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1. Portions of chapter 5 appeared in "The Eden Musee in 1898: The Exhibitor as Creator," Film and History 11 (December 1981): 73-83 +; an early draft of chapter 6 appeared as "The Early Cinema of Edwin S. Porter," Cinema Journal 19 (Fall 1979): 1-38; portions of chapters 8 and 9 appeared in ''The Travel Genre in 1903-04: Moving Toward Fictional Narrative," Iris 2 (Spring 1984): 61-70; selections from chapters 10 and 11 were reworked for "The Nickelodeon Era Begins: Establishing a Framework for Hollywood's Mode of Representation,'' Framework 22/23 (Autumn 1983): 4-11. [BACK]

1. John Fell, "Introduction," in John Fell, ed., Film Before Griffith (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 1-5. [BACK]

2. Terry Ramsaye, A Million and One Nights: A History of the Motion Pictures Through 1925 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1926); Gordon Hendricks, The Edison Motion Picture Myth (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961); Gordon Hendricks, The Kinetoscope: America's First Commercially Successful Motion Picture Exhibitor (New York: The Beginnings of the American Film, 1966). [BACK]

3. This attitude is particularly evident in Lewis Jacobs, The Rise of the American Film (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939), p. 35. [BACK]

4. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 414; Jacobs, Rise of the American Film , pp. 35-37. Gerald Mast, A Short History of the Movies , 4th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1986), still argues that the modernized version of Life of an American Fireman is the correct one, suggesting that the paper print copy at the Library of Congress may simply be an unedited version. Mast ignores two similar copies that have been found by the AFI, which make his position untenable. David Cook, A History of Narrative Film (New York:

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W. W. Norton, 1981) is a noteworthy exception to this stereotyping: faced with new information, Cook revised his section on early cinema in galleys. Kenneth Macgowan, Behind the Screen (New York: Delacorte Press, 1965), pp. 111-14, is one of the few to have avoided reductive statements on Porter's role. [BACK]

5. Georges Sadoul, Histoire générale du cinéma , vol. 2: Les Pionniers du cinema, 1897-1909 , 3d ed. (Paris: Editions Denoël, 1948), pp. 401, 407-8. [BACK]

6. Jacques Deslandes and Jacques Richard, Histoire comparée du cinéma , vol. 2: Du cinématograph au cinéma (Paris: Casterman, 1968), p. 386. [BACK]

7. Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies (New York: Vintage Books, 1975), p. 320. [BACK]

8. The group who met at the 1978 FIAF Conference included Noël Burch, Tom Gunning, Paul Spehr, Eileen Bowser, Barry Salt, Russell Merritt, Jon Gartenberg, André Gaudreault, David Levy, John Barnes, and myself. These papers were collected in Roger Hollman, compiler, Cinéma, 1900-1906 (2 vols.; Brussels: Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film, 1982). A preparatory meeting of American scholars at the Museum of Modern Art involved extensive screening of American films by interested scholars, including John Fell and John Hagan, not all of whom were able to travel to England. Then working on a film project in Los Angeles, I was unable to attend this earlier gathering. [BACK]

9. Besides those mentioned above, scholars writing articles on early cinema during the past ten years notably include Miriam Hansen, Judith Mayne, Lucy Fischer, Martin Sopocy, Paul Hammond, Roberta Pearson, Paolo Cherchi-Usai, Stephen Bottomore, Emmanuelle Toulet, Ben Brewster, Kristin Thompson, Donald Crafton, Aldo Bernardini, Richard Abel, Patrick G. Loughney, and Robert C. Allen. A selection of these articles appears in Fell, ed., Film Before Griffith ; André Gaudreault, ed., Ce que je vois de mon ciné: La representation du regard dans le cinéma des premiers temps (Saint-Étienne: Méridiens Klincksieck, 1988); Thomas Elsasser and Adam Barker, eds., Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative (London: British Film Institute, 1990). [BACK]

10. Michael Chanan, The Dream That Kicks: The Prehistory and Early Years of Cinema in Britain (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980). John Barnes, The Beginnings of the Cinema in England (Newton Abbot, England: David & Charles, 1976), focuses on the 1894-96 period. It has been followed, more recently, by Barnes's The Rise of the Cinema in Great Britain (London: Bishopsgate Press, 1983). [BACK]

11. John Frazer, Artificially Arranged Scenes: The Films of Georges Méliès (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1979), and Paul Hammond, Marvellous Méliès (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975), are both excellent studies. [BACK]

12. See, however, David Levy, "Edwin S. Porter and the Origins of the American Narrative Film, 1894-1907" (Ph.D. diss., McGill University, 1983). Levy's hostile attitude to both Porter and the Edison Company limits his study's usefulness. Levy has published two articles drawn from his dissertation which are referred to elsewhere in this book. Robert Allen and Lary May devote substantial portions of their books to the pre-1910 cinema. The ambitious scope of their studies, however, prevents both authors from systematically confronting this period. See Robert C. Allen, Vaudeville and Film, 1895-1915: A Study in Media Interaction (Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 1977; New York: Arno Press, 1980); Lary May, Screening the Past: The Birth of Mass Culture and the Motion Picture Industry, 1896-1920 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980). [BACK]

13. Historians dealing with the pre-Griffith cinema at first felt it was unnecessary—or impossible—to see the relevant films. They relied on reminiscences and to a lesser extent

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on primary source documents. Terry Ramsaye, for example, not only interviewed many figures in the early industry but utilized their scrapbooks, various legal documents, and business records. This approach was continued in a more rigorous manner by Gordon Hendricks, who sifted through large amounts of materials at the Edison National Historic Site and perused pertinent newspapers and journals. A recent textbook by Robert C. Allen and Douglas Gomery, Film History: Theory and Practice (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1985), also emphasizes this approach. With the growing availability of films, many scholars have adopted the converse attitude that viewing the films is sufficient to understand the cinema of this period. This is evident, for instance, in Richard Arlo Sanderson, "A Historical Study of the Development of American Motion Picture Content and Techniques Prior to 1904" (Ph.D. diss., University of Southern California, 1961), and Kemp R. Niver, The First Twenty Years: A Segment of Film History (Los Angeles: Locare Research Group, 1968). Mast takes this approach throughout his Short History of the Movies . The assumption is that the films speak for themselves. They don't. While viewing films is an essential first step, it is necessary to situate them within the moving picture world in which they were made, exhibited, and seen. A careful reading of primary source material is needed to achieve this understanding. While reminiscences and early secondary sources like Ramsaye's Million and One Nights often provide important clues, scholars must synthesize a new history from written primary source materials and viewings of the films. Such a synthesis characterizes a number of histories, yet has remained an elusive goal for those examining the first fifteen years of American cinema. Such exemplary histories include Jay Leyda, Kino: A History of Russian and Soviet Film (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1960), and David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985). [BACK]

14. Charles Musser et al., Motion Picture Catalogs by American Producers and Distributors, 1894-1908: A Microfilm Edition (Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1984). [BACK]

15. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 439. [BACK]

16. Kemp R. Niver, Early Motion Pictures: The Paper Print Collection in the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1985). [BACK]

17. Société des Etablissements Gaumont to Frank Dyer, 11 October 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

18. For example, there were few "outs" (i.e., discarded footage) in the 1890s and early 1900s, whoever was doing the editing. [BACK]

19. Raymond Williams, "Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory," in Problems in Materialism and Culture (London: Verso Press, 1980). [BACK]

20. Distribution is discussed as a process functioning at the interface of film production and exhibition. [BACK]

21. Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in Twentieth Century America (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974), p. 65. [BACK]

22. Ibid., p. 72. [BACK]

23. Janet Staiger, "Dividing Labor for Production Control: Thomas Ince and the Rise of the Studio System," in Gorham Kindem, ed., The American Movie Industry: The Business of Motion Pictures (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982). [BACK]

24. Noël Burch, "Porter, or Ambivalence," Screen 19, no. 4 (Winter 1978-79), pp. 91-105. [BACK]

25. David Montgomery, Workers' Control in America: Studies in the History of

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Work, Technology, and Labor Struggles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). [BACK]

26. Madeleine Matz to Charles Musser, June 1984, Washington D.C. Matz is technical expert at the Division of Motion Pictures, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound at the Library of Congress. [BACK]

27. Like many other young film students I found Noël Burch's Theory of Film Practice (New York: Praeger, 1973) to be a liberating way to look at cinematic representation. Burch's emphasis on temporal and spatial relationships between shots provides a framework for grappling with the otherness of early cinema. Annette Michelson's often phenomenological approach to film analysis, the work in representational theory by Russian Formalists, and Soviet film theorists have all been influential in this respect. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the rigorous approach of David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson to questions of filmic representation has also been exceedingly valuable. [BACK]

28. Special knowledge—for instance, familarity with the actor or the story being adapted—could enhance viewers' pleasure in this post-nickelodeon phase, but it was not usually essential. Certain exceptions, particularly in the realm of comedy and burlesque, continued. [BACK]

29. Tom Gunning, "The Cinema of Attraction[s]," Wide Angle 8, no. 3/4 (1986): 63-70. [BACK]

30. Macgowan's Behind the Screen offers an intelligent version of this approach. [BACK]

31. John Fell, Film and the Narrative Tradition (1974; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). [BACK]

32. Henry V. Hopwood, Living Pictures: Their History, Photoduplication and Practical Working (London: Optician and Photographic Trades Review, 1899), p. 188. [BACK]

33. Athanasius Kircher, Ars magna lucis et umbrae (Rome, 1646) describes and illustrates the process of projecting images. Kircher's text indicates that explaining the technical basis of projection to spectators was a necessary precondition for screen entertainment. See Charles Musser, "Towards a History of Screen Practice," Quarterly Review of Film Studies 9, no. 1 (Winter 1984): 59-73. [BACK]

34. The terms homosocial and heterosocial are used by Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn of the Century New York (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986), who explores the ways nineteenth-century leisure was largely segregated by sex. As dance halls and motion picture theaters replaced the saloon in the early twentieth century, single-sex, or "homosocial," amusement gave way to "heterosocial" entertainments where the sexes intermingled more freely.

35. Ibid; Roy Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will: Work & Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). [BACK]

34. The terms homosocial and heterosocial are used by Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn of the Century New York (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986), who explores the ways nineteenth-century leisure was largely segregated by sex. As dance halls and motion picture theaters replaced the saloon in the early twentieth century, single-sex, or "homosocial," amusement gave way to "heterosocial" entertainments where the sexes intermingled more freely.

35. Ibid; Roy Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will: Work & Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). [BACK]

36. This study assumes that mass entertainment uses a form of mass communication and, for heuristic purposes, relies on the definition found in Melvin L. Defleur and Everette Dennis, Understanding Mass Communication (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981), p. 11. [BACK]

37. See Hannah Segal, "A Psychoanalytic Approach to Aesthetics," in Collected Papers on Psychoanalysis (New York: Bruner-Mazel, 1951). [BACK]

38. Burch, "Porter, or Ambivalence," p. 93. [BACK]

39. Robert C. Allen, "Motion Picture Exhibition in Manhattan, 1906-1912: Beyond the Nickelodeon," in Fell, ed., Film Before Griffith , pp. 162-75. [BACK]

40. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Captial , pp. 403-9. [BACK]

41. Douglas Gomery is a leading proponent of this approach, which he has discussed in a series of articles on the coming of recorded sound. See id., "The Coming of the Talkies: Invention, Innovation, and Diffusion," in Tino Balio, ed., The American Film Industry (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975), pp. 193-94. [BACK]

42. For a further discussion of this issue see Charles Musser, "American Vitagraph: 1897-1901," Cinema Journal 22, no. 3 (Spring 1983): 4-46, as well as Gomery's response and my reply in Cinema Journal 22, no. 4 (Summer 1984): 58-64. [BACK]

43. Robert Conot, A Streak of Luck: The Life and Legend of Thomas Alva Edison (New York: Seaview Books, 1979), provides insight into Edison's career as a businessman, although the staff of the Thomas Edison Papers have found many inaccuracies in its details. [BACK]

44. "Dupes" are films printed from duplicate negatives struck from a positive projection print. Since internegative or interpositive stock had not been developed, there was a significant falloff in quality. Dupes were usually made from competitors' films that were unprotected by copyright. This saved the cost of making an original negative and enabled the duper to enjoy the rewards from film sales without paying the original producer. George Kleine defined "dupes" at some length: see chapter 8. [BACK]

1. Porter's childhood and youth have been little examined. Biographical capsules have him growing up in Pittsburgh, consistently misstate the number of siblings, never specify his father's occupation, and generally provide an inaccurate and incomplete picture of his formative experiences. [BACK]

2. William B. Spies, The Pennsylvania Railroad: Its Origins, Construction, Condition, and Connections (Philadelphia: The Passenger Department, 1875), p. 220. [BACK]

3. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Ninth Census of the United States, 1870; Tenth Census of the United States, 1880; Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900 . The census report of 1900 lists Mary Clark Porter as having eight children, seven living. A sibling, who probably was born shortly after Edward, must have died in infancy. Connellsville [Pa.] Courier , 23 August 1905. [BACK]

4. Id., Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; Eighth Census of the United States, 1860 . [BACK]

5. R. G. Dun and Company, credit ledgers, Pennsylvania, vol. 66: pp. 2 and 356, Baker Library, Harvard Business School (MB-H); J.C. McClenathan et al., Centennial History of the Borough of Connellsville, Pennsylvania (Connellsville: Connellsville Area Historical Society, 1906; reprint, Connellsville Area Historical Society, 1974), p. 322. [BACK]

6. Connellsville Courier , 26 July 1889. [BACK]

7. Connellsville Courier , 15 April 1892. [BACK]

8. McClenathan et al., Centennial History , pp. 488-89. In 1871 Samuel Porter also helped to found the Yough National Bank of Connellsville, which soon was the oldest bank in town. [BACK]

9. Tenth Census of the United States, 1880 . [BACK]

10. John W. Jordan and James Hadden, eds., Genealogical and Personal History of Fayette County (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1912), 2: 385. [BACK]

11. Keystone Courier , 22 June 1883. [BACK]

12. Keystone Courier , 12 October and 21 December 1883, 22 February 1884, and 15 August 1885. [BACK]

13. Porter Reilly, Edwin Porter's godson, to Charles Musser, New York City, January 1979. [BACK]

14. Ibid.; Lewis Jacobs, who interviewed Porter for his Rise of the American Film , to Charles Musser, 1983. [BACK]

15. Connellsville Courier , 17 April 1896. [BACK]

16. Connellsville Courier , 27 February and 15 May 1891 and 24 November and 23 December 1892. [BACK]

17. Keystone Courier , 11 June 1880 and Connellsville Courier , 18 August 1893. [BACK]

18. Keystone Courier, 9 July 1880. [BACK]

19. Keystone Courier , 24 February 1882. [BACK]

20. Connellsville Courier , 30 May 1889. [BACK]

21. Keystone Courier , 2 January 1885. [BACK]

22. Connellsville Courier , 30 August 1889. [BACK]

23. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877; Keystone Courier , 7 November 1879—lasting less than one day and won by the cokers; January 1880—won by the cokers; February 1883—won by the operators; January-February 1886—won by the cokers reestablishing their union; May-June 1887—won by the cokers; August 1889—won by the cokers; February to May 1891—won by the operators (i.e., Henry Frick). See also Jon Amsden and Stephen Brier, "Coal Miners on Strike: The Transformation of Strike Demands and the Formation of a National Union," in Robert Rotberg and Theodore Rabb, eds., Industrialization and Urbanization (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 137-70. [BACK]

24. Keystone Courier , 29 January 1886. [BACK]

25. Herbert Gutman writes about similar situations in "Two Lockouts in Pennsylvania, 1873-4," in Work, Culture and Society (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), pp. 321-43. [BACK]

26. Keystone Courier , 16 February 1883. [BACK]

27. Keystone Courier , 23 February 1883. [BACK]

28. Keystone Courier , 29 January 1886. [BACK]

29. Connellsville Courier , 18 September 1891. [BACK]

30. Connellsville Courier , 22 May 1891. [BACK]

31. Connellsville Courier , 26 June 1891. [BACK]

32. Jacobs, Rise of the American Film , p. 41. [BACK]

33. Keystone Courier, 16 April 1880. [BACK]

34. Keystone Courier , 17 December 1880. [BACK]

35. Keystone Courier , 16 and 23 December 1881. [BACK]

36. Ibid. [BACK]

37. "Edwin S. Porter," Moving Picture World (henceforth MPW ), 7 December 1912, p. 961. [BACK]

38. Keystone Courier , 17 August 1883. The census indicates the two were not closely related. The families did, however, live nearby: Thomas Porter's house was no. 205 and Byron Porter's no. 208 in the local 1880 census. Fragmentary evidence suggests that the two families helped each other out. Byron Porter made his living representing the Terra

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Cotta Casket Company in 1886, a job he may have gained through Porter & Bro. Byron's son George went on an extensive fishing trip with Ed Porter. [BACK]

39. Keystone Courier , 8 October 1886. [BACK]

40. Keystone Courier , 26 July 1886. [BACK]

41. Photographs of a fishing trip attended by Ed Porter, but not by Byron or his son, resulted in a small show at the photographer's art gallery ( Connellsville Courier , 22 August 1890). [BACK]

42. MPW , 22 April 1911, p. 878. [BACK]

43. Keystone Courier , 19 January and 15 December 1882; 17 and 31 August 1883; 12 September and 26 December 1884; 4 and 31 December 1883; 19 March, 9 April, 26 May, 19 November, and 17 December 1886; 14 January, 8 April, 17 May, 28 October, and 4 November 1887; 15 February 1888; Connellsville Courier , 26 October, 1 November, and 28 December 1888; 8 March 1889; 29 January 1892. [BACK]

44. MPW , 7 December 1912, p. 961. [BACK]

45. New York Clipper (henceforth Clipper ), 4 April 1914, p. 3. [BACK]

46. "Edward Franklin Albee," National Cyclopedia of American Biography (New York: James T. White & Co., 1932), 22: 53; dipping of Albany (New York) newspaper, 19 May 1940, theater files, Albany Public Library. [BACK]

47. Courier , 28 September 1888. [BACK]

48. Keystone Courier, 5 September 1884; 22 May, 4 and 31 December 1885. [BACK]

49. Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age (New York: Hill & Wang, 1982), p. 143. [BACK]

50. Keystone Courier , 6 March 1885 and 16 March 1888; Connellsville Courier , 7 October 1892. [BACK]

51. Keystone Courier , 24 December 1886. See Charles Musser with Carol Nelson, High-Class Moving Pictures (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991) for a more elaborate treatment of church-sponsored cultural events. [BACK]

52. Keystone Courier , 4 January 1884. [BACK]

53. Keystone Courier , 18 December 1885 and 9 July 1886. [BACK]

54. Keystone Courier , 25 November and 17 December 1886. [BACK]

55. Keystone Courier , 12 December 1884. [BACK]

56. Francis G. Couvares, The Remaking of Pittsburgh: Class and Culture in an Industrializing City, 1877-1919 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984). [BACK]

57. Tony Keefer to Charles Musser, June 1981. [BACK]

58. Trachtenberg, Incorporation of America , pp. 64-67. [BACK]

59. MPW , 7 December 1912, p. 961. [BACK]

60. Ibid.; Keystone Courier , 23 September 1887. [BACK]

61. Connellsville Courier , 27 September 1889, 21 February and 7 March 1890. [BACK]

62. U.S. Patent Office, patent no. 451,798, Charles H. Balsley, Jr. and Edwin M. Porter, Current-Regulator for Electric Lamps, granted S May 1891. [BACK]

