for the individual auditor. The phonograph did not become a universal household luxury until ten years later. All these machines operated on the slot principle; a five-cent piece was the master key. As time went on, the cost of machines and materials fell; newcomers, competing with established firms, found it possible to cut prices to one cent.
In Buffalo lived Mitchell Mark, sprung like most of the characters in this story from humble origins. He had served as agent for the Edison devices, and knew this business. Mark conceived a simple yet brilliant idea, which he put experimentally into practice. He added to moving-picture boxes and phonographs all the existing penny-in-the-slot amusement machines of the country fairs, such as registering punching-bags, automatic fortune-tellers, devices for testing strength. These he