KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1148 00883 8518
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MAY 2 5 1982
NOV1.719SJ
MAY 18 1987.
JAN 9 4 1990 YA*T
APR 20 B94
MAY 2 5
The Edison Motion Picture Myth
The Edison
Motion Picture
Myth
By
Gordon Hendricks
Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1961
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
London, England
1961 BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 617532
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DESIGNED BY MAJRION JACKSON SKINNER
To the memory of
William Kennedy Laurie Dickson
"YOU MAY SHARE THE LABORS OF THE GREAT,
BUT YOU WILL NOT SHARE THE SPOIL" ( AeSOp )
And to Guido Castelli and Kenneth Macgowan
KANSAS CITY (KG; PUSUC LIBRARY
Preface
I INTEND THIS BOOK TO SERVE TWO PURPOSES: (1) TO BE A BEGIN-
ning of the task of cleaning up the morass of well-embroidered
legend with which the beginning of the American film is
permeated and (2) to afford some measure of belated credit
to the work done by W. K. L. Dickson.
Although research in original sources is axiomatic for stu
dents of the history of other arts, in American film history
it is rare, and whatever exists has been often submerged in
trade-paper journalism. As someone has said in a review of
one volume of film "history," it is too often "inverted alchemy
, . . the process of taking the richest materials and turning
them into dross." Romances have thus been built around the
work of the pioneers romances to which the pioneers them
selves have added not a little. The advantage is held by the
man who lives the longest: as the years pass, fewer and fewer
of his colleagues remain to gainsay his extravagances.
With too few exceptions these romances have been left
undisturbed. And no set of motion picture claims has become
more firmly entrenched in the American mind than those of
Thomas Alva Edison claims made by himself, his chroniclers,
and writers in other fields who have taken "specialists" at their
word.
Although this investigation has been as impartial as I have
been able to make it, impartiality has not always been easy to
vu
sustain particularly in the face of the immodest claims of
Edison himself: 1
. . . when I invented the modern motion picture in the
Summer of 1889 . . .
... in 1887, when I was able to perfect the motion-picture
camera . . .
. . . there was no co-invention . . .
, . . the kinetograph [is] entirely my work . . .
. . . Paul, Lumiere, Jenkins & others . . . introduced only
minor details . . . they all use my original movements. . . .
Of course the public can't understand these things, and
it permits fakirs ... to claim the invention of the movies by
merely a change in a minor detail.
... it was our machine . . . [i.e., the Jenkins' Vitascope].
Surely, as Julian Hawkins said in the Electrical Engineer of
November 18, 1891: ". . . if Mr. Edison would quit inventing
and go in for fiction he would make one of the greatest novel
ists this country ever saw."
Being thus tempted, I have tried to exclude all interpreta
tions from this work which might permit a feeling that it was
"anti-Edison." Even when virtually convinced that an "anti-
Edison" theory was considerably more than theory, I have
refrained from setting it down.
The task of sifting history from myth has been enormously
complicated by the fact that, far from merely not recording
what actually happened, Edison and the Edison interests made
determined and sustained efforts to obscure it and indeed
built careful structures of fiction.
The powerful American tradition of hero-worship has further
more not helped matters, and such investigation as I have
undertaken may be considered disrespectful. One thinks of
nothing so much as Mencken's remark: "If you are against
labor racketeers, then you are against the working man . . .
If you are against trying a can of Old Dr. Quack's Cancer
Salve, then you are in favor of letting Uncle Julius die."
'These are quoted, in order, from: Moving Picture World, 1909, p. 293;
Munsey's, March, 1913; Edison laboratory letter book E1717, 4/13/94-
8/27/95, p. 413; Electrical Engineer (British), November, 1894; unpublished
notes in the West Orange archives, made in 1925 during an effort of the Edi
son junto to persuade the Franklin Institute not to credit C. Francis Jenkins
for the phantascope as a significant motion picture invention; and Equity
#6928 (see page 3), Complainant's Record, p. 115.
Vlll
In this task of sifting history from non-history I have been
helped by the men to whom this book is dedicated and, almost
beyond description, by many other persons who agreed with
me that facts are worth recording. First among these are the
members of the staff of the West Orange laboratory. It was
in this rich monument of the past that I was first inspired to
write this account. From the first day, and the first conversa
tion with Mr. Norman Speiden, supervisory curator, I was
assured of the most helpful cooperation. Through the several
years that followed, this helpfulness was sustained in the
fullest fashion, and was often the cause of considerable em
barrassment to me since I soon began to realize that my
account must fly in the face of what had gone before. It is a
fine measure of the stature of Mr. Speiden and his colleague,
Mr. Harold Anderson, that even after they realized my chang
ing viewpoint their cooperation diminished not at all. Their
natural loyalties in no wise interfered with what they con
sidered to be their duties: helping me in my free research in
whatever laboratory documents were available.