63. Connellsville Courier , 15 May 1891. [BACK]

64. Connellsville Courier , 12 February 1892. [BACK]

65. Connellsville Courier , 4 March 1892. [BACK]

66. U.S. Industrial Commission, Reports , vol. 15, Report on Immigration (19 vols.; Washington, D.C.: 1901-2), pp. 322-25 cited in Thomas Kessner, The Golden Door : Page 498 Italian and Jewish Immigrant Mobility in New York City, 1880-1915 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 62. [BACK]

67. Connellsville, Pa. Deed Book , p. 154, courtesy of Tony Keefer. [BACK]

68. "Edwin Stanton Porter," in National Cyclopedia of American Biography (New York: James T. White & Co., 1943), 30: 407-8. See also Robert Sklar, "Edwin Stanton Porter," in Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973), pp. 606-7. [BACK]

69. U.S. Navy Department, enlistment record of Edwin Stanton Porter, National Archives, Washington, D.C. [BACK]

70. Connellsville Courier , 3 July 1896, p. 4. [BACK]

71. Cyclopedia of American Biography , 30: 407. [BACK]

1. Although this chapter disagrees with some of Gordon Hendricks's conclusions, it is deeply indebted to his detailed research. The process and framework for the invention of Edison's motion picture system is not dealt with extensively in this volume, but is explored in greater depth in The Emergence of Cinema , chapter 2. [BACK]

2. "Animal Locomotion," Orange [N.J.] Chronicle , 3 March 1888, p. 5; "Edison's Talking Baby," New York World , 3 June 1888, p. 16. [BACK]

3. Thomas A. Edison, caveat 110, 8 October 1888, filed 17 October 1888, NjWOE. Hendricks, Edison Motion Picture Myth , p. 15, provides a useful definition of caveat from Webster's Dictionary (1888): "A description of some invention, designed to be patented, lodged in the office before the patent right is taken out, operating as a bar to applications respecting the same invention from any other quarter." [BACK]

4. Edison, caveat 110. [BACK]

5. "Complainant's Exhibit Work on Kinetoscope Experiment from February 1, 1889, to February 1, 1890," Thomas A. Edison v. American Mutoscope Co. and Benjamin Keith , no. 6928, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 13 May 1898, printed record, pp. 360-62, NjBaFAR. [BACK]

6. Charles A. Brown, deposition, 31 January 1900, Edison v. American Mutoscope Co ., p. 141. [BACK]

7. Orange Chronicle , 23 May 1891. [BACK]

8. "The Kinetograph," New York Sun , 28 May 1891, p. 1. [BACK]

9. Charles Batchelor notebook, 18 June 1891, p. 153, NjWOE. [BACK]

10. "The Kinetograph," Phonogram , October 1892, pp. 217-18. [BACK]

11. J. F. Randolph, deposition, 3 February 1900, Edison v. American Mutoscope Co ., p. 159. [BACK]

12. "Sandow at the Edison Laboratory," Orange Chronicle , 10 March 1894, p. 5. [BACK]

13. Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will , p. 37. [BACK]

14. "Edison and the Kinetoscope," Photographic Times , p. 210. [BACK]

15. Ramsaye claims, after interviewing Norman Raft, that no Edison peep-hole kinetoscope was shown at the Columbian fair ( Million and One Nights , p. 85). Hendricks suggests that at least one machine—the model shown at the Brooklyn Institute—was part of the Edison phonograph exhibit ( Kinetoscope , pp. 40-45). This was advance publicity,

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however, and the increasing body of evidence makes Ramsaye's statement more and more compelling. [BACK]

16. Gordon Hendricks, "A New Look at an 'Old Sneeze,'" Film Culture no. 22-23 (1961), pp. 90-95. [BACK]

17. "Wizard Edison's Kinetograph," New York World , 18 March 1894, pp. 21-22. [BACK]

18. "Sandow at the Edison Laboratory," Orange Chronicle , 10 March 1894, p. 5. [BACK]

19. "A New Bill at Koster & Bial's," NYT , 6 November 1894, p. 5. [BACK]

20. "The Vaudeville Fad," New York Dramatic Mirror (henceforth NYDM ), 27 June 1896, p. 11. [BACK]

21. Kinetoscope Company, Bulletin No. 1 [December 1894]. [BACK]

22. "Indians Before the Kinetograph," Orange Journal , 27 September 1894, p. 5. [BACK]

23. Kinetoscope Company to Kansas Phonograph Company, 29 December 1894, vol. 1, p. 172, Raff & Gammon Collection, MH-BA. [BACK]

24. Kinetoscope Company, Bulletin No. 1 . [BACK]

25. Antonia and W. K. L. Dickson, "Edison's Invention of the Kineto-Phonograph," Century Magazine 48, no. 2 (June 1894): 212. [BACK]

26. The Glenroy Brothers being domestic in both appearance and kinship. [BACK]

27. Newark Evening News , 17 July 1894, in Hendricks, Kinetoscope , pp. 77-78. [BACK]

28. J. F. Randolph, deposition, 3 February 1900, Edison v. American Mutoscope Co ., p. 161. [BACK]

29. Alfred O. Tate to Thomas Edison, 13 February 1894, NjWOE; Hendricks, Kinetoscope , pp. 50-51 and 132-33. [BACK]

30. MPW , 15 July 1916, p. 399. [BACK]

31. W. J. Holland to N. C. Raff, 4 July 1894, Bills 1894-96, MH-BA. [BACK]

32. James H. White, testimony, 9 February 1900, Edison v. American Mutoscope Co ., p. 165. [BACK]

33. Edison Manufacturing Company, cash book no. 2, pp. 72 and 102, NjWOE. [BACK]

34. Thomas A. Edison and Norman Raft and Frank Gammon, agreement, 18 August 1894, NjWOE; Raft & Gammon Collection, invoices, vol. 1, pp. 10, 14, 23, 40, 60, etc., MH-BA. [BACK]

35. Edison Manufacturing Company, cash book no. 2, pp. 74 and 114. [BACK]

36. Edison Manufacturing Company, cash book no. 2, 11 July 1894, received $1275. [BACK]

37. Thomas Edison to Maguire & Baucus, 3 September 1894, NjWOE. [BACK]

38. Some Raff & Gammon and Commercial Commerce Company customers may occasionally have paid the Edison Company directly. Moreover, Raff & Gammon reimbursed Colonel George E. Gourand for a large order of kinetoscopes for which they later assumed commercial responsibility. [BACK]

39. In any case, these payments were much higher than their former salaries. Since Dickson left Edison's employ in April 1895, these figures were more than simple weekly paychecks. This extension of royalties to Dickson and Heise contradicts Hendricks's portrayal of Edison as a parsimonious egomaniac ( Kinetoscope , p. 30). In fact, Edison routinely extended royalties to his co-inventors and collaborators. [BACK]

40. Edison Manufacturing Company, cash book no. 2, November 1893-December 1895. [BACK]

41. "Jack Cushing's Waterloo," New York World , 16 June 1894, p. 1. [BACK]

42. Thomas A. Edison to Otway Latham, 18 August 1894, NjWOE. Hendricks ( Ki-

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netoscope , pp. 97-99) argues that the exhibition of The Leonard-Cushing Fight was not financially remunerative, but a more ambitious undertaking would seem unlikely if this had been the case. Some level of success must have encouraged the Lathams and induced Tilden to join the group. [BACK]

43. "Corbett Before the Kinetoscope," New York Herald , 8 September 1894, p. 11; Phonoscope , March 1898, p. 9.

44. Like many pugilists of the period, Corbett made his living principally on the stage. [BACK]

43. "Corbett Before the Kinetoscope," New York Herald , 8 September 1894, p. 11; Phonoscope , March 1898, p. 9.

44. Like many pugilists of the period, Corbett made his living principally on the stage. [BACK]

45. "Knocked Out by Corbett," New York Sun , 8 September 1894, pp. 1-2. [BACK]

46. Ibid. [BACK]

47. Orange Chronicle , 26 January 1895, p. 5. [BACK]

48. "In the Kinetographic Theatre," Orange Chronicle , 20 October 1894, p. 4. [BACK]

49. "Miscellaneous Entertainments," New York World , 7 June 1894, p. 21. [BACK]

50. Terrace Garden advertisement, New York Tribune , 22 July 1894, p. 11. [BACK]

51. "In the Breezy Roof Gardens," New York Tribune , 24 June 1894, p. 22. [BACK]

52. For example: "The Wild West," New York Tribune , 1 July 1894, p. 14; "Day with the Wild West," New York Tribune , 22 July 1894, p. 15. [BACK]

53. Kinetoscope Company, Price List of Films , [May—June 1895], p. 3; Edison Manufacturing Company, Edison Films , March 1900, p. 19. [BACK]

54. "Before the Kinetograph," Orange Chronicle , 13 October 1894, p. 5. [BACK]

55. "Before the Kinetograph," Orange Journal , 18 October 1894, p. 5. [BACK]

56. "In the Kinetograph Theatre," Orange Chronicle , 3 November 1894, p. 7. [BACK]

57. Kinetoscope Company, Price List of Films , p. 4. [BACK]

58. Kinetoscope Company, Bulletin No. 1 . [BACK]

59. "Mr. Dickson to Leave the Laboratory," Orange Chronicle , 27 April 1895, p. 7. [BACK]

60. "The Barnum and Bailey Show," Orange Chronicle , 11 May 1895, p. 6; Kinetoscope Company, Price List of Films , p. 4. [BACK]

61. "'Trilby' Is a Triumph," New York World , 16 April 1895, p. 7. [BACK]

62. "Trilby Visits the Eden Musee," New York World , 9 April 1895, p. 3; "Tableaux from 'Trilby,'" New York World , 16 April 1895, p. 7. [BACK]

63. "Kinetoscope Scenes," Asbury Park Daily Press , 2 August 1895, p. 1. [BACK]

64. "Distress Warrant Issued," Asbury Park Daily Press , 3 August 1895, p. 1. [BACK]

65. Hendricks, Kinetoscope , pp. 161-69. [BACK]

66. "Magic Lantern Kinetoscope," New York Sun , 22 April 1895, p. 2. [BACK]

67. Edison Manufacturing Company, labor and materials sub-ledger no. 6, 31 May 1895, p. 252; Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 120. [BACK]

68. "Combining the Phonograph and the Kinetoscope," Orange Chronicle , 16 March 1895, p. 7. [BACK]

69. Kinetoscope Company, Price List of Films , p. 1. [BACK]

70. Ibid.; Kinetoscope Company, invoices, MH-BA. [BACK]

71. James H. White, deposition, 9 February 1900, Edison v. American Mutoscope Co ., p. 175. [BACK]

72. A connection pointed out to me by Pat Loughney in regard to The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots . [BACK]

73. Alfred Clark, oral history, ca. 1944, NjWOE. [BACK]

74. James H. White, deposition, 9 February 1900, and Charles H. Webster, deposition, 9 February 1900, Edison v. American Mutoscope Co. [BACK]

75. Charles Webster, Edison v. American Mutoscope Co . [BACK]

1. Thomas Armat, testimony, 10 October 1901, Armat Moving Picture Company v. American Mutoscope Company and Benjamin Keith , no. 7130, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 31 December 1897, printed record, p. 87, NjBaFAR. [BACK]

2. Raft & Gammon to Daniel and Armat, 15 January 1896, letter books, vol. 3, p. 197, MH-BA. [BACK]

3. Armat-Raft & Gammon contract, exhibit, Armat Moving Picture Co. v. American Mutoscope Co . [BACK]

4. Raft & Gammon to Thomas Cushing Daniel and Thomas Armat, n.d. [ca. 26 December 1895], 3:179-81, MH-BA. [BACK]

5. Ibid.; and Raff & Gammon to Armat, 17 March 1896, 3:367, MH-BA. [BACK]

6. Raft & Gammon to Thomas Armat, 10 February 1896, exhibit, Armat Moving Picture Co. v. American Mutoscope Co ., p. 142. [BACK]

7. As Raft & Gammon wrote to Armat, ''We have heard from it [the phantoscope] two or three times to-day, and some people seem to think that he has a machine which is an improvement of the 'Vitascope,' or are afraid that it will develop into one. Can you not choke him off, or take the machine from him?'' (Raft & Gammon to Thomas Armat, 4 March 1896, 3:279, MH-BA.) [BACK]

8. Raft & Gammon to Armat, 5 March 1896, 3:289-90, MH-BA. [BACK]

9. In film studies, the idea of a biographical legend has been developed in David Bordwell, The Films of Carl-Theodor Dreyer (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981); see also Conot, Streak of Luck . [BACK]

10. As preparations for the vitascope were getting under way, Edison had once again demonstrated his powerful hold on the press. At the beginning of March, his "perfection" of Wilhem Roentgen's recently discovered x-rays had made front-page news. [BACK]

11. Raff & Gammon to Armat, 5 March 1896, 3:289, MH-BA. [BACK]

12. "Magic Lantern Kinetoscope," New York Sun , 22 April 1895, p. 2. [BACK]

13. Norman C. Raff to Thomas Armat, 21 March 1896, 3:390, MH-BA. [BACK]

14. P. W. Kiefaber to Raft & Gammon, ca. 28 May 1896, MH-BA. [BACK]

15. "Lifeless Skirt Dancers," New York Journal , 4 April 1896, p. 9. [BACK]

16. Raft & Gammon to E. Kuhn, 18 April 1896, 2:258, MH-BA. [BACK]

17. Raft & Gammon to J. H. White, 10 April 1896, 2:135, MH-BA. [BACK]

18. Raft & Gammon to Albert Bial, 7 April 1896, 2:108, MH-BA. [BACK]

19. James White, testimony, 9 February 1900, Edison v. American Mutoscope Co . [BACK]

20. "Edwin S. Porter," MPW , 7 December 1912, p. 961; Niver, First Twenty Years , p. 16. [BACK]

21. "Wonderful is the Vitascope," New York Herald , 24 April 1896, p. 11. [BACK]

22. "Edison's Vitascope Cheered," NYT , 24 April 1896, p. 5. [BACK]

23. "Amusements," New York Daily News , 24 April 1896, clipping, MH-BA. [BACK]

24. "Edison's Vitascope Seen," New York Journal , 24 April 1896. [BACK]

25. New York Herald , 24 April 1896, p. 11. [BACK]

26. Ibid. [BACK]

27. Raff & Gammon, The Vitascope (New York: n.d. [March 1896]). [BACK]

28. "The Vitascope at Keith's," Boston Herald , 19 May 1896, p. 9. [BACK]

29. Saengerfest Hall, programme, 30 August 1896, clipping, MH-BA. [BACK]

30. Robert C. Allen, "Vitascope/Cinématographe: Initial Patterns of American Film Practice," in Fell, ed., Film Before Griffith , pp. 144-52. [BACK]

31. Raff & Gammon to W. E. Gilmore, 25 March 1896, 3:408, MH-BA. [BACK]

32. New York World , 26 April 1896, p. 21. [BACK]

33. New York Herald , 10 May 1896, p. 6F. [BACK]

34. Raft & Gammon to P. W. Kiefaber, 6 May 1896, 2:474, MH-BA. [BACK]

35. "Herald Square 'Vitascoped,'" New York Herald , 12 May 1896, p. 9. [BACK]

36. Boston Herald , 26 May 1896, p. 7. [BACK]

37. Boston Herald , 23 June 1896, p. 9. [BACK]

38. "Navarre's Great Race," Brooklyn Eagle , 24 June 1896, p. 5. [BACK]

39. Brooklyn Eagle , 28 June 1896, p. 5. [BACK]

40. John F. Kasson, Amusing the Millions: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century (New York: Hill & Wang, 1978). [BACK]

41. "Bergen Beach," Brooklyn Eagle , 21 June 1896, p. 23. [BACK]

42. "The Theatrical World," Philadelphia Record , 19 July 1896, p. 11. [BACK]

43. Boston Herald , 4 August 1896, p. 7. [BACK]

44. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 257; New York World , 12 September 1896, p. 14. Ramsaye claims that several films, such as The May Irwin Kiss were filmed at this studio when they were, in fact, photographed at the Black Maria. On the other hand, Blackton's claim to have visited the Orange studio when appearing in these three films (meeting Edison, etc.) is almost certainly myth. Our knowledge about this studio is, for the moment, very limited. [BACK]

45. New York Mail and Express (henceforth Marl and Express ), 15 September 1896, p. 5, and 19 September 1896, p. 10. [BACK]

46. Edison Films , March 1900, p. 36; New York World , 11 October 1896, p. 14. [BACK]

47. Vitascope Company, certificate of incorporation, 5 May 1896, NNNCC-Ar. [BACK]

48. Raft & Gammon to Thomas Armat, 17 March 1896, 3:368, MH-BA. While using some of the same research, my conclusions again differ from those of Robert C. Allen ("Vitascope/Cinématographe," pp. 146-52). Allen suggests that Raft & Gammon's states rights approach to marketing was antiquated and that vaudeville circuits such as Keith's were discouraged from using the vitascope because they operated in different states and were therefore forced to deal with different entrepreneurs while the Lumière Agency with its cinématographe serviced their needs from a centralized source. Yet Keith's acquired the vitascope for its Boston and Philadelphia theaters. In each case, this acquisition was done by the local theater manager, who was responsible for booking his own acts until the spring of 1898 ( NYDM , 12 March 1898, p. 19). In other words, Keith's did not have a centralized system as Allen assumes. Allen also asserts that the reasons for Raft & Gammon's choice of a states rights system were never clearly thought out or articulated. Yet Raft & Gammon further elaborated on the advantages of this system in other parts of this letter. Allen's Vaudeville and Film, 1895-1915 , however, does not impose this interpretation on his data to the same extent and is often perceptive in articulating the problems faced by Raft & Gammon and the owners of vitascope exhibition rights. [BACK]

49. Norman Raft to William Gilmore, 10 April 1896, 2:137-38 and 140-54, MH-BA. [BACK]

50. Conot, Streak of Luck , p. 317. [BACK]

51. For a broad overview, see Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , pp. 251-80; Allen, Vaudeville and Film, 1895-1915 , pp. 81-109; and Musser, Emergence of Cinema , pp. 109-32. [BACK]

52. Raft & Gammon to Charles Balsley, 1 April, 3:471, MH-BA. [BACK]

53. Raft & Gammon to J. R. Balsley, 4 April 1896, 2:42, MH-BA; Raff & Gammon to A. F. Rieser, 4 April 1896, MH-BA. [BACK]

54. Not only is this trip referred to in the following news article, but the lack of correspondence suggests that this deal was closed in person. [BACK]

55. Connellsville Courier , 20 March 1896. [BACK]

56. R. G. Dun and Company, credit ledgers, 66:187, MH-BA; McClenathan et al., Centennial History , p. 417. [BACK]

57. McClenathan et al., Centennial History , pp. 248-50. [BACK]

58. Connellsville Courier , 10 April 1896. [BACK]

59. Raff & Gammon to Thomas L. Tally, 4 April 1896, 2:58, MH-BA. [BACK]

60. Raff & Gammon to Charles Balsley, 11 April 1896, 2:161, MH-BA. [BACK]

61. Raff & Gammon to R. S. Paine, 22 April 1896, 2:272, MH-BA. [BACK]

62. Raff & Gammon to J. R. Balsley, 18 April 1896, 2:320, MH-BA. The mention of clear stock refers to a persistent problem at this time. Edison needed to switch from a semi-opaque stock suitable for peep-show kinetoscopes to a clear base needed for projection. This was a major concern to Thomas Armat, but was not treated with much urgency at the Edison factory. Many of the early subjects, presumably including those the Connellsville group saw in New York, were on the old-type stock. [BACK]

