Wid's year book (1921)

The Days of '49 in California Moving Picture History Edward Muybridge Makes World's First Moving Pictures and Projects Them On a Screen Edward Muybridge, of California, was the first cinematographer to project moving pictures, his own, on a screen from revolving glass plates. That was in 1877. The world's first moving pictures for screen exhibitions were made in California by Mr. Muybridge in 1872. , After Muybridge showed the way, C. Francis Jenkins, of Washington, D. C, on June 6, 1894, gave the world's first projection of moving pictures from celluloid film on the wall of a jewelry store in Richmond, Indiana. On March 5, 1896, Thomas A. Edison agreed to manufacture the Jenkins machine with improvements made by Thomas Armat under the name of the Edison Vitascope. Muybridge, of California, invented the projection machine, Jenkins perfected it, and Thomas Edison first "manufactured it in large numbers with added improvements of his own. Not only is California the center of the world's moving picture industry, the state where two-thirds of the world's pictures are made, but it was in California that the first moving pictures, made in California, were thrown upon a screen by a projection machine. The first moving pictures to be thrown upon a screen were made in the summer of 1877, on the Sacramento race track, in the presence of Governor Leland Stanford, by Edward Muybridge, an Englishman, living in California, and employed by the United States Government Geodetic Survey service. The pictures, which showed a white horse running against a specially constructed black fence as a background, were made by a battery of 24 cameras, placed in' a row, the shutters of which were operated by threads placed across the track at intervals and snapped by the horse as it galloped. The projection machine which threw these moving pictures on a screen was also invented, by Edward Muybridge. The world's first projection of moving pictures on a screen also took place in California, in a studio, the world's first moving picture studio, built by Governor Leland Stanford for Mr. Muybridge. This studio stood, until a few years ago, on the site of Governor Stanford's racecourse at Palo Alto. California, where now stands Leland Stanford University. Previous to Edward Muybridge's invention of the "Zoopraxoscope," which threw pictures on a screen by means of an oxy-acetylene light set up with a condensing lens, there were no projection machines. Muybridge's projection machine consisted of a large glass disk with reproductions of photographs set along its margin. Each photograph showed a slight progression in movement. Moving photographic prints had been shown, to one person at a time, in a stereoscope or "peep hole machine" in 1860 by Dr. Lellers of Philadelphia, but it was Muybridge who first showed moving pictures to an audience of more than one person. Muybridge's first audience consisted of more than a hundred wealthy Californians: racing men who were invited to the world's moving picture premiere by Governor Leland Stanford. Before he showed his first moving pictures to the world's first moving picture audience, Muybridge obviated the blurring of his pictures when they were rapidly revolved before the lens by placing before the picture disc another metal disc. When the two discs were revolved in opposite directions, apertures in the metal disc coinciding with the glass disc's pictures completely gave the idea of motion by reason of the persistence of vision. Muybridge of California was the inventor of the modern projection machine. It remained for others to substitute a strip of film for the revolving glass disc and to perfect Muybridge's primitive shutter. Several years later, "the grandfather of moving pictures," on February 27, 1886, took his now perfected Zoopraxoscope to Thomas Edison, the inventor of the phonograph, and asked him if the Zoopraxoscope and the phonograph could not be synchronized so as to give the world its first "talking pictures." Even in 1893, at the World's Fair in Chicago, Muybridge carried off the honors. Muybridge was able to project his pictures on a screen in Zoopraxical Hall. The best others could do was an improved "Peep-Hole Machine" which showed moving pictures on celluloid film, but which, nevertheless, could be seen by only one person at a time. It cannot be contested that Muybridge of California was the first maker of moving pictures to throw them upon a screen. Until Muybridge came only one person at a time could view the stereoscopic peep shows. Muybridge gave the world's first screen exhibition to a number of persons. 69