Cheerful cooperation was also given by Miss Kathleen Oliver
of the staff, who must often have dreaded to see me come,
since she knew that it would mean the additional crowding
of an already crowded schedule.
When the laboratory became a National Monument in 1956
and was taken over by the National Park Service, additional
members of the staff Mrs. Alberta Appleby and Mr. Melvin
Weig, superintendent cheerfully continued this cooperation.
(For the benefit of those who may be interested in knowing
exactly what archives materials I examined in my study, a list
of these materials may be seen at the Edison museum, the
George Eastman House, and the library of the Museum of
Modern Art. It should be noted here for the benefit of other re
searchers that many of the dates noted on photographs and
documents in the West Orange archives are necessarily inac
curate. And where no information was available to determine
these dates, estimates therefor have sometimes been produced.
It should also be recorded that the method used to mark these
dates as only estimates is contrary to both logic and accepted
archivist practice: they are enclosed in parentheses, indicating
an aside. In no case that I can recall has the customary question-
IX
mark been used. A case in point is a photograph of a horse and
rig in front of a laboratory building. The photograph is signed
"W. K. L. Dickson," but beyond knowing that it was taken
between the fall of 1887 when the building was built, and
April, 1895, when Dickson left the laboratory, there is no justifi
cation whatever for the " ( 1893 ) " written on the reverse. )
Next my gratitude must go to Mr. Beaumont Newhall, Di
rector of die George Eastman House in Rochester, New York,
who from the first heartily applauded and encouraged my
efforts to research the motion picture beginnings of America.
I am also grateful to Mr. Newhall for his reading of the manu
script, and for his eloquent endorsement of it.
I am grateful to Mr. Ernest Callenbach, of the University
of California Press, for his efforts in bringing this book into
print efforts more difficult because there is so little precedent
for a serious work of film history.
I am grateful to the Misses Allene and Elsie Archer, of
Baltimore, Maryland, and Richmond, Virginia, for many ex
ceedingly pleasant hours spent talking about their great-aunt,
the first Mrs. Dickson, and for their many favors in the prepara
tion of this book.
I am grateful to Miss Kathleen Poison, of Twickenham,
Middlesex, whose kind and intelligent efforts in behalf of my
work resulted in more than one interesting discovery; and to
her friend Miss Storey, who accompanied us on a memorable
visit to Dickson's grave in Twickenham. Miss Poison's gift of
a valuable collection of glass negatives has enriched my re
search.
I am also grateful to Dr. R. A. Albray of Newark; to Dr.
Elizabeth Baker, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Barnard
College; to Mr. A. Barclay and Dr. S. E. Janson of the Science
Museum, London; to Miss Geraldine Beard, Mr. Arthur
Carlson, and Dr. James Heslin of the New York Historical
Society; to Miss Mabel Bishop of the Virginia Bureau of
Vital Statistics, Richmond; to Mr. Willi Borberg of General
Precision Instruments, with whom I had many a pleasant lunch;
to Mr. Wyatt Brummitt and Mr. Glenn Matthews of the East
man Kodak Company, Rochester; to M. Maurice Daumas,
Conservateur du Conservatoire Nationale des Arts et Metiers,
Paris; to Sarah. Dennen, Jessie Carter Duncan, and A. H. Carter
for their intelligent kindnesses in my Friese-Greene research;
to the Devonald family of East Orange, New Jersey; to Miss
Lotte Eisner of the Cinematheque Frangaise, Paris; to Mr.
Ellstadt, of the Bausch and Lomb Company, Rochester, New
York; to Mr. James Flexner; to Miss Bess Glenn, the gracious
and intelligent head of the Justice and Executive Branch of the
National Archives, and to Mr. Cummings, Mr. Leisinger and Dr.
Rheingold of the National Archives; to Dr. Alfred Goldsmith
for his valuable opinions on the Edison caveats; to Mr. Sylvan
Harris, former editor of the Journal of the Society of Motion
Picture Engineers; to Dr. Thomas Harvey of Orange; to Mr.
John Melville Jennings of the Virginia Historical Society; to
Miss Grace Mayer, Mr. Bernard Karpel, and Mr. Rolf Petersen
of the Museum of Modern Art; to Dr. John Kintzig and Mr.