63. New York World , 19 April 1896, p. 14. [BACK]

64. Raft & Gammon to R. S. Paine, 28 April 1896, 2:331-2, MH-BA. [BACK]

65. Raft & Gammon to J. R. Balsley, 30 April 1896, 2:391, MH-BA. [BACK]

66. P. W. Kiefaber to Raff & Gammon, 8 and 9 May 1896, MH-BA. [BACK]

67. Connellsville Courier , 22 May 1896. [BACK]

68. San Francisco Examiner , 24 May 1896, p. 33. [BACK]

69. "Edison's Wizard Wand on the Stage," San Francisco Examiner , 12 May 1896, p. 6. [BACK]

70. Charles H. Balsley to George Beck, 9 July 1915. Courtesy Lorraine Balsley. [BACK]

71. New York Clipper (henceforth Clipper ), 6 June 1896, p. 212. [BACK]

72. "With the Actor Folks," San Francisco Examiner , 7 June 1896, p. 34. See also San Francisco Chronicle , 7 June 1896, p. 6. [BACK]

73. Orpheum Theater, programme, week of 8 June 1896, CU-BANC. [BACK]

74. San Francisco Chronicle , 9 June 1896, p. 7. [BACK]

75. San Francisco Chronicle , 14 June 1896, p. 5. [BACK]

76. San Francisco Examiner , 9 June 1896, p. 3. [BACK]

77. San Francisco Call , 7 June 1896. [BACK]

78. San Francisco Call , 9 June 1896. [BACK]

79. "The Camera Made to Tell a Story," San Francisco Chronicle , 9 June 1896, p. 14. [BACK]

80. "The Illustrated Song Is Now the Latest Novelty of the Stage," San Francisco Examiner , 7 June 1896, p. 33. [BACK]

81. San Francisco Examiner , 1 March 1896, p. 31, and 15 March 1896, p. 1. [BACK]

82. San Francisco Chronicle , 14 June 1896, p. 5. [BACK]

83. San Francisco Chronicle , 21 June 1896, p. 8. [BACK]

84. San Francisco Chronicle , 16 June 1896, p. 8. [BACK]

85. Charles Balsley to E. V. Durling, 22 June 1922. Courtesy Lorraine Balsley. [BACK]

86. San Francisco Examiner , 21 June 1896, p. 20. [BACK]

87. Boston Herald , 19 May 1896, p. 9. [BACK]

88. San Francisco Chronicle , 25 June 1896, p. 14. [BACK]

89. "Local Theater Bills," San Francisco Chronicle , 26 July 1896, p. 5. [BACK]

90. Los Angeles Herald , 12 July 1896, p. 12. [BACK]

91. Albert F. McLean, Jr., American Vaudeville as Ritual (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1965). [BACK]

92. Navy Department, "Enlistment Record of Edwin Stanton Porter." [BACK]

93. MPW , 27 October 1917, p. 587. [BACK]

94. NYDM , 15 March 1911, p. 34; Edwin S. Porter, testimony, 20 June 1907, Armat Moving Picture Company v. Edison Manufacturing Company , no. 8303, C.C.S.D.N.Y., Court, NjBaFAR. [BACK]

95. Los Angeles Times , 5 July 1896, p. 8. [BACK]

96. Los Angeles Herald , 5 July 1896, p. 14. [BACK]

97. Ibid. [BACK]

98. Los Angeles Herald , 5 July 1896, p. 15. [BACK]

99. Los Angeles Herald , 12 July 1896, p. 12. [BACK]

100. Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide (New York, 1896), p. 181. [BACK]

101. Los Angeles Herald , 7 July 1896, p. 4. [BACK]

102. Los Angeles Times , 7 July 1896, p. 6. [BACK]

103. Clipper , 25 July 1896, p. 325. [BACK]

104. Worcester [Mass.] Telegraph , August 1896, clipping, NjWOE. [BACK]

105. Los Angeles Herald , 8 July 1896. [BACK]

106. Los Angeles Times , 10 July 1896, p. 6. [BACK]

107. Los Angeles Herald , 14 July 1896; Los Angeles Times , 12 July 1896, p. 1. [BACK]

108. Los Angeles Times , 12 July 1896, p. 21. [BACK]

109. Tom Gunning, "The Cinema of Attraction[s]," Wide Angle 8, no. 3/4 (1986): pp. 63-70. [BACK]

110. Los Angeles Times , 14 July 1896. [BACK]

111. Holland to Norman Raff, 23 September 1896, MH-BA. [BACK]

112. Los Angeles Herald , 25 July 1896, p. 10; and Los Angeles Times , 25 July 1896, p. 12. [BACK]

113. Los Angeles Times , 26 July 1896, p. 12. [BACK]

114. Charles Balsley to MPW, 30 October 1911, courtesy Lorraine Balsley. [BACK]

115. Thomas Armat, testimony, 11 August 1911, Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Carl Laemmle , no. 5-167, D.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 10 February 1910, p. 602, NjBaFAR. [BACK]

116. George Pratt, "Firsting the Firsts," in Marshall Deutelbaum, ed., "Image": On the Art and Evolution of the Film (New York: Dover, 1979), p. 21. [BACK]

117. Purdy and Kiefaber to Vitascope Company, 6 July 1896, MH-BA. [BACK]

118. Clipper , 11 July 1896, p. 296. [BACK]

119. "The Cinematographe," Mail and Express , 25 July 1896, p. 8; Pittsburgh Dispatch , 13 September 1896, p. 21. [BACK]

120. New York World , 23 August 1896, p. 15. [BACK]

121. Raft suffered from nervous collapse in August and was unable to work for some time. Holland to Frank Gammon, 11 and 18 August 1896, MH-BA. [BACK]

122. Holland to Raff, 14 and 26 September 1896, MH-BA. [BACK]

123. Raff & Gammon to C. W. Walters, 26 March 1897, 4:102, MH-BA; see also Edison Manufacturing Company, cash book no. 3, 1895-97, NjWOE. [BACK]

124. Holland to Raff, 3 September 1896, MH-BA. [BACK]

125. Edmund McLoughlin to Raff & Gammon, 4 August 1896, MH-BA. [BACK]

126. Edison Manufacturing Company, cash book no. 3, 24 September 1896, p. 199. [BACK]

127. Purdy and Kiefaber to Vitascope Company, 6 July 1896, MH-BA. [BACK]

128. E. F. Albee to Kiefaber, 29 July 1896, incoming letters, 1896—P. W. Kiefaber, MH-BA. [BACK]

129. Connellsville Courier , 17 July 1896. Unfortunately Terre Haute newspapers do not survive from this era. [BACK]

130. Rieser to Vitascope Company, 19 October 1896, MH-BA. [BACK]

131. Charles Balsley to MPW , 30 October 1911. The general chronology of this chapter as it relates to the Connellsville group is outlined in this letter. [BACK]

132. Indianapolis Sentinel , 13 September 1896, p. 5. [BACK]

133. Indianapolis Journal , 13 and 15 September 1896. [BACK]

134. Indianapolis Journal , 18 October 1896, p. 10. [BACK]

135. Indianapolis Sentinel , 18 October 1896, p. 13. [BACK]

136. Indianapolis Sentinel , 20 October 1896. [BACK]

137. Indianapolis Sentinel , 25 October 1896, p. 6. [BACK]

138. Clipper , 31 October 1896, p. 559. [BACK]

139. Charles Balsley to MPW , 30 October 1911. [BACK]

140. "Out of the Past," Connellsville Courier , 5 November 1965. Courtesy Tony Keefer. [BACK]

141. "Amusements," New York World , 11 October 1896, p. 15. [BACK]

142. Clipper , 17 October 1896, p. 522. [BACK]

143. Gordon Hendricks, The Beginnings of the Biograph: The Story of the Invention of the Mutoscope and the Biograph and Their Supply Camera (New York: Beginnings of the American Film, 1966), pp. 39-49. [BACK]

144. Phonoscope , November 1896, p. 16. [BACK]

145. McLoughlin to Raft & Gammon, 10 October 1896. [BACK]

146. Clipper , 19 September 1896, p. 462. [BACK]

147. Clipper , 7 November 1896, p. 595. Phonoscope , January—February 1897, p. 3. Ramsaye ( Million and One Nights , p. 342) incorrectly refers to the International Film Company's machine as a projectoscope. [BACK]

148. Clipper , 26 September 1896, p. 480; 31 October 1896, p. 554; 14 November 1896, p. 595; Phonoscope , December 1896, p. 13. [BACK]

149. Edison Manufacturing Company, cash book no. 3, 26 September 1896, p. 200. [BACK]

150. Rieser to Vitascope Company, 9 November 1896, MH-BA. See also Clipper , 28 November 1896, p. 624, for Edison advertisement offering to sell films directly to customers. Vitascope entrepreneurs were contractually obligated to acquire their films and supplies from Raff & Gammon. [BACK]

151. James White, testimony, 9 February 1900, Edison v. American Mutoscope Co. , p. 174. [BACK]

152. "The Projectoscope Will Do," Harrisburg Daily Telegraph , 30 November 1896, p. 1. [BACK]

153. "A Great Attraction," Harrisburg Daily Telegraph , 5 December 1896, p. 4. [BACK]

154. Maguire & Baucus, Preliminary Circular , 16 February 1897. [BACK]

155. Edison Manufacturing Company, statement of profit and loss, 1 March 1896 to 1 March 1897, NjWOE. [BACK]

156. Ibid. [BACK]

157. Edison Manufacturing Company, cash book no. 3, October 1896—February 1897. [BACK]

158. Phonoscope , December 1896, p. 16. [BACK]

159. "Pictures Taken at a Gallop," Newark Daily Advertiser , 14 November 1896, p. 2. [BACK]

160. Wilkes-Barre Leader , 3 December 1896, p. 2. [BACK]

161. "Hammerstein's Olympia," Marl and Express , 20 October 1896, p. 4. [BACK]

162. "Vitascopic Pictures," Orange Chronicle , 26 December 1896, p. 7. [BACK]

163. Harrisburg Daily Telegraph , 16 December 1896, p. 4. [BACK]

164. "Local Projectoscope Views," Harrisburg Daily Telegraph , 24 December 1896, p. 1. [BACK]

165. Harrisburg Patriot , 13 January 1897, p. 5. [BACK]

166. Ibid. [BACK]

167. "Injunction Refused," Harrisburg Daily Telegraph , 13 January 1897, p. 1. [BACK]

168. Although the Lumière cinématographe was able to act as a camera, printer, and projector, negatives taken by local operators were not developed in the United States as commonly assumed. [BACK]

169. Maguire & Baucus, Fall Catalogue , 1897, p. 10. [BACK]

170. F. M. Prescott, Catalogue of New Films , p. 12. [BACK]

171. Ibid. [BACK]

172. Maguire & Baucus, Fall Catalogue , 1897, p. 13. [BACK]

173. Ibid., p. 10. [BACK]

174. Edwin S. Porter, testimony, 20 June 1907, Armat Moving Picture Company v. Edison Manufacturing Company , no. 8303, C. C. S. D. N.Y., filed 28 November 1902, NjBaFAR. Porter states he was running a machine by Kuhn and Webster. If so it was a projectograph, not a projectoscope as he states in his testimony. [BACK]

175. Phonoscope , March 1897, p. 7. [BACK]

176. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , pp. 342-46. [BACK]

1. Niver, Early Motion Pictures , provides an extensive catalog of these films. [BACK]

2. "Summer Horse Show," Mail and Express , 12 August 1897, p. 3. It is possible that White left for the West Coast in June, altering the specifics of this account accordingly. [BACK]

3. After the initial development of the kinetograph, camera technology was never an Edison strong point. Since the inventor was opposed in principle to the sale of camera technology, his mechanical experts never had the opportunity to develop such equipment. [BACK]

4. Edison Films , March 1900, p. 20. [BACK]

5. Promotional blurbs and advertisements for these tours appeared in endless news-

Page 507

papers from the period. See, for example, "Mexico and California," Orange Chronicle , 27 January 1900, p. 4. Many tourist packages involved the very hotels and stopping points that White filmed on his journey (for example, "Grand Mid-Winter Tour to California," Brooklyn Eagle , 29 January 1899, p. 21). [BACK]

6. Although these films may have been taken by White and Blechynden, this seems unlikely. Wright's presence in Seattle was reported while White's was not. The Edison Company also advertised these films separately from the other films White took on the trip ( Edison Films , March 1900, pp. 14-22 and 38). [BACK]

7. "The Indians," Denver Post , 4 October 1897, p. 3, and "Golden Cripple," Denver Post , 5 October 1897, p. 8; Denver Republican , 6 October 1897, clipping, NjWOE. [BACK]

8. Edison Films , March 1900, p. 17. [BACK]

9. "The 'Coptic' Arrives at Last," Japan Weekly Mad , 26 July 1898, p. 216. [BACK]

10. Phonoscope , October 1898, p. 14; Gorham & Company (Hong Kong) to the Edison Laboratory, 17 May 1898, and clipping, NjWOE. [BACK]

11. "Honolulu in Kinetoscope," Hawaii Gazette , 10 May 1898, p. 8, and 13 May 1898, p. 3. See also Hawaii Film Board, Souvenir Program (5 February 1977). [BACK]

12. Phonoscope , October 1898, p. 14. [BACK]

13. "Making Vitascopic Pictures of the Ambulance," Orange Chronicle , 9 October 1897, p. 7. [BACK]

14. "First Ambulance Performance," Orange Chronicle , 19 February 1898, p. 8. [BACK]

15. "Gattling Gun Company A," Orange Chronicle , 27 November 1897, p. 5. [BACK]

16. "Gattling Gun Company A," Orange Chronicle , 11 December 1897, p. 5. [BACK]

17. War Extra, Edison Films , 20 May 1898, pp. 10-11. [BACK]

18. The date of filming has yet to be firmly established. It was not copyrighted until 16 December 1898, and yet the film includes a notice indicating it was copyrighted in 1897. Moreover, the film does not show up in Edison catalogs. [BACK]

19. Hendricks, Edison Motion Picture Myth , pp. 130-37. [BACK]

20. Thomas A. Edison v. Charles Webster and Edmund Kuhn , nos. 6795 and 6796, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 7 December 1897, NjBaFAR. [BACK]

21. Thomas A. Edison v. Maguire and Baucus, Limited, Joseph D. Baucus et al ., nos. 6797 and 6798, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 7 December 1897, NjBaFAR. Maguire & Baucus concentrated their energies in England, where their Warwick Trading Company became a prominent firm. [BACK]

22. Thomas A. Edison v. Siegmund Lubin , no. 50, October Sessions, 1897, C.C.E.D.P., filed 10 January 1898, PPFAR; Thomas A. Edison v. American Mutoscope Co. and Benjamin Keith , no. 6928, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 13 May 1898, NjBaFAR. [BACK]

23. "A Moral Wax-Work Show," NYT , 1 January 1884, p. 3; "Scenes and Figures in Wax," NYT , 29 March 1884, p. 4. [BACK]

24. Eden Musee American Company, Eden Musee Catalogue (New York: 1896), p. 2. [BACK]

25. "Trouble in the Eden Musee," New York Herald , 11 April 1894, p. 9; "A Visit and a Chat with Mr. Rich. G. Hollaman, of the Eden Musee," MPW , 22 February 1908, p. 131; New York Tribune , 20 December 1896, p. 10, and 15 June 1897, p. 1. Ramsaye incorrectly suggests that the Lumière cinématographe opened at the Eden Musee and Keith's Union Square Theater at the same time—June 29, 1896 ( Million and One Nights , p. 263). [BACK]

26. Mail and Express , 26 December 1896, p. 12. [BACK]

27. "Edison at the Eden Musee," Mail and Express , 6 February 1897, p. 17. [BACK]

28. "New Cinematographe at the Musee," Mail and Express , 20 February 1897, p. 17. See also Deslandes and Richard, Histoire comparée , 2:129-31 on the Cinématographe Joly in France. Eberhard Schneider, deposition, 11 February 1900, Thomas A. Edison v. Eberhard Schneider , nos. 7124 and 7125, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 21 December 1898, NjBaFAR. [BACK]

29. Mail and Express , 23 February 1897, p. 7. [BACK]

30. Mail and Express , 13 April 1897, p. 7. It is possible that the American cinematograph was a new machine, but it was not treated this way in the press. Schneider still owned the projector and provided the exhibition service, but did not own its newly designated "American Cinematograph" trade name. [BACK]

31. Mail and Express , 1 May 1897, p. 14. [BACK]

32. This information is based on a survey that appeared in Charles Musser, "Another Look at the 'Chaser Period,'" Studies in Visual Communication 10, no. 4 (Fall 1984): 24-44. Since that study was published more exhibitions in New York City theaters have been identified. These alter certain details but not the central argument. [BACK]

33. New York Tribune , 15 June 1897, p. 1; Mail and Express , 15 June 1897, p. 7, and 26 June 1897, p. 10. Deslandes and Richard, Histoire comparée , 2:23. Presumably the cinématographe was then owned by an independent exhibitor. [BACK]

34. NYT , 31 August 1897, p. 11C. [BACK]

35. Mail and Express , 31 August 1897, p. 5. [BACK]

36. "Edwin S. Porter," MPW , 7 December 1912, p. 961. Beadnell was able to promote not only the Eden Musee but himself in the Mail and Express , which at one point stated, "No man in the advertising world has been so well-known and so highly esteemed as Mr. Beadnell" (16 January 1899, p. 4). At the testimonial dinner given in Beadnell's honor and described in this article, James White sang a solo and joined in a duet. Porter may have been there. [BACK]

37. An advertisement for this company appears in the Brooklyn Eagle , 29 January 1899, p. 21. Schneider, who did not control the name "American Cinematograph," went on to call his service the German-American Cinematograph Company. [BACK]

38. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , pp. 345-46. [BACK]

39. Phonoscope , August-September 1897, p. 9. [BACK]

40. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 346; Halifax [Nova Scotia] Morning Chronicle , 27 September 1897, p. 6. [BACK]

41. Porter was one of several exhibitors showing these films in Canada ("Canada," NYDM , 18 September 1897, p. 8; 25 September 1897, p. 10; 2 October 1897, p. 9; 9 October 1897, p. 8; 30 October 1897, p. 9; and 6 November 1897, p. 11). [BACK]

42. Halifax Morning Chronicle , 28 September 1897, p. 8. [BACK]

43. Wormwood was performing at Harry Davis's Avenue Theater ( Pittsburgh Post , 14 November 1897, p. 16). [BACK]

44. Mail and Express , 5 October 1897, p. 5. [BACK]

45. Mail and Express , 16 October 1897, p. 14. [BACK]

46. "Danger in X-rays," Phonoscope , January—February 1897, p. 15; Clipper , 3 April 1897, p. 84. [BACK]

47. Edwin Porter, unused deposition, ca. 1907, legal files, NjWOE; Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 348. [BACK]

48. "Crowds at the Musee," Mail and Express , 5 February 1898, p. 5; and Mail and Express , 5 March 1898, p. 12. [BACK]

49. See Zdenek Stabla, Queries concerning the Horice Passion Film (Prague: Film Institute, 1971) and Kemp Niver and Bebe Bergsten, Klaw & Erlanger Present Famous Plays in Pictures (Los Angeles: Locare Research Group, 1976) for information about The Horitz Passion Play , filmed in Horitz, Bohemia. [BACK]

