A Brief History of Film…

1825 The invention of the thaumatrope, whose name means "wonder turner," has often been credited to the astronomer Sir John Herschel.  However, it was a well-known London physicist, Dr. John A. Paris, who made this toy popular.  Thaumatropes were the first of many optical toys, simple devices that continued to provide animated entertainment until the development of modern cinema. 

1832 Joseph Plateau and sons introduce the Phenakistoscope. Pictures on one disc viewed through slots in the other, appeared to move when the two were spun and viewed in a mirror.

1834 Another illusion toy - the Zoetrope was introduced by William George Horner. The Zoetrope used the same principle as Plateau's Phenakistoscope but instead of discs the pictures and slots are combined in a rotating drum.

1867 The first machine patented in the US that showed animated pictures or movies was a device called the "wheel of life" or "zoopraxiscope". Patented in 1867 by William Lincoln, moving drawings or photographs were watched through a slit in the zoopraxiscope.

1891 In 1891, the Edison company successfully demonstrated the Kinetoscope, which enabled one person at a time to view moving pictures. This type of device was known as a “peepshow” device and did not project.

1894 Another peepshow device, similar to the kinetoscope, the Mutoscope was patented by Herman Casler, and worked using a flip-card device to provide the motion picture. Needing a camera he turned to his friend W.K.L Dickson who, unhappy at the Edison Company cooperated and with several others they formed the American Mutoscope Company.

1895 The Frenchman Louis Lumiere invented a portable motion-picture camera, film processing unit and projector called the Cinematographe… three functions covered in one invention.

1895 (cont.) 1895 The first film shot with the Cinématographe camera is La Sortie de l'usine Lumière a Lyon (Workers leaving the Lumière factory at Lyon). Shot in March it is shown in public at a meeting of the Societe d'Encouragement a l'industrie Nationale in Paris that same month. View YouTube clip…

"The cinema is an invention without a future." - Louis Lumière

1896 Later in 1896, Edison showed his improved Vitascope projector and it was the first commercially, successful, projector in the U.S.

1897 By 1897 the American Mutoscope Company had become the most popular film company in America - both projecting films and with the peephole Mutoscope.

The 20th Century… As projection and recording technology merged, public screenings of short “films” becomes a popular and affordable past time in both Europe and America.