Charles Young of the Photographic Division, Mr. Joseph Mask
of the Main Reading Room and Miss Dawn Pohlman of the
Science Division, of the New York Public Library; to Mr. Brad
ley Leonard of the Newark Public Library; to Mr. Robert
Lovett of Baker Library, Harvard University; to Mr. Macartney
of the Copyright Division, and to Colonel Willard Webb, Chief
of the Stack and Reader Division, of the Library of Congress;
to Mr. Don Malkames for many pleasant conversations; to Mr.
Jack McCullough of the Motion Picture Association; to Mr.
George Pratt of the George Eastman House, Rochester; to Miss
Georgia E. Raynor of the Orange Free Public Library; to Mr.
Charles Reynolds of Popular Photography; to Mr. T. V. Roberts,
Borough Librarian, Borough of Twickenham, England; to Dr.
R. S. Schultze of Kodak Limited, Harrow, England; to Mr. Bud
Schwalberg; to Mrs. Sedgewick of Twickenham, England; to
Miss Miriam Studley of the Newark Public Library, and Mr.
Fred Shelley, formerly of the New Jersey Historical Society
and now of the Library of Congress, both of whom helped me
with rare good will and rarer intelligence; to Dr. Louis Sipley
of the American Museum of Photography, Philadelphia; to Mr.
Ed Wade of Infinity for an illuminating analysis of the tech
nical side of the Archives seven-frame strip; to Dr. Alexander
Wedderburn of the Smithsonian Institution; to the Twickenham
lady who was Dickson's housekeeper during his last days; to my
correspondent at the Royal Geographical Society; to the
XI
friendly staff of the Engineering Societies Library, New York;
and to all others whose names I may have inadvertently omitted
from this list.
In addition, I am grateful to the following for allowing the
reprinting of copyrighted material:
Appleton- Century-Crofts for a quotation from Faulkner's Amer
ican 'Political and Social History, 1957;
Doubleday & Company for a quotation from Smith's Two Reels
and a Crank, 1952;
Callaghan and Company for a quotation from Hopkins' The
Law of Patents, 1909;
The Columbia University Press for a quotation from Eder's
History of Photography, 1945;
E. P. Button & Company, Inc. for a quotation from Tate's
Edisons Open Door, 1938;
The Encyclopedia Britannica for quotations from their 1956
edition;
The General Alumni Society of the University of Pennsylvania
for a quotation from George Nitzsche in their General Maga
zine and Historical Chronicle, Vol. LIV, No. 1;
Lewis Jacobs for a quotation from his The Rise of the Ameri
can Film, 1939;
Marsland Publications for a quotation from Allister's Friese-
Greene: Close-Up of an Inventor, 1951;
McGraw-Hill for quotations from Josephson's Edison, 1959;
The G. & C. Merriam Company for quotations from their
dictionary, 1959;
The Museum of Modern Art, for a quotation from NewhalTs
The History of Photography, 1949;
The New York Times, for a quotation from the Times of
October 3, 1935;
Charles Scribner's Sons, for a quotation from Burlingame's
Engines of Democracy, 1940;
Simon and Schuster, for quotations from Ramsaye's A Million
and One Nights, 1926;
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, for
quotations from their Journal, 1928 and 1933;
The University of Rochester for quotations from Ackerman's
George Eastman, 1930;
and James T. White & Company for a quotation from their
National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Vol. IX, p. 193.
On the debit side, I cannot refrain from commenting upon
the many librarians and library assistants who proudly told me
that their newspapers were on microfilm and when I asked
them what had become of the old, were only able to say, "But
xu.
Mr. Hendricks, they were falling apart!" Few of these failed
to ask me why I wanted the original volumes a question no
one who has done serious research would find it necessary to
ask. From such enemies within the gates history also has much
to fear.