50. MPW , 22 February 1908, p. 132. [BACK]

51. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 371, gives some members of the cast and a generally informative account of this program. [BACK]

52. While the Mail and Express (19 February 1898, p. 15) gives the projection speed at twenty frames per second, a surviving print indicates that thirty frames per second would have been necessary if movements were to be natural. [BACK]

53. "Scenes of Bible Subjects," New York Tribune , 29 January 1898, p. 9. [BACK]

54. The Morse Passion Play was scheduled to open on December 7, 1880, but its producer, Henry E. Abbey, withdrew it at the last moment ("Mr. Abbey's Decision," NYT , 28 November 1880, p. 7). [BACK]

55. Phonoscope , March 1898, 2:3, p. 7. [BACK]

56. New York Tribune , 29 January 1898, p. 9. [BACK]

57. Mail and Express , 5 February 1898, p. 15. [BACK]

58. New York World , 1 February 1898, p. 9. [BACK]

59. Mail and Express , 5 February 1898, p. 15, and 19 February 1898, p. 15. [BACK]

60. "Ober-Ammergau's Passion Play," NYT , 12 December 1880, p. 5; New York Tribune , 12 December 1880, p. 2. [BACK]

61. Edison Films , July 1901, p. 5. [BACK]

62. Cecil M. Hepworth, Animated Photography — The ABC of Cinematography , 2nd rev. ed. (London: Amateur Photographer Library, [1900]). [BACK]

63. C. Francis Jenkins, Animated Pictures (Washington, D.C.: by the author, 1898), pp. 89-90. [BACK]

64. Ibid. [BACK]

65. See Macgowan, Behind the Screen , pp. 87-92. [BACK]

66. Mail and Express , 26 March 1898, p. 15. [BACK]

67. "Correspondence," NYDM , 26 March 1898, p. 7, and 9 April 1898, pp. 4-6. [BACK]

68. Edison Films , July 1901, p. 5. Although earlier Edison catalogs (e.g., Edison Films , May 1900, p. 2) advertise the films as only available in a set of twenty-two scenes (one having been dropped since the program's debut), exhibitors did not always show all scenes and almost certainly insisted on selective purchases. These practical realities are evident in the 1901 catalog. [BACK]

69. Lubin advertisement, Clipper , 28 May 1898, p. 932, and Sigmund Lubin, The Passion Play (Philadelphia: ca. 1904); Selig Polyscope Company, Films of the Passion Play (Chicago: ca. 1903). [BACK]

70. Thomas A. Edison v. Eden Musee American Company Ltd. and Richard G. Hollaman, individually and as President of said Company , nos. 6845 and 6846, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 7 February 1898, NjBaFAR. [BACK]

71. New York Herald , 6 February 1898, p. 7C. [BACK]

72. Only one Musee advertisement mentioned the biograph. David Levy, however, has argued that the Musee was able to acquire a sufficient quantity of 35mm films to satisfy

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spectators. He may be right, but descriptions such as those in the Mail and Express , 5 April 1898, p. 7, suggest that these films were taken by Biograph cameramen. [BACK]

73. Clipper , 19 March 1898, p. 42. [BACK]

74. New York Journal , 14 March 1898. [BACK]

75. "Patriotism at Theaters Shows No Diminution," New York World , 8 March 1898, p. 4. See also, "Chicago Enthusiasts," New York World , 24 February 1898, p. 3. [BACK]

76. New York World , 27 March 1898, p. 15. [BACK]

77. Mail and Express , 5 April 1898, p. 7. [BACK]

78. Clipper , 9 April 1898, p. 99. [BACK]

79. F. Z. Maguire to William Gilmore, 20 April 1898, NjWOE. [BACK]

80. "Yellow Journalism," Alfred Henry Lewis, New York Journal and Advertiser , 7 April 1898, p. 6. [BACK]

81. Paley to Edison Manufacturing Company, 12 March 1898, NjWOE. [BACK]

82. War Extra: Edison Films , 20 May 1898, pp. 5-7. [BACK]

83. Advertisement, Clipper , 30 April 1898, p. 153. [BACK]

84. F. Z. Maguire to William Gilmore, 20 April 1898, NjWOE. [BACK]

85. Phonoscope , October 1898, p. 15. [BACK]

86. "Bill Paley, the 'Kinetoscope Man,'" Phonoscope , August 1898, p. 7.

87. Marl and Express , 19 April 1898, p. 7.

88. Mail and Express , 7 May 1898, p. 14. [BACK]

87. Marl and Express , 19 April 1898, p. 7. [BACK]

88. Mail and Express , 7 May 1898, p. 14. [BACK]

89. Marl and Express , 21 May 1898, p. 14. Paley apparently retained close ties to the Musee and took films for its exclusive use. The Library of Congress Paper Print Collection, therefore, may offer only a portion of his wartime output. [BACK]

90. Traveling exhibitors generally did not respond to this opportunity as quickly as their urban counterparts. Most small-town residents did not have the opportunity to see Paley's films until the fall of 1898. [BACK]

91. The two Proctor theaters, Keith's Union Square, Pastor's, the Central Opera House, Huber's 14th Street Museum, and the Eden Musee. [BACK]

92. MPW , 7 December 1912, p. 961. Porter's interview is a little ambiguous on this point. He suggests not only that these were machines that he and Beadnell manufactured (presumably along with Frank Cannock) but that they had operators, and therefore a complete exhibition service in these houses. The Eden Musee offered its services as a film exhibitor to outside parties, suggesting that Hollaman may have had some kind of special arrangement with Porter and his associates. [BACK]

93. For a full account of American Vitagraph Company's activities as an Edison li-censee see Charles Musser, "American Vitagraph, 1897-1901," Cinema Journal 23, no. 3 (Spring 1983): 4-46. A major revision of this article will soon be published in English.

94. "Eden Musee," Mail and Express , 11 June 1898, p. 14. [BACK]

94. "Eden Musee," Mail and Express , 11 June 1898, p. 14. [BACK]

95. "Eden Musee," Mail and Express , 25 June 1898, p. 14. [BACK]

96. Mail and Express , 16 July 1898, p. 18. [BACK]

97. Mail and Express , 9 July 1898, p. 16. [BACK]

98. New York Tribune , 7 August 1898, p. 10B.

99. Mail and Express , 27 August 1898, p. 12.

100. Mail and Express , 17 September 1898, p. 14. [BACK]

99. Mail and Express , 27 August 1898, p. 12. [BACK]

100. Mail and Express , 17 September 1898, p. 14. [BACK]

101. Mail and Express , 1 October 1898, p. 12, and 1 November 1898, p. 5. [BACK]

102. Brooklyn Eagle , 20 November 1898, p. 18. [BACK]

103. See Musser with Nelson, High-Class Moving Pictures , pp. 86-93. [BACK]

104. For example, Proctor advertisements, New York World , 21 August 1898, p. 13. [BACK]

105. Clipper , 4 June 1898, p. 238, and 18 June 1898, p. 270. [BACK]

106. Proctor's Pleasure Palace, programme, week of 11 July 1898, Harvard Theatre Collection. [BACK]

107. ''Last Week's Bill, Pleasure Palace,'' NYDM , 19 November 1898, p. 20. [BACK]

108. New York Tribune , 4 December 1898, p. 8B; Mail and Express , 20 December 1898, p. 7. [BACK]

109. New York Tribune , 8 January 1899, p. 12B. [BACK]

110. New York Tribune , 1 January 1899, p. 10B. [BACK]

111. New York Herald , 6 February 1898, p. 7C. Gilmore to Paley, 7 March 1898, mentions this film, indicating it had already been completed. [BACK]

112. New York Tribune , 15 January 1899, p. 12B. [BACK]

113. Edison Films , March 1900, p. 2. [BACK]

114. Albert Eaves and Rich Hollaman, receipt, 19 July 1899, NjWOE. [BACK]

115. These were named after the Théâtre Robert-Houdin, which was owned and operated by the Parisian magician turned filmmaker. [BACK]

116. Mail and Express , 8 April 1899, p. 11. Erik Barnouw, The Magician and the Cinema (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981) deals extensively with those magicians who used cinema in the 1890s. Lucy Fischer, "The Lady Vanishes: Women, Magic and the Movies," in Fell, ed., Film Before Griffith , pp. 339-54. [BACK]

117. Porter, unused deposition, circa 1907, NjWOE. [BACK]

118. The veriscope's wide-screen format also matched the boxing ring. [BACK]

119. Clipper , 9 September 1899, p. 571. [BACK]

120. Clipper , 23 September 1899, p. 609. [BACK]

121. Clipper , 9 September 1899, p. 571. [BACK]

122. Ibid. [BACK]

123. "Palmer-M'Govern Bout Off Until To-morrow," New York Evening Journal , 11 September 1899, p. 8. [BACK]

124. Clipper , 23 September 1899, p. 620. As was the case throughout this period, Sigmund Lubin enjoyed modest, but certain, financial gains by taking motion pictures of fight reenactments. [BACK]

125. Mail and Express , 23 September 1899, p. 17. [BACK]

126. Edison Films , March 1900, p. 7. One might speculate on the makeup of these crews: James White, William Heise, Charles Webster (a recently hired Edison employee), Albert E. Smith, J. Stuart Blackton, and William Paley. Perhaps Alfred C. Abadie and William Jamison, who worked for the Edison Manufacturing Company. Porter is another obvious possibility, although he never made such a claim. [BACK]

127. Mail and Express , 30 September 1899, p. 13. [BACK]

128. Mail and Express , 3 October 1899, p. 7. [BACK]

129. Mail and Express , 28 October 1899, p. 15. [BACK]

130. Lewis Jacobs reports that Porter began working for Edison as a handyman, totally ignoring his role as an exhibitor in the 1890s; he also indicates that Porter had been working as a cameraman for Edison during much of this period ( Rise of the American Film , p. 36). These incorrect claims may have encouraged Kemp R. Niver to attribute several Edison films from the 1898-1900 period to Porter, including The Cavalier's

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Dream, Elopement on Horseback, The Astor Tramp , and Storm at Sea ( Motion Pictures from the Library of Congress Paper Print Collection 1894-1912 [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967], p. 361). As the evidence presented in this chapter suggests, Ramsaye offers a much more credible chronology of Porter's career. [BACK]

131. Clipper , 7 October 1899, p. 652. [BACK]

132. Clipper , 4 November 1899, p. 756. [BACK]

133. New York World , 24 December 1899, p. 3E. [BACK]

134. Porter, unused deposition, ca. 1907, NjWOE. An advertisement in the Clipper (11 August 1900, p. 535) from Frank Bowland in New York City, asked Edwin Porter to "communicate with me at once," suggesting that Porter was then on the road. [BACK]

135. William H. Swanson, "The Inception of the 'Black Top,'" MPW , 15 July 1916, p. 369. Swanson's dating is off, but other parts of his description merit some credibility. [BACK]

136. As of December 8, 1899, the Edison Company had sold 973 projecting kinetoscopes (James H. White, testimony, 9 February 1900, Edison v. American Mutoscope Co ., p. 165). See appendix A for additional figures. [BACK]

137. NYDM , 22 October 1898, p. 22. [BACK]

138. Maguire & Baucus, Edison Films , 20 January 1897; War Extra: Edison Films , 20 May 1898; Clipper , 23 July 1898, p. 348. See Lubin advertisements in the Clipper for this period as a source of competitive pressure. [BACK]

139. New York World , 5 November 1899, p. 8E, 12 November 1899, p. 5E, and 19 November 1899, p. 6E; Clipper , 21 April 1900, p. 184. [BACK]

140. Thomas A. Edison v. Eberhard Schneider , nos. 7124 and 7125, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 21 December 1898, NjBaFAR. [BACK]

141. Thomas Edison and Thomas Crahan, contract, 14 March 1899, NjWOE. [BACK]

142. "Making Pictures of the Klondike," Orange Chronicle , 28 October 1899, p. 6; New York Press , 30 October 1899, and Newark [N.J.] Call , 29 October 1899, clippings, NjWOE. [BACK]

143. I am also grateful for information about Bonine's early life from Robert Darrah and Kenneth Nelson. See Kenneth Nelson, "A Compilation of Information About Robert Kates Bonine, 1862-1923, with an Examination of His Early Years in Photography and Film" (M.A. thesis, Rochester Institute of Technology, 1987). [BACK]

144. Thomas Edison and Thomas Crahan, contract, 14 March 1899, NjWOE. Although the 35mm films were to be Edison's exclusive property, the failure of the large-format camera must have altered this agreement. [BACK]

145. Thomas Edison to John Ott, n.d. [ca. November 1899], NjWOE. [BACK]

146. Moving Picture News , 4 February 1911, p. 11. Schneider provided this information to denigrate Edison's patents and so it requires some interpretation. [BACK]

147. The American Scenic Company, Artistic Glimpses of the Wonder World (Thomas Crahan, 1900), NjWOE. [BACK]

148. Thomas Crahan, Klondike Exposition Company, and Thomas Edison, contract, 18 June 1900, NjWOE. [BACK]

149. Phonoscope , October 1898, p. 14; William Heise, testimony, 9 December 1902, Armat Moving Picture Co. v. Edison Manufacturing Co . [BACK]

150. "Fake Pictures," Phonoscope , July 1900, p. 9. [BACK]

151. Niver, Early Motion Pictures , p. 170. [BACK]

152. Edison Films , March 1900, p. 29. [BACK]

153. Ibid., p. 44. [BACK]

154. Ibid., p. 30. [BACK]

155. Ibid., p. 3. [BACK]

156. Ibid. [BACK]

157. "How the Bowery Tramp Got into Society," New York World , 25 November 1894, p. 25. [BACK]

158. Edison Films , July 1901, p. 13. [BACK]

159 Edison Films , March 1900, p. 3. [BACK]

160. Biograph made The American Soldier in Love and War in 1903. Although its plot is somewhat similar, it was not a simple remake. [BACK]

161. The Edison Company gained access to Smith's device when American Vitagraph became a licensee in the summer of 1898. [BACK]

162. "Our Foreign Correspondence," Phonoscope , July 1900, p. 9. [BACK]

163. William Alfred Higginbotham to Herbert Serious, New York Public Library, 3 November 1982. Susan Kemplar kindly brought this to my attention. [BACK]

164. "Our Foreign Correspondence," Phonoscope , July 1900, p. 9. This was one of several efforts to show motion pictures with recorded sound at the Paris Exposition. See Emmanuelle Toulet, "Le Cinéma a l'Exposition Universelie de 1900," Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 33 (April-June 1986): 179-209. [BACK]

165. Warwick Trading Company, Bioscope and Warwick Films, Supplement (September 1900), p. 149. "The first section comprises a close-view of the base of the chimney showing the lighting of the fire for burning the props which support the column. Next is shown a view from a distance, showing the fierce burning of the props." [BACK]

166. See Charles Musser with Carol Nelson, High Class Moving Pictures , pp. 105-9, for a programme that structured eight of these films into a sequence and an analysis of Howe's use of these films. [BACK]

167. Moving Picture News , 4 February 1911, p. 11. White intended to buy a group of negatives taken by Schneider in Europe but ruined many of them using the bad hypo. [BACK]

168. Thomas A. Edison v. Frederick M. Prescott , nos. 7275 and 7276, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 9 June 1899, NjBaFAR. Perhaps to fill this hole, James White engaged Charles Webster, his former partner, to sell projecting machines and films at Edison's New York office. Charles H. Webster, deposition, 9 February 1900, Edison v. American Muto-scope Co . [BACK]

169. Kleine Optical Company, "Films and Merchandise Purchased from Edison Mfg Company from 1899 to 1904," n.d., Kleine Collection, DLC. [BACK]

170. James H. White and John Schermerhorn v. Percival Waters , Supreme Court, New York County. The entire case focused on the nature of this partnership. [BACK]

171. White, testimony, 4, 5, and 6 May 1910, White and Schermerhorn v. Waters , p. 99. [BACK]

172. Conot, Streak of Luck , passim. [BACK]

173. Thomas A. Edison v. George Huber , no. 7224, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 28 April 1899, NjBaFAR. [BACK]

174. New York World , 19 November 1899, p. 5E. [BACK]

175. Harry Marvin to Thomas Edison, 27 March 1900, NjWOE. [BACK]

176. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 384. [BACK]

177. Edison Manufacturing Company, journal, 1900-1911, p. 8, NjWOE. The Edison

Page 514

Manufacturing Company produced not only films and projectors but batteries, fan motors, the Phonoplex, gas engine spark coils, and x-ray apparatus. [BACK]

1. "Edwin S. Porter," MPW , 7 December 1912, p. 961. The fact that Beadnell's business at 5 Beekman Street in 1900 was terminated and he was working the following year as a manager at 16 Warren Street supports Porter's reference to a conflagration (New York City directories, 1900 and 1902). [BACK]

2. Edwin Porter, testimony, 17 February 1911, Motion Picture Patents Company v. Carl Laemmle and Independent Moving Picture Company of America , no. 7-151, D.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 27 March 1911, NjBaFAR. [BACK]

3. Ibid. [BACK]

4. Clipper , 2 March 1901, p. 24. [BACK]

5. Edison Manufacturing Company, investment ledger, p. 20, NjWOE. [BACK]

6. Edison Manufacturing Company and Hinkle Iron Company, contract, 12 October 1900, NjWOE. This building has since been torn down and replaced by a New York Savings Bank. [BACK]

7. Edison Manufacturing Company, investment ledger, p. 20; E. E. Hinkle to William Simpkin, 12 January 1901, NjWOE. [BACK]

8. Percival Waters, deposition, 25 May 1912, James H. White and John Schermerhorn v. Percwal Waters , Supreme Court for the County of New York, NNNCC-Ar. This deposition describes the situation in 1906. Waters may have only occupied the front half of the top floor at first. The rent would have been somewhat less, but the basic arrangment was the same. [BACK]

9. MPW , 7 December 1912, p. 961. [BACK]

10. Bordwell, Staiger, and Thompson, Classical Hollywood Cinema , pp. 116-17. As we have seen, various methods of organizing film production were practiced before 1907, including the multi-unit production of actualities (as with the Dewey celebration). The question is which method, if any, was dominant. [BACK]

11. James White to Dyer, Edmonds and Dyer, 10 January 1901, legal files, NjWOE. [BACK]

12. Jacobs, American Film , p. 36. [BACK]

13. Robert C. Allen, "Contra the Chaser Theory," Wide Angle 3, no. 1 (1979), pp. 4-11; repr. in Fell, ed., Film Before Griffith , pp. 105-15. [BACK]

14. Leslie Weekly , 6 July 1899, cited in Kemp Niver, Biograph Bulletins : 1896-1908 (Los Angeles: Artisan Press, 1971), p. 46. [BACK]

15. Harry Marvin, request for stay of injunction, 23 July 1901, Edison v. American Mutoscope Co . [BACK]

16. Clipper , 23 February 1901, p. 1160. [BACK]

17. New York Journal and Advertiser , 6 February 1901, p. 16, and 7 February 1901, p. 3. [BACK]

18. "Ninth and Arch Museum," Philadelphia Record , 24 February 1901, p. 13. Possibly, Lubin showed his own remake (mentioned below) even at this early date. [BACK]

19. Lubin's film is described in Clipper , 9 March 1901, p. 24. The Biograph film,

Page 515

Carrie Nation Smashing a Saloon , was photographed on 10 April 1901. Its realism was increased by the inclusion of an actual mirror. The Biograph film survives in the Paper Print Collection; the Lubin film is presumed lost. [BACK]

20. "Eleventh Street Theatre," Philadelphia Record , 17 February 1901, p. 13. [BACK]

21. New York World , 12 May 1901, p. 2 (comic section). [BACK]

22. New York Journal and Advertiser , 2 February 1902, pp. 1A and 1B. [BACK]

23. Tom Gunning makes this point in "The Non-Continuous Style of Early Film (1900-1906)," in Holman, comp., Cinema, 1900-1906 , pp. 219-29. Gunning's analysis is extremely useful, but I find his term non-continuous an unfortunate one. Filmmakers of this period had their own concept of continuity. While differing from the post-Griffith concept, it is nonetheless valid. Catalogs from the period, for instance, sometimes refer to films being in "continuous scenes." [BACK]

24. New Haven Journal Courier , 30 October 1899, p. 3. [BACK]

25. Edison Films , July 1901, p. 77. [BACK]

26. Ibid., p. 72. [BACK]

27. Niver, Motion Pictures from the Library of Congress , p. 94. See also Niver, First Twenty Years , pp. 16-17. [BACK]

28. Noël Burch, Correction Please: A Study Guide (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1980), provides a provocative analysis of a similar explosion film. [BACK]

29. Edison Films , July 1901, p. 76. [BACK]

30. John Barnes, Optical Projection , p. 32, attributes the invention of dissolving views to Henry Langdon Childe in 1836-37. [BACK]

31. Hepworth, Came the Dawn , pp. 35-36. [BACK]

32. Edison Films , July 1901, p. 51. [BACK]

33. One might speculate on Porter's frequent use of trained animals. This (and perhaps even the Porter-Mosher relationship) may have owed something to Porter's travels with Wormwood's Dog and Monkey Circus. [BACK]

34. Edison Films , July 1901, p. 51. [BACK]

35. F. M. Prescott, Catalogue of New Films (New York: 20 November 1899), p. 4. See Sigmund Lubin, Complete Catalogue of Lubin Films (January 1903), pp. 21-22, for description. The film itself can be seen in the Before Hollywood series (American Federation of the Arts). [BACK]

36. Certainly Lubin cannot simply be dismissed as an imitator as in Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , pp. 377 and 419. [BACK]

37. The English filmmaker G. A. Smith did this with some frequency in such films as Let Me Dream Again and Grandma's Reading Glass . His efforts were widely imitated, particularly by Ferdinand Zecca, the chief filmmaker at Pathé Frères in France. [BACK]

38. Clipper , 13 April 1901, p. 160. [BACK]

39. Clipper , 13 April 1901, p. 147. The Edison Company's long-standing relationship with Buffalo Bill dated back to the fall of 1894, when Broncho Busting and other films were photographed at the Edison laboratory. [BACK]

40. Edison Films , July 1901, p. 80. [BACK]

41. See Rachel Low and Roger Manvell, The History, of British Film, 1896-1906 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1948), pp. 104-5, for a description of Robbery of a Mail Coach . Sadoul suggests that Robbery of a Mail Coach was a model for The Great

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Train Robbery ( Histoire générale , 3d ed., 2:407-8). The holdup of a stagecoach was such a popular situation and portrayed so frequently in different forms of popular culture that its use at a given time or place probably did not have any single antecedent. [BACK]

42. A few of these were later copyrighted: Japanese Village on 31 July 1901 and Esquimaux Village on 9 August 1901. [BACK]

43. Clipper , 1 and 8 June 1901, pp. 312 and 336. This supplement does not survive, but extensive descriptions can be found in Edison Films , July 1901, pp. 3-7. [BACK]

44. Clipper , 8 June 1901, p. 336; Edison Films , July 1901, p. 91. [BACK]

45. Edison Films , July 1901, pp. 86-88. It is possible, though unlikely, that some of these are dupes of competitors' pictures. [BACK]

46. 110 Federal Reporter , pp. 660-64. [BACK]

47. 110 Federal Reporter , pp. 664-65. [BACK]

48. H. J. Collins, depositions, 2 August 1901 to March 1902, Edison v. American Mutoscope Co ., NjBaFAR. [BACK]

49. Sigmund Lubin, testimony, 11 March 1914, United States of America v. Motion Picture Patents Company , no. 889, September sessions, 1912, D.C.E.D.P., printed record, p. 3046; Jacob Blair Smith, testimony, 20 May 1902, Thomas A. Edison v. Siegmund Lubin , no. 36, April sessions, 1902, C.C.E.D.P., filed 25 February 1902, PPFAR. [BACK]

50. Thomas Armat to Thomas A. Edison, 15 November 1901, NjWOE. [BACK]

51. Howard W. Hayes to William Gilmore, 31 July 1901, NjWOE. [BACK]

52. "How Moving Pictures Are Made in Pittsburgh for Amusement, Practical and Scientific Purposes," Pittsburgh Post , 9 December 1906, p. 4G. [BACK]

53. Notes on newspaper reproduction, Charles Hummel Collection. That Abadie, a cameraman, acted in this film emphasizes the ways in which production personnel assumed many different roles, avoiding specialization. [BACK]

54. Judith Mayne, "Uncovering the Female Body," in Leyda and Musser, eds., Before Hollywood , p. 65. [BACK]

55. Tom Gunning, "Cinema of Attraction[s]," p. 64. [BACK]

56. "Dime Museum," Philadelphia Record , 1 May 1898, p. 16. In this instance, Charmion appeared on the same bill with Little Egypt. [BACK]

57. The making of The Tramp's Miraculous Escape and The Photographer's Mishap is described in the Photographic Times-Bulletin , November 1902, pp. 525-26. [BACK]

58. F. M. Prescott, Catalogue of New Films (New York, 1899), p. 4. [BACK]

59. New York Journal and Advertiser , 24 July 1901, p. 16. [BACK]

60. In an interview eleven years later, Porter recalled serving under Admiral Schley. Rhetorically asking himself, "What did I think of Schley?" Porter responded, "He was a very fine man" (MPW, 7 December 1912, p. 961). [BACK]

61. Clipper , 10 August 1901, p. 552. [BACK]

62. "Spanish Fleet's Destruction," Utica Observer , 15 March 1899, p. 8. [BACK]

63. For instance: "Sampson Says Officers Must Be Gentlemen. No Promotion for Sailors," New York Journal and Advertiser , 25 February 1901, p. 1. [BACK]

64. Kleine Optical Company, Complete Illustrated Catalogue of Moving Picture Machines, Stereopticons, Magic Lanterns, Accessories and Stereopticon Views (Chicago, June 1902), p. 108. [BACK]

65. A technique of set construction often found in life-model lantern slides and the films of Georges Méliès. [BACK]

66. Clipper , 31 August 1901, p. 583. [BACK]

67. San Francisco Orpheum, programme, 26 November 1899, San Francisco Historical Society. [BACK]

68. Edison Films , September 1902, p. 12. [BACK]

69. Clipper , 14 September 1901, p. 624, offers a listing of photographed subjects, many of which were never actually offered for sale. They include President McKinley at the Stadium, President McKinley Walking on the Exposition Grounds, President McKinley at the Niagara Power Plant , and President McKinley Entering the Temple of Music . [BACK]

70. "Kinetoscope Scenes in Buffalo Tragedy," New York World , 10 September 1901, p. 3. In Moving Picture News , 2 April 1910, Smith claims to have photographed McKinley the day before he was shot. [BACK]

71. Edison Films , September 1902, p. 12. These films were copyrighted as: Arrival of McKinley's Funeral Train at Canton, Ohio; Taking President McKinley's Body from Train at Canton, Ohio; President Roosevelt at Canton Station; Panoramic View of the President's House at Canton, Ohio; Funeral Leaving the President's House and Church at Canton, Ohio ; and McKinley's Funeral Entering Westlawn Cemetery, Canton . [BACK]

72. Searchlight Theater, programme, 13 October 1901, DLC; Lyman Howe Moving Picture Company, programme, 22 November 1901, Robert Gillaum Collection (PWbH). Appropriate sections of both programmes are reprinted in Musser with Nelson, High-Class Moving Pictures , forthcoming. [BACK]

73. Oswego [New York] Times , 20 November 1901, clipping, NjWOE. [BACK]

74. This statement is extrapolated from purchases made by George Kleine; Kleine Optical Company, "Films and Merchandise Purchased from Edison Mfg. Co. from 1899 to 1904," Kleine Collection, DLC. [BACK]

75. L. J. Marcy, Marcy's Sciopticon: Priced Catalogue of Sciopticon Apparatus and Magic Lantern Slides , 6th ed. (Philadelphia, ca. 1878), p. 32:

OUR DEPARTED HEROES. Dissolving chromotrope. Arranged for dissolving effect, for two lanterns on two slides. One slider exhibits the National colors in Cromatic effect, with black center for the one lantern. The other, intended for the other lantern, contains on a movable slider five life-like portraits of distinguished heros who lost their lives for the preservation of the union. [BACK]

76. Edison Films , September 1902, p. 17. [BACK]

77. Although Porter took credit for this film in his interview with George Blaisdell ( MPW , 7 December 1912, p. 961), it seems likely that James Smith and James White were also involved. [BACK]

78. Edison Films , September 1902, p. 22. [BACK]

79. Ibid., p. 90. [BACK]

80. Clipper , 16 November 1901, p. 832. [BACK]

81. For example, "Chic Paree," The Phonoscope , November 1896, p. 10. [BACK]

82. "Execution of Czolgosz," NYT , 15 October 1901, p. 11; "Begging to See Czolgosz's Death," New York Journal , 22 October 1901, p. 1. [BACK]

83. New York World , 29 October 1901, p. 3. Other amusement centers took similar actions. The Eden Musee placed Czolgosz's wax look-alike in its Chamber of Horrors electric chair, and "a museum keeper in a large city telegraphed an offer of $5,000 for either the body or the garments of the murderer" (ibid.). [BACK]

84. Clipper , 16 November 1901, p. 832. [BACK]

85. Iris Barry, note in collection of Edison material, n.d., NNMoMA. In France, Pathé Frères did not have the same hesitations: they recreated the assassination and offered it for sale ( Films Pathé [Paris: Compagnie Générale des Phonographes, Cinématographes et Appareils de Précision, May 1903], p. 63). [BACK]

86. Edison Films , September 1902, p. 91. [BACK]

87. Other examples include Bamforth's Kiss in the Tunnel (ca. 1900), Williamson's Fire! (1901), and Méliès' Bluebeard (1901). [BACK]

88. Clipper , 16 November 1901, p. 832. [BACK]

89. New York World , 29 October 1901, p. 3. [BACK]

90. "Assassin Czolgosz is Executed at Auburn," NYT , 30 October 1901, p. 5. [BACK]

91. Thomas Edison to T. Cushing Daniel, 14 December 1901, Edison letter book, 5 September 1901 to 3 March 1902, p. 224, NjWOE. Edison's letters indicate a comparative disinterest in moving pictures relative to the phonograph and other business undertakings. They also reveal a frequent shortage of funds for various business schemes. He never devoted the money or attention that might have made his film business comparable to Pathé's in France and Europe. [BACK]

92. Clipper , 19 October 1901, p. 748. [BACK]

93. James White, testimony, 4 May 1910, White and Schermerhorn v. Waters , printed record, p. 108. [BACK]

94. Newark Advertiser , 1 November 1901, clipping, NjWOE. [BACK]

95. "Tammany 'Grafts' Pictured," New York Tribune , 8 October 1901, p. 2. [BACK]

96. "A Stereopticon Explosion," NYT , 15 October 1901, p. 2. [BACK]

97. Clipper , 23 November 1901, p. 586. See Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , pp. 404-5, for a greatly exaggerated account of this deal's importance to the film industry. Some commissioned films have survived in the George Kleine Collection (DLC), corroborating White's assertion that they provided an important source of income. [BACK]

98. James White, testimony, 4 May 1910, p. 108. [BACK]

99. "The Films That Failed," Phonoscope , May 1899, p. 14. [BACK]

100. San Francisco Chronicle , 16 November 1901, p. 9. [BACK]

101. New York World , 16 November 1901, p. 2. [BACK]

102. James White, testimony, 4 May 1910, pp. 107-8. [BACK]

103. Kleine Optical Company, Complete Illustrated Catalogue , June 1902, p. 99. [BACK]

104. Clipper , 7 December 1901, p. 880. [BACK]

105. Edison Manufacturing Company, Edison Films , September 1902, p. 4. [BACK]

106. "100 Automobiles in Parade," New York World , 17 November 1901, p. 2. [BACK]

107. Perhaps Edwin Porter returned East after helping White make films in British Columbia. [BACK]

108. R. W. Paul, Catalogue for 1901/02 Season (London, 1901), offers the following description:

The Countryman's First Sight of the Animated Pictures

This amusing novelty is a representation of an animated photograph exhibition and shows the stage, proscenium and screen. The first picture thrown on the screen is that of a dancer, and a yokel in the audience becomes so excited over this that he climbs upon the stage, and expresses his delight in pantomime as the picture proceeds. The next picture

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(within the picture) is that of an express train, which rushes towards the yokel at full speed, so that he becomes frightened, and runs off at the wings. The last scene produced is that of the yokel himself, making love to a dairy-maid, and he becomes so enraged that he tears down the screen, disclosing the machine and operator, whom he severely handles. Length 50 ft. [BACK]

109. See still in Films Pathé , May 1903, p. 38, or Sadoul, Histoire générale , 3d ed., 2:186. [BACK]

110. Edison Films , September 1902, p. 104. [BACK]

111. Ibid., p. 93. [BACK]

112. "Cash for Chicago ticket to Porter," James White to Percival Waters, 25 November 1902, exhibit 4A, White and Schermerhorn v. Waters . The invoice does not specify the purpose or date of this trip, but Prince Henry was the only film taken in Chicago during the period. [BACK]

113. Edison Films , March 1902, p. 92. [BACK]

114. Pathé produced a very similar film, Love-Sick , which the Kinetograph Department may have copied ( Films Pathé , May 1903, p. 26). [BACK]

115. Albany Evening Journal , 20 May 1901, p. 10. [BACK]

116. Albany Evening Journal , 24 May 1901, p. 10; Clipper , 25 May 1901, p. 292. [BACK]

117. Germain Lacasse avec la collaboration de Serge Duigou, L'Historiographe: Les Débuts du spectacle cinématographique au Quebec (Montreal: Cinémathèque Québécoise, 1985), p. 33. [BACK]

118. Robert C. Allen, "Contra the Chaser Theory." Allen demonstrates that many historians referred to this situation without the evidence to back it up. I challenge his conclusions in "Another Look at the 'Chaser Period.'" [BACK]

119. Judge Wallace, opinion, Thomas A. Edison v. American Mutoscope & Biograph Company , 114 Federal Reporter , p. 934. An appeal to the Supreme Court was turned down on 2 June 1902. Edison then paid court costs of $2,618.65. [BACK]

120. Clipper , 22 March 1902, p. 92. [BACK]

121. Clipper , 29 March 1902, p. 110. [BACK]

122. Clipper , 29 March 1902, p. 109, and 12 April 1902, p. 156. [BACK]

123. Thomas A. Edison v. Siegmund Lubin , no. 36, April sessions, 1902, C.C.E.D.P., filed 25 February 1902, PPFAR. [BACK]

124. Clipper , 5 April 1902, p. 140. [BACK]

125. Payroll records indicate that this announcement lacked any basis. It could only be seen as a belated announcement of Smith's addition to the staff almost a year before. [BACK]

126. East Orange Gazette , 24 April 1902, clipping, NjWOE. [BACK]

127. Howard Hayes to William Gilmore, 22 August 1902, NjWOE. [BACK]

128. James White was in Europe during the making of both Appointment by Telephone and Jack and the Beanstalk . [BACK]

129. Edison Films , September 1902, p. 122. [BACK]

130. Prescott, Catalogue of New Films , 1899, pp. 18-19. These films are not listed consecutively. One wonders if this suggests that the films could be shown as part of the same program but not actually juxtaposed. One could imagine the showman telling his audience, "And now we return to the gay young man with those wicked intentions." In the earlier films, the typewriter conspires with the wife while in the Porter film the discovery is by chance. [BACK]

131. Arthur S. White was hired in November 1900 as a replacement for Charles Webster, who apparently decided to try his luck as an exhibitor. [BACK]

132. Edwin S. Porter, deposition, 20 October 1902, Thomas A. Edison v. Arthur D. Hotaling , no. 8317, C.C.S.D.N.Y. This deposition, which was not submitted to the courts, is located in legal files, NjWOE. [BACK]

133. E. J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962), pp. 319-25, for a discussion of the fairy tale during the early nineteenth century. [BACK]

134. Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (New York: Knopf, 1976), p. 194. [BACK]

135. Vardac, Stage to Screen , pp. 181-82. [BACK]

136. Edison Films , September 1902, p. 116. [BACK]

137. Another view on this problem is taken by Barry Salt, Film Style and Technology: History and Analysis (London: Starword, 1983), pp. 53 and 55. [BACK]

138. Clipper , 24 May 1902, p. 301. [BACK]

139. Clipper , 12 July 1902, p. 444. [BACK]

140. William Gilmore to William Pelzer, 29 July 1902, NjWOE. [BACK]

141. Clipper , 12 July 1902, p. 444. [BACK]

142. Jersey City Journal, 2 June 1902, clipping, NjWOE. [BACK]

143. Clipper , 24 May 1902, p. 301. [BACK]

144. Edison Films , September 1902, p. 113. [BACK]

145. Chautauqua [N.Y.] Daily Assembly Herald , May to September 1902. [BACK]

146. Walter Parker to Thomas A. Edison, 17 November 1908, NjWOE. These films may also have been taken by William Wright or possibly the Miles Brothers. [BACK]

147. Denver Post , 9 and 10 October 1902. The same carnival that White filmed in 1897. The contest was won by M. T. Sowders of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show amidst charges of fraud. [BACK]

148. A. C. Abadie to Iris Barry, 11 January 1936, NNMoMA. [BACK]

149. Arthur White, statement, 10 November 1939, Merritt Crawford Collection, NNMoMA. [BACK]

150. Clipper , 4 October 1902, p. 712. [BACK]

151. "Reminiscences of Edwin S. Porter, or the History of the Motion Picture," NYT , 2 June 1940, p. 4J. [BACK]

152. Edison Films , February 1903, p. 8. [BACK]

153. André Bazin, Jean Renoir (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973), pp. 87-89. [BACK]

1. Newark Evening News , 15 November 1902, p. 1B. [BACK]

2. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 415. Eileen Bowser, ed., Film Notes (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1969), p. 3, and other publications cite Arthur White as the star of Life of an American Fireman . This can be traced to an interview with Arthur White from the 1940s in which he takes credit for many of his brother's accomplishments ( Motion Picture Herald , 12 February 1944, p. 28). In fact, James White seems to have remained in the film. [BACK]

3. "White-Dede," NYT , 1 December 1902, p. 9. [BACK]

4. New York Herald , 8 March 1903, 14E, see ad for Circle Theater; Keith's Union Square Theater, programme, week of 13 April 1903, PP. [BACK]

5. Reading [Pa.] Eagle , 10 April 1904, p. 4. [BACK]

6. Both lectures and all twelve images are reproduced in Charles Musser, ''Bob the Fireman,'' Les Cahlers de la Cinémathèque 29 (Winter 1979): 147-51. [BACK]

7. "Last Week's Bill/Keith's Union Square," NYDM , 3 October 1896, p. 19. [BACK]

8. Edison Films , September 1902, pp. 66-67. [BACK]

9. Selig Polyscope Company, minutes, 18 December 1900, p. 9, CLAc. [BACK]

10. S. Lubin, Catalogue No. 3: New Films (Philadelphia, 1902), p. 8. [BACK]

11. Georges Sadoul, Histoire générale , 3d ed., 2:400-401. [BACK]

12. A reproduction of this painting can be found in Linda Nochlin, Realism (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1971), p. 136. [BACK]

13. History of Coney Island (New York: Burroughs and Co., ca. 1905), pp. 12-13; Biograph Bulletin no. 27, 11 August 1904, reprinted in Niver, Biograph Bulletins , p. 119. [BACK]

14. Couvares, Remaking of Pittsburgh , pp. 45-50. The concept of "plebeian culture" was developed by E. P. Thompson, "Patrician Society, Plebeian Culture," Journal of Social History 7 (1974): 382-405. Such cultural activities engaged different social classes on an egalitarian basis with the center of gravity in the lower classes. [BACK]

15. Edison Films , February 1903, p. 2. [BACK]

16. Erich Auerbach, Mimesis , trans. Willard Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), p. 114. [BACK]

17. Gerard J. Brault, trans., The Song of Roland (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1978), pp. 145-47. [BACK]

18. Ibid., p. 137. [BACK]

19. Jean Rychner, Chanson de geste: Essai sur l'art des jongleurs (Geneva: E. Droz, 1955), p. 25. [BACK]

20. This particular parallel was suggested to me by Brian Winston. [BACK]

21. Rychner, Chanson de geste , p. 37. [BACK]

22. Sergei Eisenstein, "Dickens, Griffith and the Film Today" in Film Form: Essays in Film Theory , ed. and trans. Jay Leyda (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1949), pp. 199-255. [BACK]

23. Tbeatre Magazine , May 1913, pp. 156, 158, and viii. George Pratt kindly brought this statement to my attention. [BACK]

24. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , pp. 414-15. [BACK]

25. Jacobs, Rise of the American Film , p. 35. [BACK]

26. Sadoul, Histoire générale , 3d ed., 2:397. [BACK]

27. Jean Mitry, Histoire du cinéma , vol. 1 (Paris: Editions Universitaires, 1967), p. 237. [BACK]

28. Jay Leyda has suggested that William Jamison, who made the original copyright photographs for Life of an American Fireman while working for the Edison Company and later worked at the Museum of Modern Art, may have been responsible for this modernized version. [BACK]

29. Macgowan, Behind the Screen , pp. 113-14. [BACK]

30. Mast, Short History of the Movies , 2d ed. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1976), p. 42. His reference to Last Year at Marienbad alludes to Robert Gessner, "Porter and the Creation of Cinematic Motion," Journal of the Society of Cinematologists 2 (1962): 1-13.