G. H.
XUL
Contents
Introduction, 1
1 The First Stimulus, 3
2 The First Motion Picture Caveat,
3 The First Motion Picture Work, 23
4 The First Advance, 32
5 The Carbutt Film, 38
6 Edison Goes to Europe, 48
7 The Eastman Flexible Film, 53
8 The Dickson Kinetoscope Notebook, 68
9 The ''Photograph Building," 75
10 The French Influence, 79
11 The Lenox Lyceum Projection, 84
12 The Summer of 1890, 92
13 The Fall of 1890, 99
XV
14 The First Press Stories, 103
15 The Kinetoscope's Public Debut, 111
16 America's Rarest Film, 118
17 The Summer and Fall of 1891, 122
18 The Patent Applications, 130
19 The First "Modern" Motion
Pictures, 138
APPENDIXES
A A Biographical Sketch of
W. K. L. Dickson, 143
B Original Texts of the Four Motion
Picture Caveats, 158
G Fifty Representative Dickson Errors, 163
D Selected References to the Work of
Other Men, 168
E The Horizontal-Feed Camera in the
Edison Museum, 180
Matthew Josephson's Edison, 1 90
INDEX, 198
xvi
Illustrations
(following page 142)
W. K. L. Dickson in his London office
The Edison Laboratory, January, i889
The "Photograph Building" 1889
The "Monkey shines" subject
"Kinetoscope No.l"
"America's Rarest Film"
The Ford Museum camera
The first "modern" motion pictures
W. K. L. Dickson and Jules Etienne Marey
The "May, 1891" horizontal-feed camera
The Kayser photograph
XVll
Introduction
/'OFFICIAL" MOTION PICTURE HISTORY HAS GIVEN THE LION'S SHARE
of credit for invention to Thomas Edisonl There has been an
occasional backward glance at Edison's employee, W. K. L.
Dickson, but Edison's prominence in American life has made
the attribution to him easy, and historians have been loath to
change it. The most prominent historian of the early period
of the American film, Terry Ramsaye, had continuous cordial
personal contact with Edison during the preparation of his
history, and although he has occasionally and upon details
gainsaid Edison claims, Ramsaye's work is far too indulgent
to go unchallenged.
Since the Ramsaye history has been virtually the only treat
ment of this period and the only extensive one historians
of the film, not being inclined to do research on any particular
period of their history, have rerecorded Ramsaye, although
they must have wondered more than once about his reliability.
Edison did not like Dickson; Ramsaye liked Edison and shared
his dislike of Dickson. This disapproval was not lessened by
Dickson's many errors. (See Appendix C.) The George East
man biographers have aided the aggrandizement of Edison
in the process of claiming for their hero some of the glory
which shone from the "Wizard of Menlo Park." The most any
one has done is to attribute a small part of the credit to
Dickson. Writers of reference books, as is their wont, have
merely followed the "authority" of the field. As a result, en-
cyclopedias, almanacs, and text-books ascribe most or all the
invention of the American film to Thomas Edison. Few of
these so much as mention the work of W. K. L. Dickson.
The work with which this volume is concerned began in
1888 and ended in 1892 with the achievement of the "modem"
motion picture at the West Orange laboratory. Dickson, who
had been hired for his electrical interests and ability, was
particularly interested and skilled in the whole subject of
photography; when the motion picture work began, he became
its natural mentor, and continued the work to its culmination
in the fall of 1892. He was twenty-three years of age when
he entered Edison's employ, had come to America four years
previously, and like many young men of the time, had his own
share of hero-worship for the famous electrician-industrialist.
He was given successively more important jobs to do, and when
the motion picture swam into the Edison ken, he was given
this matter to "handle" although he was consistently refused
the time and cooperation necessary for its best fulfillment.
Edison and his men at West Orange tried everything. Noth
ing was too trivial or obscure. If it occurred to them they
proposed to try it (although much that they proposed to do
never got done). "Motion photography" was no exception.
Everyone was talking about it in 1887 and for some time previ
ously b u t chiefly after the Muybridge publications in 1887
and the Marey publications of the same year and Edison was
not one to encounter this new problem without wanting to
solve it himself. The story of this solution by one of his men,
derived from the first systematic examination ever made of
the laboratory records and other original sources, constitutes
the present history.
1 The First Stimulus
THE CHIEF CBEDIT FOR WHAT IS GENERALLY KNOWN AS THE EDISON
motion picture work must rest with Edison's employee, W. K. L.
Dickson (see Appendix A for biographical sketch), but for
whose interest, perseverance, and mechanical and inventive skill
none of this work would have been accomplished. If this study
is rather an account of the work of Dickson than an account of
the work of Edison, it is because it is the work of Dickson which
is the "Edison" motion picture story. Much error, concerning
the work per se, his relations with Edison, and his own claims
to accomplishment, can be laid at Dickson's door (see Appendix
C ) , but it is nevertheless true that what was accomplished was
accomplished because Dickson was there, and the conscientious
historian must confine Edison's contribution to his sponsoring
of Dickson, and to the intelligence and energy which made the
West Orange laboratory the scene of the commercial prepara
tion of so many of the ideas of other men.
There is no evidence that motion pictures of any kind were
produced at the Edison laboratory until the fall of 1889, or that
they were produced on what we know as