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The most recent edition of Mast's book unfortunately does not revise this section based on current scholarly work, perhaps because the DLC version does not fit into his historical framework. [BACK]

31. Deslandes and Richard, Histoire comparée , 2:385. [BACK]

32. For a detailed comparison of the two versions, see Charles Musser, "The Early Cinema of Edwin Porter," Cinema Journal 19 (Fall 1979): 29-31; and André Gaudreault, "Detours in Film Narrative: The Development of Cross-cutting," Cinema Journal 19 (Fall 1979): 39-59. [BACK]

33. In 1908, the Amusement Supply Company still devoted many pages of its catalog to programs for which the exhibitor integrated slides and films. [BACK]

1. Phonograph Monthly , March 1903, p. 5. [BACK]

2. Gilmore to Edison, 27 August 1903, NjWOE. [BACK]

3. Gilmore to Edison, 2 March 1903, NjWOE. [BACK]

4. Animated Photo Projecting Company v. American Mutoscope Company and Benjamin Keith , no. 7130, C.C.S.D.N.Y., NjBaFAR. On patent no. 586,953. [BACK]

5. Thomas Armat, testimony, 2 December 1913, United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co ., printed record, p. 2184. [BACK]

6. Armat Moving Picture Co. v. Edison Manufacturing Co ., no. 8303, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 28 November 1902, NjBaFAR. Armat claimed Edison did not resume sales of projectors until June 1903. Thomas Armat, testimony, 2 December 1913, p. 2180. [BACK]

7. Thomas Armat to Gilmore, 11 April 1903, NjWOE. [BACK]

8. Charles W. Luhr, testimony, 27 June 1907, Armat Moving Picture Co. v. Edison Manufacturing Co . When describing the principle of the intermittent mechanism, Armat's patent simply indicated that the period of rest (when the film was stationary in front of the light source) had to be more than the period of change (when the film frame was being moved forward). This half-shutter made the period of rest equal to the period of change and, hypothetically at least, avoided Armat's patent. [BACK]

9. Howard W. Hayes, argument, Edison v. Lubin , no. 36, April sessions, 1902, PPFAR. [BACK]

10. Sigmund Lubin, answer, Edison v. Lubin , no. 36, April sessions. [BACK]

11. Edison v. Lubin , 119 Federal Reporter , p. 993. [BACK]

12. Orange Chronicle , 14 February 1903; Edison Films , May 1903. [BACK]

13. Frank Dyer, deposition, Thomas A, Edison v. American Mutoscope and Biograph Company , no. 8289 and 8290, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 7 November 1902, NjFAR. [BACK]

14. 122 Federal Reporter , p. 240. [BACK]

15. When Blackton and Smith were sued in 1898 and Arthur Hotaling in 1902, they either settled out of court or fled the court's jurisdiction. [BACK]

16. Hayes to Gilmore, 22 April 1903, legal files, NjWOE. [BACK]

17. Copyright files, NjWOE. References for the remaining years of this study will emphasize production dates taken from these files rather than the copyright date. [BACK]

18. For example, Keith's Union Square Theater, programme, 16 February 1903, PP. [BACK]

19. Clipper , 21 and 28 March 1903, pp. 108 and 132. [BACK]

20. Clipper , 11 April 1903, p. 168. [BACK]

21. Gilmore to White, quoted in letter, Gilmore to White, 3 December 1903, NjWOE. [BACK]

22. Gaston Méliès, Complete Catalogue of Genuine and Original Star Films (New York, 1903), p. 5. [BACK]

23. Clipper , 12 September 1903, p. 680, a review of Méliès' La Royaume des fées [ Fairyland ] shown at Keith's Union Square Theater. [BACK]

24. Balshofer indicates that Lubin, at least, continued to dupe Méliès productions into 1905-6 (Fred Balshofer and Arthur C. Miller, One Reel a Week [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967], pp. 5-9). [BACK]

25. A selection of these Porter/Smith films were integrated into the lantern show Lights and Shadows of a Great City, New York (Kleine Optical Company, Complete Illustrated Catalogue of Moving Picture Machines, Stereopticons, Magic Lanterns, Accessories and Stereopticon Views [Chicago, 1903], p. 139). This program combined sixty-one slides with nine films and a lecture by Rev. W. T. Elsing. The films were used, in effect, to revitalize an increasingly antiquated form. Five of the nine films were actualities, including Panoramic View of the Brooklyn Bridge, River Front and Tall Buildings (© as Panorama Waterfront and the Brooklyn Bridge from East River ), taken by Porter on 9 May. One, Dancing on the Bowery , was staged on the streets, and the remainder were comedies, including Blackton and Smith's Burglar on the Roof . The program consisted primarily of hard-edged documentary slides, some taken by the renowned photographer Jacob Riis, but "comics" were interspersed for relief. Though Lights and Shadows was standardized by the distributor, exhibitors could introduce their own variations and refinements. With its slides and films gathered from disparate sources, the program juxtaposed diverse mimetic techniques, creating a synthetic mode of representation. [BACK]

26. Sklar, Movie-Made America , p. 26. [BACK]

27. See Harry Birdoff, The World's Greatest Hits: "Uncle Tom's Cabin " (New York: S. F. Vanni, 1947); Thomas F. Gassett, " Uncle Tom's Cabin" and American Culture (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1985). [BACK]

28. Biograph Bulletin no. 5, 14 May 1903, reproduced in Kemp Niver, Biograph Bulletins, 1896-1908 (Los Angeles: Artisan Press, 1971), p. 82. [BACK]

29. Mast, Short History of the Movies , 4th ed., p. 38. [BACK]

30. Burch, "Porter, or Ambivalence," pp. 96-98. [BACK]

31. Dorothy's Dream was offered for sale in Edison Films , February 1903, p. 6, as Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes . The description noted that "the title of each of the above subjects is included in the film and same can therefore be run without announcement slides." [BACK]

32. Although, as Miriam Hansen has pointed out, many American theatrical classics were translated and performed in immigrant theaters. [BACK]

33. Kleine Optical Company, Complete Illustrated Catalogue , 1903, p. 157; Jacobs, Rise of the American Film , p. 42. [BACK]

34. Howard Lamarr Walls, Motion Pictures, 1894-1912 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1953), p. 86. [BACK]

35. N. D. Cloward to Frank Dyer, 28 july 1903, legal files, NjWOE. [BACK]

36. Howard W. Hayes to J. R. Schermerhorn, 1 September 1903, legal files, NjWOE. [BACK]

37. Clipper , 5 and 12 September 1903, pp. 668 and 704. [BACK]

38. Edison Manufacturing Company, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1903), p. 5; Sigmund Lubin, Uncle Tom's Cabin (Philadelphia, 1904). [BACK]

39. On Coney Island, see Kasson, Amusing the Millions . [BACK]

40. Edison Films , October 1903, p. 12. [BACK]

41. Ibid., p. 19. [BACK]

42. Clipper , 14 November 1903, p. 920. [BACK]

43. Clipper , 6 June 1903, p. 358. The film was copyrighted 30 May 1903 as The Manicure Fools the Husband and also sold as Don't Get Gay with Your Manicure . This one-shot picture is described in Niver, Early Motion Pictures , p. 199. Lubin also made Don't Get Gay with Your Manicurist ( Clipper , 13 June 1903, p. 379). [BACK]

44. American Mutoscope & Biograph Company, Picture Catalogue (November 1902), p. 51. [BACK]

45. Edison Films , May 1903, p. 19. [BACK]

46. Edison Films , October 1903, p. 20. [BACK]

47. Kuleshov on Film: Writings of Lev Kuleshov , ed. and trans. Ronald Levaco (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 52-54. [BACK]

48. Interpolated close-ups occurred with some frequency in early cinema. The procedure, occasionally employed in lantern shows, was adopted by filmmakers with comparative ease. In Edison's Looping the Loop at Coney Island (made in late 1902 or early 1903) the second shot "gives a still closer view of the cars as they leave the circle and go shooting out towards the camera, the different expressions of fear, pleasure and excitement on the passengers' faces being clearly discernible" ( Edison Films , February 1903, p. 15). Another line of development, evolving through studio/acted films, was indebted to the Englishman G. A. Smith. Smith employed the close-up in connection with point-of-view shots in which an optical instrument acted as a mediating device, as in Grandma's Reading Glass . His Mary Jane's Mishaps (1903) did without the point-of-view motivation: the woman's facial expressions, shown in close-up against a plain background, periodically interrupt the narrative executed in far shot. ( Mary Jane's Mishaps was duped in West Orange before Porter made The Gay Shoe Clerk ; while both appear in Edison's October 1903 catalog, the Smith film has an earlier "code word.") [BACK]

49. Edison Films , October 1903, p. 8. [BACK]

50. Ibid., p. 16. [BACK]

51. William Selig, for example, urged exhibitors to interlace a program of his travel films with a selection of comedies (Selig Polyscope Company, Special Supplement of Colorado Films [1 November 1902], p. 3). [BACK]

52. Wilmington [Del.] Every Evening , 9, 10, and 11 July 1903, p. 3. [BACK]

53. Wilmington Every Evening , 21 and 22 August 1903; many but probably not all the films taken for Cloward were subsequently copyrighted. [BACK]

54. Biograph Bulletin no. 6, 1 June 1903, reproduced in Niver, Biograph Bulletins , p. 83. Biograph announced the removal of its offices from 841 Broadway to 11 East Fourteenth Street in Clipper , 17 February 1903, p. 1124. [BACK]

55. Clipper , 17 October 1903, p. 820. [BACK]

56. See Biograph Bulletins nos. 10-13, reproduced in Niver, Biograph Bulletins , pp. 93-107, and Clipper for this period. [BACK]

57. "Engagements," NYDM , 3 October 1903, p. 9. George Pratt kindly brought this piece of information to my attention. [BACK]

58. For an illustrated supplement on the Essex County Park system, see Orange Chronicle , 9 April 1898. [BACK]

59. For Anderson's claim to joint direction, see "2 Survive Great Train Robbery," New York Herald Tribune , 9 October 1961, p. 13, cited in Levy, "Edwin S. Porter and the Origins of the American Narrative Film," p. 29. For Cameron, see Theatre News , 22 September 1938, p. 2. For Smith, see Moving Picture News , 2 April 1910, p. 11. Barnes and Anderson can be identified by pictures. Ramsaye (who gave Barnes the wrong first name) adds Frank Hanaway as a bandit and Mae Murray as a dancer in the dance hall scene (Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , pp. 417-18). [BACK]

60. Clipper , 7 November 1903, p. 896. [BACK]

61. This copy is made available through the Museum of Modern Art, courtesy of David Shepard. [BACK]

62. Mail and Express , 22 December 1903, p. 6; Clipper , 6 January 1904, p. 113. [BACK]

63. Macgowan, Behind the Screen , p. 114. [BACK]

64. George N. Fenin and William K. Everson, The Western: From Silents to Cinerama (New York: Bonanza Books, 1962), p. 47. [BACK]

65. Sklar, Movie-Made America , p. 338. [BACK]

66. Jacobs, Rise of the American Film , p. 43. [BACK]

67. Gaudreault, "Detours in Film Narrative: The Development of Cross-Cutting," pp. 39-59; David Levy, "Reconstituted Newsreels, Re-enactments and the American Narrative Film," in Holman, comp., Cinema , 1900-1906, pp. 243-60. [BACK]

68. Neil Harris, Humbug: The Art of P. T. Barnum (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973), pp. 72-89. [BACK]

69. American Mutoscope & Biograph Company, production records, Biograph Collection, NNMoMA. [BACK]

70. Clipper , 12 December 1903, p. 1016. [BACK]

71. George C. Pratt, Spellbound in Darkness: A History of the Silent Film (Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1973), pp. 38-39. [BACK]

72. Clipper , 24 October 1896, p. 544. William Martinetti brought The Great Train Robbery play to Porter's attention (Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 416). [BACK]

73. Brooklyn Eagle , 13 October 1896, p. 11. [BACK]

74. Clipper , 12 December 1903, p. 1016. [BACK]

75. "Outlaws Rob Station," New York Tribune , 23 November 1903, p. 1. [BACK]

76. David Levy, "The Fake Train Robbery," in Holman, comp., Cinéma, 1900-1906 . [BACK]

77. Biograph Bulletin no. 33, 10 October 1904, reproduced in Niver, Biograph Bulletins , p. 132. [BACK]

78. Kleine Optical Company, Complete Illustrated Catalog of Moving Picture Machines, Stereopticons, Slides, Films (Chicago, November 1905), p. 207. [BACK]

79. Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: Trains and Travel in the 19th Century (New York: Urizen Books, 1980), pp. 25-27. [BACK]

80. John L. Stoddard, John L. Stoddard Lectures (10 vols.; Boston: Balch Brothers Co., 1907). [BACK]

81. Schivelbusch, Railway Journey , p. 59. [BACK]

82. Mail and Express , 21 September 1897, p. 2. [BACK]

83. See note 51 above. [BACK]

84. Sigmund Lubin, Complete Lubin Films , January 1903, p. 34. This basic gag had newspaper antecedents. See "A Tunnel Mystery," New York Journal , 31 March 1898, p. 12. [BACK]

85. Advertisement, New York Herald , 24 January 1904, magazine section, p. 16. [BACK]

86. Kansas City Star , 28 May 1905, p. 7B. See Raymond Fielding, "Hale's Tours: Ultra-Realism in the Pre-1910 Motion Picture," in Fell, ed., Film Before Griffith , pp. 116-30. [BACK]

87. Clipper , 28 April 1906, p. 287. [BACK]

88. The important function of this shot has been misunderstood by historians since Lewis Jacobs, who saw it as an extraneous trick, unconnected to the film's narrative. [BACK]

89. The Hale's Tours exhibitor may have stopped his effects machines at various points in the film when the viewer was not looking at images from the perspective of a passenger. See Will Irwin, The House That Shadows Built (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran, 1928), p. 104. [BACK]

90. Ibid., pp. 105-6. [BACK]

91. Joseph McCoy, oral history, ca. 1934, p. 24, NjWOE; James White to William E. Gilmore, 22 March 1904, NjWOE. [BACK]

92. Percival Waters, deposition, 25 May 1912, White and Schermerhorn v. Waters , p. 2. [BACK]

93. Joseph McCoy, oral history, p. 24. [BACK]

94. Clipper , 19 March 1904, p. 88. [BACK]

95. The New York Herald , which ran Outcault's strip, claimed that "R. T. Outcault's humorous ideas have been augmented by James Gorman, and between them they have written a bright book, with catchy songs, which have been set to music by several well-known composers" ("Buster Brown on the Stage," New York Herald , 26 December 1903, p. 9). Other newspapers were less appreciative. One called it the poorest vehicle that Master Gabriel, the well-known midget who played Buster, had ever had (clippings, Robinson Locke Collection, vol. 192: pp. 5, 6, 13, and 23, NN). [BACK]

96. Richard F. Outcault v. Edison Manufacturing Company and Percival Waters , no. 8743, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 6 May 1904, NjBaFAR. [BACK]

97. Frank Dyer to J. R. Schermerhorn, 10 May 1904, NjWOE. Outcault's friendship with Edison was only temporarily strained. By 1905 he was again visiting the West Or- ange Laboratory ( Phonograph Monthly , November 1905, p. 5). [BACK]

98. Edison Films , July 1901, pp. 57-60. [BACK]

99. Edison Films , July 1906, pp. 29-30. [BACK]

100. Clipper , 9 April 1904, p. 160. [BACK]

101. Chicago Projecting Company, Catalog of Stereopticons, Motion Picture Machines, Lantern Slides, Film Accessories and Supplies for the Optical Projection Trade , no. 120 ( 1907 ), p. 212. [BACK]

102. "New York Show," Keith's Booking Office, reports, 31 October 1904, 3:204, IaU. [BACK]

103. Kinetograph Department, film sales, 1904-6, NjWOE. This indicates that these

Page 527

films were purchased from Armat. Armat received such films "in kind" from Burton Holmes as part of their licensing arrangement. [BACK]

104. For example, New York Journal , 23 April 1904, p. 2, and 2 May 1904, p. 3. [BACK]

105. Edison Films , July 1906, p. 29. [BACK]

106. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , pp. 434-39. [BACK]

107. Washington Star , 19 May 1904, p. 1. [BACK]

108. Washington Star , 21 May 1904, p. 7. [BACK]

109. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 439. Some time after the ruckus dissipated, Dockstader also announced that the film survived. [BACK]

110. "How Elephants Shoot the Chutes," New York World , 15 May 1904, magazine section, pp. 6-7. [BACK]

111. It is the Biograph film that appears in the documentary film Before the Nickelodeon . [BACK]

112. Descriptions of these films can be found in Niver, Biograph Bulletins, 1896-1908 . [BACK]

113. Frank Dyer to William Gilmore, 21 July 1904, NjWOE. [BACK]

114. Charles Pathé to Edison Import House, 1 July 1904 (in house translation), NjWOE. [BACK]

115. Frank Dyer to William Gilmore, 21 July 1904, NjWOE. [BACK]

116. Alex T. Moore to James White, 10 October 1904, NjWOE. [BACK]

117. Joseph McCoy, oral history, p. 24, NjWOE. [BACK]

118. Joseph McCoy to Dyer's office, report, November 1904, NjWOE. [BACK]

119. For the 1903 calendar year, Kleine had purchased $38,974 of Edison goods, while Edison sales for its 1903 business year were $127,773. [BACK]

120. Gilmore to George Kleine, 15 February 1904, NjWOE. [BACK]

121. Kleine to Gilmore, 2 April 1904, NjWOE. [BACK]

122. Gilmore to Kleine, 15 August 1904, NjWOE. [BACK]

123. Kleine to Gilmore, 20 August 1904, NjWOE. [BACK]

124. Gilmore to Kleine, 24 August 1904, NjWOE. [BACK]

125. MPW , 6 December 1913, p. 1129. [BACK]

126. George Kleine to Several Good Customers, 11 October 1904, George Kleine Collection, DLC. [BACK]

127. Clipper , 15 October 1904, p. 796. [BACK]

128. The copyright files at NjWOE indicate that Waters almost invariably received the first print of a given subject. [BACK]

129. Albert Smith, testimony, 14 November 1913, United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co ., PPFAR. [BACK]

130. Biograph Bulletin no. 28, 15 August 1904, in Niver, Biograph Bulletins , p. 121. [BACK]

131. Percival Waters, memorandum re: Marion Conversation, 1 December 1904, legal files, NjWOE. [BACK]

132. Clipper , 15 July 1905, p. 530, and 22 July 1905. [BACK]

133. Waters, memorandum re: Marion Conversation, NjWOE. [BACK]

134. Bill of complaint, American Mutoscope & Biograph Company v. Edison Manufacturing Company , no. 10-221, C.C.D.N.J., filed 12 November 1904. Note: Many cases

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for this district were destroyed by a fire, including records of this case. Printed records survive in legal files, NjWOE. [BACK]

135. Delos Holden, Frank L. Dyer, and Melville Church, points for defendant in opposition to complainant's motion for preliminary injunction, 19 December 1904, American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. v. Edison Manufacturing Co . [BACK]

136. Delos Holden to Melville Church, 28 and 30 November 1904, legal files, NjWOE. Some historians—for instance, Kemp Niver and David Levy—have suggested that Porter thought of each scene as an individual film, basing this conclusion on Edison copyright practices. This shift in copyright practice was done for legal reasons only—most of the films were sold in only one length (Niver, First Twenty Years , pp. 85, 87, and 90; Levy, "Edison Sales Policy and the Continuous Action Film, 1904-1906," in Fell, ed., Film Before Griffith , pp. 207-22). [BACK]

137. Delos Holden to Melville Church, 29 November 1904, legal files, NjWOE. McCutcheon insisted the cartoon never existed. [BACK]

138. Edwin S. Porter, affidavit, 3 December 1904, "Defendant's Affidavits in Opposition to Complainant's Motion for Preliminary Injunction," American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. v. Edison Manufacturing Co ., no. 10-221, pp. 7-10. [BACK]

139. Allen, Vaudeville and Film , p. 217; see also id., "Film History: The Narrow Discourse," in Ben Lawton and Janet Staiger, eds., Film: Historical-Theoretical Speculations: The 1977 Film Studies Annual (Part Two) (Pleasantville, N.Y.: Redgrave Publishing Co., 1977), pp. 9-17. Allen compounds his error by arguing that fiction films were somehow cheaper to produce than actualities. In fact, the gradual nature of this shift only occurred because actualities were usually much cheaper to produce. [BACK]

140. The case of the Edison Company in 1906 shows the fallacy of statistical analyses that simply rely on copyright data. Thomas Edison copyrighted forty films in 1906; twenty-nine of these were actuality films taken by Robert K. Bonine in Hawaii. Bonine's films were from 75 to 770 feet in length, totaling 3,700 feet of negative. In contrast, ten fiction films by Porter were copyrighted during the 1906 calendar year, varying in length from 60 to 1,000 feet, and totaling 6,815 feet (all but one was a "feature"). In 1906 one Porter film, Dream of a Rarebit Fiend , sold 192 copies, or 90,240 feet, while all of Bonine's Hawaii films only sold 29,060 feet. Dream of a Rarebit Fiend had three times the commercial value of the twenty-nine Bonine films. [BACK]

141. East Orange Gazette , 16 February 1905, clipping, NjWOE; "Moving Picture Exhibition," Orange Chronicle , 25 February 1905, p. 5. [BACK]

142. Edison Manufacturing Company, film sales, 1904-6, NjWOE. [BACK]

143. For How a French Nobleman. . ., Porter apparently employed the chase extensively for the first time (its use having been adumbrated in The Great Train Robbery ). Subsequently he made his own original chase films. From Rector's to Claremont , made on New York City streets and in Central Park, shows a rube chasing after a stagecoach in a vain attempt to regain his seat. It was made for a client, possibly in late summer 1904. (Without correlating information, any attribution regarding this film, which is in Paul Killiam's collection and which he dates as 1903, is highly speculative. It underscores the limitations on any close reading of Porter's work because of this "hidden" body of sponsored films.) Porter's chases in this and succeeding films, however, frequently feel mechanical and obligatory. They lack the originality and distinctive detail that make various Pathé and Biograph farces amusing and memorable. The simple and finally boring rep-

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etition of the rube and the stagecoach contrasts with Biograph's accumulation of idiosyncratic pursuers over the course of The Lost Child . [BACK]

144. Lyman Howe Moving Picture Company, programme, 30 August 1905 at Casino in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, Robert Gillaum Collection, PWb-H. [BACK]

145. Clipper , 13 August 1904, p. 574. Ramsaye reverses the pattern of imitation, claiming The Bold Bank Robbery was modeled after The Capture of the "Yegg" Bank Burglars , which he calls The Great Bank Robbery (Ramsaye, Million and One Nights, p . 419). [BACK]

146. Clipper , 15 October 1904, p. 789. [BACK]

147. Only in one instance, the burglary in the bank and the patrolling of the streets by the outside Yeggs (scenes 6 and 7), are simultaneous actions shown in successive scenes. [BACK]

148. Nitrate prints were usually struck immediately after the paper print was made. Although David Levy argues that Edison did not sell two different versions of The Capture of the "Yegg" Bank Burglars because it was not noted in Edison sales records, these records do not appear so detailed as to provide decisive evidence either way (Levy, "Edison Sales Policy and the Continuous Action Film, 1904-1906," in Fell, ed., Film Before Griffith , p. 220). [BACK]

149. Edison Films , July 1906, p. 33. [BACK]

150. Clipper , 12 November 1904, p. 895. A synopsis of Parsifal can be found in Edison Films , July 1906, pp. 50-53. [BACK]

151. Kleine Optical Company, Complete Illustrated Catalog of Moving Picture Machines, Stereopticons, Slides, Films , November 1905, p. 271. [BACK]

152. "Parsifal," ca. 1946, an anonymous note acquired courtesy of Bebe Bergsten. [BACK]

153. New York World , 22 December 1903, p. 1. [BACK]

154. "Music and Drama," New York Tribune , 24 May 1904, p. 7. [BACK]

155. Copy of contract accompanying H. L. Roth to Frank Dyer, 24 January 1905, legal files, NjWOE. [BACK]

156. Edison Manufacturing Company, accounting invoices, legal files, NjWOE. [BACK]

157. Edison Manufacturing Company, film sales 1904-6, NjWOE. [BACK]

158. Clipper , 5 November 1904, p. 872. [BACK]

159. Janet Staiger's discussion of the tension between standardization and differentiation is particularly applicable to the Edison Company's commercial conduct (see Bord-well, Staiger, and Thompson, Classical Hollywood Cinema , pp. 96-112). [BACK]

160. Gilmore to Frank Dyer, 17 October 1904, legal files, NjWOE. [BACK]

1. William J. Gilroy, deposition, 18 September 1902, legal files, NjWOE. [BACK]

2. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 421; Jacobs, Rise of the American Film , pp. 45-47; Vardac, Stage to Screen , pp. 184-85; Macgowan, Behind the Screen , p. 120; Everson, American Silent Film , p. 40; Sklar, Movie-Made America , p. 27. [BACK]

3. Background for an understanding of the Progressive movement is provided by Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism: A Re-interpretation of American History (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963), and Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform from Bryan to F.D.R . (New York: Knopf, 1955). [BACK]

4. Clipper , 3 December 1904, p. 968. [BACK]

5. NYDM , 12 September 1903, p. 16. [BACK]

6. New York World , 1 September 1903, p. 4. Two years later Hilliard went on to play the male lead in David Belasco's hit play The Girl of the Golden West . [BACK]

7. "Robert Hilliard and Vaudeville—Keith's," Philadelphia Record , 29 September 1903, p. 3. [BACK]

8. Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (New York: Macmillan, 1907), and David Graham Phillips, "Algrich, the Head of It All," Cosmopolitan Magazine , April 1906, excerpted in Richard Hofstadter, ed., The Progressive Movement, 1900-1915 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), pp. 79-83 and 108-12. [BACK]

9. Robert Hunter, Poverty (New York: Macmillan, 1904) excerpted in Hofstadter, ed., Progressive Movement, 1900-1915 , pp. 55-56. [BACK]

10. Kleine Optical Company, Complete Catalogue , November 1903, p. 221. [BACK]

11. Everson, American Silent Film , p. 40. [BACK]

12. Once again two lines of action that occurred simultaneously are shown in successive "acts." Ramsaye, however, offers a modernized description of the subject in which "the two stories ran through the film neck and neck" ( Million and One Nights , p. 421). [BACK]

13. New York World , 2 June 1896, p. 1. [BACK]

14. This film narrative exactly parallels an earlier account of "White Cap" activity in a turn-of-the-century newspaper. In the newspaper account, the tar clogged up the man's pores and he eventually died. [BACK]

15. Clipper , 7 October 1905, p. 847. [BACK]

16. Pittsburgh Post , 27 August 1905, p. 9. [BACK]

17. "Among the Dramatists," NYDM , 29 July 1905, p. 4; and "Gossip," 19 August 1905, p. 4. [BACK]

18. Albert Bushnell Hart and Herbert Ronald Ferleger, eds., Theodore Roosevelt Encyclopedia (New York: Roosevelt Memorial Association, 1941), pp. 45 and 587. [BACK]

19. Kenneth Macgowan and William Melnitz, The Living Stage (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1955), p. 393. [BACK]

20. Harlowe R. Hoyt, Town Hall Tonight (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1955), p. 40. The following analysis relies on Steele MacKaye, Hazel Kirke (1880; New York: Samuel French, 1912). [BACK]

21. Edison Film, Life of an American Policeman , December 1905. [BACK]

22. "Burglar Kills Police and Wounds Second," New York World , 21 March 1904, p. 3. [BACK]

23. A roundsman was responsible for making sure the policemen were on the job, a position eliminated in today's world of two-way radios and patrol cars. [BACK]

24. See Nochlin, Realism , pp. 150-99. [BACK]

25. Connellsville Courier, 26 June 1885. [BACK]

26. "Experiences of Boys as Tramps," New York Tribune , 1 May 1904, illustrated supplement, p. 5. [BACK]

27. E. W. Hornung, Raffles (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901), and The Amateur Cracksman (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902). [BACK]

28. Edison Film, The Watermelon Patch , October 1905. [BACK]

29. It is difficult to agree with claims that the first ten years of American cinema offered a kind of primitive, nonracist innocence. Thomas Cripps sees this "fall" from grace occurring with the introduction of editorial techniques ( Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film, 1900-1942 [London: Oxford University Press, 1977], pp. 8-19). A1-

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though editing, as already shown, existed from the beginning of the post-novelty period, the racist underpinnings were frequently intertextual. [BACK]

30. See ''The Chicken Thief,'' Biograph Bulletin no. 39, 27 December 1904, reproduced in Niver, Biograph Bulletins , pp. 140-43. [BACK]

31. Edison Film, The Watermelon Patch , October 1905. [BACK]

32. MPW , 8 June 1907, pp. 216-17. [BACK]

33. This film was copyrighted by Biograph on 9 June 1904. [BACK]

34. Edwin Porter to the Edison Company, 6 July 1905, in Stolen by Gypsies copyright envelope, NjWOE. [BACK]

35. New York Sun , 15 August 1905, cited in Clipper , 2 September 1905, p. 716. [BACK]

36. These animations were shot in reverse motion and upside down, beginning with the final title and proceeding to chaos. The results were then used tail first to give the desired effect. [BACK]

37. Clipper , 27 May 1905, p. 368. [BACK]

38. Edwin Porter, affidavit, 3 December 1904, American Mutoscope &, Biograph Co. v. Edison Manufacturing Co ., no. 10-221. [BACK]

39. Edison Films , July 1906, pp. 36-37. [BACK]

40. "The Whole Damm Family Staged," NYDM , 8 July 1905, pp. 12-14. [BACK]

41. Edison Films , July 1906, p. 40. [BACK]

42. Niver, Biograph Bulletins , p. 231; American Mutoscope & Biograph Company, programme, [1905], CLCM. [BACK]

43. Clipper , 1 July 1905, p. 488. [BACK]

44. "On a Good Old Trolley Ride," © 26 March 1904, written by Jos. C. Farrell, music by Pat Rooney. [BACK]

45. Edison Films , July 1906, p. 36. [BACK]

46. Ibid., p. 66. [BACK]

47. Olympia Park was north of Connellsville between Irwin and Greensburg, Pennsylvania. The Connellsville Courier acknowledged the filmmaker as the creator of The Great Train Robbery and reminded everyone that Edward was "better known as 'Betty' Porter" when a child ( Connellsville Courier , 22 August 1905, p. 8). I am again indebted to Tony Keefer for this information. [BACK]

48. Edison Films , July 1906, p. 66. [BACK]

49. Boarding School Girls , copyright envelope, NjWOE. [BACK]

50. Clipper , 23 September 1905, p. 793. [BACK]

51. Billboard , 7 December 1907, p. 16. [BACK]

52. "Dockstader's Minstrels," Birmingham [Alabama] Age , 14 March 1906, p. 8. [BACK]

53. Clipper , 22 April 1905, p. 235. [BACK]

54. Clipper , 30 December 1905, p. 1163. [BACK]

55. George H. Keyes to Edison Manufacturing Company, 14 July 1905, legal files, NjWOE. These figures reveal characteristic costs and arrangements when actuality films were made for private clients. [BACK]

56. Frank Dyer to John W. Kelly, 30 August 1905, NjWOE. [BACK]

57. Edison Films , July 1906, p. 91. [BACK]

58. Clipper , 22 July 1905, p. 564. [BACK]

59. Edison Films , July 1906, p. 98. [BACK]

60. Ibid., p. 40. [BACK]

1. Variety , 23 December 1905, p. 3. The reference is to Porter and McCutcheon's The Train Wreckers . [BACK]

2. MPW , 30 November 1907, p. 629. [BACK]

3. Film Index , 5 May 1906, p. 11. [BACK]

4. Film Index , 6 October 1906, pp. 3-4. [BACK]

5. Film Index , 6 October 1906, p. 3. This article indicates that Bowery film theaters drew most of their patrons from the Lower East Side and that Italians from this area were important moviegoers, contrary to Robert C. Allen's assertions in "Motion Picture Exhibition in Manhattan 1906-1912: Beyond the Nickelodeon," in Fell, ed., Film Before Griffith , pp. 162-75. The paucity of nickelodeons in many of these Italian neighborhoods can be explained by information that Allen provides but misinterprets. The fact that these Italian neighborhoods had heavy concentrations of single males who would repatriate does not mean that these men forsook the movies, but rather suggests that they were free to travel to the motion picture theaters outside their neighborhoods, to the entertainment districts. [BACK]

6. There is an extensive literature on nickelodeons and their audiences. This includes Sklar, Movie-Made America , pp. 18-32; Garth Jowett, Film and the Democractic Art (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976), pp. 30-50; Russell Merritt, "Nickelodeon Theaters 1905-1914: Building an Audience for the Movies," in Balio, ed., American Film Industry , pp. 59-82; Judith Mayne, "Immigrants and Spectators," Wide Angle 5, no. 2 (1982): 32-40; Miriam Hansen, "Early Silent Cinema: Whose Public Sphere?" New German Critique 29 (Winter 1983): 147-84; Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will , pp. 191-220; Robert Sklar, ''Oh! Althusser! Historiography and the Rise of Cinema Studies,'' Radical History Review 41 (Spring 1988): 11-35. My own research in this area can be found in The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907 (New York: Scribner's/Macmillan, 1990), pp. 415-47. [BACK]

7. Film Index , 1 December 1906, p. 3. [BACK]

8. Billboard , 18 May 1907, p. 43. [BACK]

9. Clipper , 7 October 1905, p. 842. [BACK]

10. Billboard , 16 June 1906, p. 26. [BACK]

11. Carl Laemmle, "This Business of Motion Pictures" (unpublished manuscript, ca. 1935), p. 41, CBevA. [BACK]

12. Billboard , 6 October 1906, p. 22. [BACK]

13. Greater New York Film Rental Company, certificate of incorporation, filed 25 March 1907, NNNCC-Ar. [BACK]

14. Billboard , 11 May 1907, p. 8. [BACK]

15. Clipper , 23 September 1905, p. 795. For a filmography and an account of Vitagraph's activities subsequent to this date, see Jon Gartenberg, "Vitagraph Before Griffith: Forging Ahead in the Nickelodeon Era," Studies in Visual Communication 10, no. 4 (Fall 1984): 7-23. [BACK]

16. Clipper , 19 January 1907, p. 1266. Kalem Company, certificate of incorporation, filed 2 May 1907, NNNCC-Ar. [BACK]

17. Peerless Film Manufacturing Company, certificate of incorporation, filed 29 April 1907; name changed on 9 April 1907, ICC. [BACK]

18. Edison Manufacturing Company, statement of profit and loss, NjWOE. [BACK]

19. Film Index , 24 November 1906, p. 6. [BACK]

20. Edison Company, Film Sales 1904-6, NjWOE. [BACK]

21. Film Index , 25 April 1906, p. 6. [BACK]

22. Edison Company, Film Sales 1904-6, NjWOE. The discrepancy of $3,000 between this figure and the one cited in Edison Manufacturing Company, statement of profit and loss, may be accounted for by the rental of studio space and other miscellaneous activities. [BACK]

23. John Hardin to William Gilmore, 16 October 1906, NjWOE. The $.1027 per foot cited in the previous paragraph is lower than Hardin's $.12 per foot owing to jobber and agent discounts. [BACK]

24. Clipper , 13 January 1906, p. 1207. [BACK]

25. Edison Films , July 1906, pp. 70-71. [BACK]

26. Clipper , 10 March 1906, p. 94. [BACK]

27. "Edwin S. Porter," MPW , 7 December 1912, p. 961. [BACK]

28. One potential exception was Honeymoon at Niagara Falls , for which the Edison company offered to sell discrete scenes; no one, however, took advantage of the offer. [BACK]

29. Edison Manufacturing Company to Colonial Virginia Company, Inc., bill no. 27,045, 17 May 1907, attached to Alex T. Moore to Frank L. Dyer, 13 August 1908, NjWOE. Edison bought the film back for $150 in 1908 and to release it through normal channels. [BACK]

30. Alex T. Moore, deposition, 13 May 1912, White and Schermerhorn v. Waters , NNNCC-Ar. There was some disagreement over the extent and nature of this expansion. Porter was not overtly unhappy with the arrangements, but his facilities were far from satisfactory. [BACK]

31. William Gilmore to Thomas Graf, 31 December 1906, NjWOE. [BACK]

32. Patent reissue no. 12,037 for the Kinetograph and reissue no. 12,038 for Kineto-scopic Film. Reissue no. 12,038 was reissued again on 12 January 1904 as patent reissue no. 12,192. [BACK]

33. Thomas A. Edison v. American Mutoscope and Biograph Company , nos. 8289 and 8290, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 7 November 1902, NjBaFAR; Thomas A. Edison v. Selig Polyscope Company , no. 26,512, C.C.N.D.I., filed 7 November 1902, ICFAR; Thomas A. Edison v. Siegmund Lubin , nos. 24 and 25, October sessions 1902, C.C.E.D.P., filed 6 November 1902, PPFAR. [BACK]

34. Thomas A. Edison v. William Paley and William F. Steiner , no. 8911, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 23 November 1904; Thomas A. Edison v. Compagnie Generale des Phonographes, Cinematographes et Appareils de Precision and J. A. Berst, doing business under the name Pathe Cinematograph Co ., no. 8912, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 23 November 1904; Thomas A. Edison v. Georges Melies and Gaston Melies , no. 8913, C.C.S.D.N.Y., 23 November 1904; Thomas A. Edison v. Eberhard Schneider doing business as American Cinematograph Co. and German-American Cinematograph and Film Co ., no. 8914, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 23 November 1904, NjBaFAR. [BACK]

35. Thomas A. Edison v. American Vitagraph Co ., no. 9035, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 13 March 1905, NjBaFAR. [BACK]

36. George W. Ray, decision, 26 March 1906, 144 Federal Reporter , pp. 121-28. [BACK]

37. 151 Federal Reporter , pp. 767-74. Biograph was using the same Warwick 35mm camera as everyone else until it constructed and used a 35mm camera covered by its original patent. [BACK]

38. See Charles Musser et al., A Guide to Motion Picture Catalogs by American Producers and Distributors, 1894-1908, A Microfilm Edition (Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1985), pp. 34-44. [BACK]

39. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , pp. 468-69. [BACK]

40. Lawrence F. Karr, "Introduction," in Rita Horwitz, An Index to Volume 1 of "The Moving Picture World and View Photographer " (American Film Institute, 1974). [BACK]

41. Charles Pathé, De Pathé Frères à Pathé cinema (Nice: 1940; Premier Plan, June 1970), p. 62. [BACK]

42. F. Croydon Marks to William Gilmore, 13 April 1907, NjWOE. [BACK]

43. Ibid. [BACK]

44. Marks to Pathé, 21 May 1907, NjWOE. [BACK]

45. Pathé to Marks, 22 May 1907, NjWOE. A franc was then approximately equal to 20¢. [BACK]

46. Gilmore to Pelzer, 28 May 1907, NjWOE. [BACK]

47. New York World , 29 November 1906, p. 2. This helps to explain such anachronisms as the use of a repeating rifle in a drama supposedly set in the late eighteenth century. Lest Lawrence's memory seem too faulty, the stage production was described as an eastern melodrama "set with gigantic and wonderous picturesque scenery, and in noise, excitement and movement can almost be compared with a wild west show." [BACK]

48. Although Darnel Boone: On the Trail was copyrighted in 1906, internal evidence strongly suggests that the script placed on deposit had been in circulation for many years. [BACK]

49. "Edwin S. Porter," MPW , 7 December 1912, p. 961. [BACK]

50. Edison Films , July 1906, p. 70. A tinted print of this film can be seen through Paul Killiam. [BACK]

51. Maurice Horn, ed., World Encyclopedia of Comics (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1976) pp. 223-24. [BACK]

52. Translated from a Pathé catalog quoted in Sadoul, Histoire générale , 3d ed., 2:306-8. [BACK]

53. The self-sufficiency of the narrative may explain why Dream of a Rarebit Fiend has been included in so many standard histories. Unfortunately its canonization—and our ignorance of its antecedents—has also limited our insight into the cinema of this period. [BACK]

54. Film Index , 23 June 1906, p. 9. [BACK]

55. Amusement Supply Company, Amusement for Profit (Chicago: 1907), pp. 266-70; Eileen Bowser, "Preparation for Brighton—the American Contribution," in Hollman, comp., Cinema 1900-1906 , p. 10, discusses other examples of this genre. [BACK]

56. Film Index , 23 June 1906, p. 9. [BACK]

57. New York World , 1 May 1905, illustrated supplement. [BACK]

58. Adrienne Harris, "Women, Baseball and Words," PsychCritique 1, no. 1 (1985): 41. [BACK]

59. Ibid., p. 51. [BACK]

60. Charles Lovenberg, United Booking Offices, Reports , 3 September 1906, 6:96, Albee Papers, IaU. [BACK]

61. Film Index , 4 August 1906, p. 9. [BACK]

62. "Edwin S. Porter," MPW , 7 December 1912, p. 961. [BACK]

63. MPW , 6 April 1907, p. 86. For a description of the film see MPW , 16 March 1907, p. 31. [BACK]

64. Peter Bull, The Teddy Bear Book (New York: Random House, 1970), offers a useful collection of memorabilia from this period. Contemporaneous newspapers, however, provide many contradictory accounts about the origins of the craze. [BACK]

65. Variety , 9 March 1907, p. 8. [BACK]

66. The film was a huge hit and caused "much fun in the big cities," according to one prominent exhibitor, who recommended it especially for women and children. The exhibitor published a detailed description of the film that only identified the Teddy Roosevelt character as the girl's father ( Lewiston Evening Journal , 6 May 1907, p. 2, and 8 May 1907, p. 2). [BACK]

67. New York World , 22 October 1907, p. 1. [BACK]

68. New York American , 27 January 1907, comic section; 17 and 24 February 1907, comic section; and others from this period. The strip, however, does not appear to have been running when Porter actually made the film (see New York American , 4, 18, and 25 August 1907). [BACK]

69. Film Index , 10 November 1906, p. 8. [BACK]

70. Alan Trachtenberg, "Photography/Cinematography," in Jay Leyda and Charles Musser, eds., Before Hollywood (New York: American Federation of the Arts, 1987), pp. 73-79. [BACK]

71. Clement Greenberg, "Avant Garde and Kitsch," in Bernard Rosenberg and David Manning White, eds., Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America (Glencoe, Ill.: Falcon's Wing Press, 1957), p. 98. [BACK]

72. Film Index , 1 September 1906, p. 16. [BACK]

73. Raymond D. McGill, Notable Names in the American Theatre (Clifton, N.J.: James T. White, 1976), p. 26. [BACK]

74. Film companies sometimes rediscovered the West's rejection of regimentation, to their dismay (see, e.g., "Essanay Cowboys Refuse to 'Punch the Clock' So It Goes," New York Telegraph , 26 October 1913, p. 5E). [BACK]

75. The surviving print at the Museum of Modern Art lacks scenes 9 and 10 as described in the Film Index . [BACK]

76. Clipper , 25 August 1906, p. 712, listed the cast:

77. Despite Ramsaye's assertion (p. 442), William Ranous did not act in this film. [BACK]

78. Film Index , 13 October 1906, p. 3. [BACK]

79. Vardac, Stage to Screen , pp. 24, 42-43. [BACK]

80. Kathleen Mavourneen; or St. Patrick Eve (Clyde, Ohio: Ames Publishing Co., n.d.). [BACK]

81. Van C. Lee, "The Value of a Lecture," in MPW , 8 February 1908, p. 91. [BACK]

82. Variety , 1 June 1907, p. 10. [BACK]

83. Clipper , 26 May 1906, p. 384. [BACK]

84. Los Angeles Times , 23 May 1906, p. 2B. [BACK]

85. "The Scenes of Hawaii," Hawaiian Gazette , 29 May 1906, p. 6. Ken Nelson graciously brought these Hawaiian Gazette articles to my attention. [BACK]

86. "Many Scenes of Hawaii Secured," Hawaiian Gazette , 27 July 1906, p. 6. [BACK]

87. Honolulu Bulletin cited in Film Index , 15 September 1906, p. 4. [BACK]

88. Billboard , 10 November 1906, p. 15. [BACK]

89. New York World , 1 August, 1906; Alex T. Moore, deposition, 13 May 1912, White and Schermerhorn v. Waters . Waters, however, claimed that Bonine rather than Porter took these films. [BACK]

90. Most of the films that Bonine took in 1906-7 survive in the George Kleine Collection, DLC. [BACK]

91. MPW , 1 June 1907, pp. 199-200. [BACK]

92. MPW , 4 May 1907, p. 137. [BACK]

93. This treaty was subsequently revised in 1978. [BACK]

94. Bonine and Patek's lectures were part of a tradition of educational entertainment that was often sponsored by civic groups, churches, or "refined institutions." Similar subjects were dealt with by a range of traveling lecturers such as Burton Holmes and Dwight Elmendorf. See Charles Musser with Carol Nelson, High-Class Moving Pictures . [BACK]

95. "In the Yellowstone," Oswego [N.Y.] Palladium , 23 May 1906, p. 4; MPW , 17 March 1907, p. 41. [BACK]

96. Trachtenberg, Incorporation of America , pp. 17-19. [BACK]

97. MPW , 13 July 1907, p. 295. [BACK]

98. Walkover Shoe Company, catalog, ca. 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

99. Film Index , 16 July 1907, p. 8. [BACK]

100. MPW, 5 October 1907, p. 487. [BACK]

101. MPW , 13 February 1909, p. 176. [BACK]

1. Melvin L. Defleur and Everette Dennis, Understanding Mass Communication (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981), p. 11. [BACK]

2. Film Index , 30 November 1907, p. 3. [BACK]

3. MPW , 4 January 1908, p. 8. [BACK]

4. Variety , 13 June 1908, p. 11, and 4 July 1908, p. 11. [BACK]

5. Billboard , 14 December 1907, p. 17. [BACK]

6. Laemmle Film Service, letterhead dated 2 October 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

7. Billboard , 21 September 1907, pp. 28 and 33; and 23 November 1907, p. 20. [BACK]

8. Film Index , 9 November 1907, p. 3. [BACK]

9. J. Stuart Blackton to George Eastman, 11 February 1908, document no. 0035, Albert Smith Collection, CLU. [BACK]

10. Thomas A. Edison v. 20th Century Optiscope Co ., no. 28,863, C.C.N.D.I., filed October 1907, ICFAR. [BACK]

11. Film Index , 17 August 1907, p. 4; Show World , 2 November 1907, p. 110; Film Index , 23 November 1907, p. 6. [BACK]

12. Film Index , 7 September 1907, p. 6; Billboard , 7 December 1907, p. 74. The Actograph Company was owned by Edward M. Harrington, Frederick L. Beck, and Norman H. Mosher (Actograph Company, certificate of doing business under an assumed name, 12 June 1907, NNNCC-Ar). [BACK]

13. George E. Stevens, deposition, [May 1907], legal files, NjWOE. [BACK]

14. Albert E. Smith, testimony, 14 November 1913, United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co ., p. 1714. [BACK]

15. George Spoor, testimony, 10 March 1914, United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co ., p. 2987. [BACK]

16. Defendants' exhibit no. 164, docket of Dyer & Dyer for Thomas A. Edison v. Selig Polyscope Co., in United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co., p. 3131. [BACK]

17. Billboard , 16 November 1907, p. 16. [BACK]

18. MPW , 16 November 1907, p. 592. [BACK]

19. MPW , 23 November 1907, p. 609. [BACK]

20. "The Platform of the Association," MPW , 15 February 1908, p. 111. [BACK]

21. William T. Rock to Albert Smith, 31 January 1908, document no. 0032, CLU. Even at the date of this letter, Biograph was still seriously contemplating joining the Edison group. [BACK]

22. J. A. Berst, testimony, 18 November 1913, United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co., p. 1772. [BACK]

23. "Film Renters Meet in Convention," Variety , 15 February 1908, p. 10. [BACK]

24. See George Melies Company v. Motion Picture Patents Co. and Edison Manufacturing Company, and George Melies and Gaston Melies , no. 5826, C.C.D.N.J., filed 21 May 1909, NjBaFAR, printed record at NjWOE. [BACK]

25. Blackton to George Eastman, 11 February 1908, document no. 0035, CLU. [BACK]

26. William Rock to Albert E. Smith, 11 February 1908, document no. 0037, CLU. [BACK]

27. William Rock to Albert E. Smith, 21 February 1908, document no. 0046, CLU. [BACK]

28. Edison advertisements, Billboard , 4 April 1908, p. 27, and 11 April 1908, p. 38. [BACK]

29. "Organization Expected in Philadelphia," Variety , 22 February 1908, p. 10. [BACK]

30. See William Swanson to Frank Dyer, 29 September 1908, and H. H. Buckwalter to Frank Dyer, 29 September 1908, NjWOE, in regard to an attempt by William Bullock to take pictures in Colorado and Cleveland, Ohio, for local distribution. Some exceptions did occur. Although the Miles Bros. worked out an arrangement with Kalem to photograph American warships on the West Coast ( Variety , 4 April 1908, p. 12), such arrangements were cumbersome and not generally practiced. [BACK]

31. Frank Dyer to Sigmund Lubin, 7 April 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

32. "Biograph Co. Licenses Three Manufacturers," Variety , 22 February 1908, p. 10, and "Biograph Company Defines Its Position in the Fight," Variety , 14 March 1908, p. 12. [BACK]

33. MPW , 22 February 1908, p. 130. [BACK]

34. Variety , 22 February 1908, p. 10; "Detroit Takes a Hand in the Fray," MPW , 28 March 1908, p. 264. [BACK]

35. Edison Manufacturing Co. et al. v. George Kleine , no. 28,990, C.C.N.D.I., filed 6 March 1908, ICFAR; Edison Manufacturing Co. v. American Mutoscope & Biograph Co ., no. 2-169, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 16 March 1908, NjBaFAR. [BACK]

36. Harry Marvin, testimony, 15 and 16 January 1913, United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co ., pp. 123-24, and 146; American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. v. Essanay Mfg. Co ., no. 29,109, C.C.N.D.I.; American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. v. William N. Selig , no. 29,110, C.C.N.D.I., ICFAR. Suits against the Edison Company and other East Coast concerns were apparently initiated in the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of New Jersey, for which incomplete records are available. [BACK]

37. "Statement Given Out by the Edison Company," Variety , 14 March 1908, p. 13. [BACK]

38. Variety , 14 March 1908, p. 12. [BACK]

39. Harry N. Marvin, testimony, 16 January 1913, United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co ., p. 123. [BACK]

40. Exhibit no. 164, United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co ., p. 3092. [BACK]

41. "Interviews with F.S.A. Members and Others," MPW , 28 March 1908, p. 260. [BACK]

42. Show World , 28 March 1908, p. 9. [BACK]

43. American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. v. Aaron J. Jones et al ., no. 29,107, C.C.N.D.I., ICFAR. [BACK]

44. "Editorial," MPW , 7 March 1908, p. 12. [BACK]

45. "The Future Should Be Taken Care Of in the Present," MPW , 19 September 1908, p. 211. [BACK]

46. "Chats with the Interviewer," MPW , 4 April 1908, p. 288. [BACK]

47. Carl Laemmle to Frank Dyer, 27 April 1908, accompanied by letter from B. R. Craycroft to Laemmle, 26 April 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

48. "Long Buys Kleine Out," Variety , 25 April 1908, p. 14; "Editorial Notes," MPW , 23 May 1908, p. 456. [BACK]

49. "Trade Notes," MPW , 29 February 1908, p. 159, and "Philadelphia," MPW , 18 April 1908, p. 347. [BACK]

50. Among the exchanges that joined the independents were: Goodfellow's Detroit Film Exchange, the Cut Rate Film Exchange, the Cincinnati Film Exchange, C. J. Hite & Co., the Cleveland Film Exchange, and the Southern Film Exchange ( Billboard , 29 February 1908, p. 33, and 14 March 1908, p. 53; "Quits Association," Variety , 28 March 1908, p. 13, and "Association Cuts Off Deserters' Line of Retreat," Variety , 4 April 1908, p. 12). [BACK]

51. MPW , 4 April 1908, p. 283. [BACK]

52. "Opposing with Same Pictures," Variety , 21 March 1908, p. 14. [BACK]

53. "Another Flop to Independents," Variety , 25 July 1908, p. 13, and "Went Over to the Independents," NYDM , 18 July 1908, p. 7. [BACK]

54. "An Alleged Scare," NYDM , 1 August 1908, p. 7. [BACK]

55. Joseph McCoy, report, June 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

56. William Hodkinson to Offield, Towle and Linthicum, 10 April 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

57. A.D. Plintom to John Hardin, 18 April 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

58. William Swanson to William Gilmore, 9 May 1908; Swanson to Dyer, 18 June 1908, NjWOE. While such anti-Semitism continued to manifest itself within the industry, it was frequently put aside in the interests of commercial alliances. [BACK]

59. Standard Film Exchange to Frank Dyer, 28 June 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

60. Plintom to Dyer, 6 November 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

61. "'A Square Deal for All' is Thomas Edison's Promise," Variety , 20 June 1908, p. 12. [BACK]

62. Statement, 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

63. George K. Spoor, testimony, 10 March 1914, United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co ., p. 2988; J. A. Berst, 18 November 1913, United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co ., p. 1729. [BACK]

64. This figure is estimated using proportions derived from Joseph McCoy's June 1908 survey. [BACK]

65. See above, pp. 335-36. J. Searle Dawley, memoirs, n.d., CLAc, confirmed by Edison Manufacturing Company, payroll ledger, NjWOE. [BACK]

66. Brooklyn Eagle , 11 December 1906, p. 4, and 23 December 1906, p. 5C. [BACK]

67. Among Dawley's plays were Little Miss Sherlock Jr ., © 10 July 1900; The Land Beyond the Firelight , © 15 December 1900; At Old Fort Lookout , a western military drama in several acts, © 13 October 1902; and On Shanon's Shore , © Mary G. Spooner, 22 October 1906. In addition, Dawley co-wrote Dreamland's Gateway, or the Land of Nod , © J. de Cordova, 9 October 1902. [BACK]

68. Article in Movie Weekly , n.d., courtesy of Mark Wannamaker. [BACK]

69. The Girl and the Detective ; or, My Little Detective , a play in four acts © Charles E. Blaney; Countess Du Barry , a historical drama, © Edna May Spooner, 24 April 1908; Daughter of the People , a drama in four acts, © 5 June 1808; and The She Devil , adapted from the English translation of Ferenc Molnár's Der Teufel , © 28 September 1908. [BACK]

70. MPW , 12 October 1907, p. 502. [BACK]

71. Joseph McCoy, oral history, NjWOE. [BACK]

72. Edison Manufacturing Company, investment ledger, NjWOE. Fox may have been acting as agent for the city: McCoy's recollection, however, is accurate on other details. Edison also purchased an adjoining 20' x 100' plot on 25 October 1907 for $4,000. [BACK]

73. Film Index , 16 June 1906, p. 5. [BACK]

74. Edison Manufacturing Company, general ledger, 1900-1911, pp. 50-51. [BACK]

75. J. Searle Dawley, memoirs, n.d., CLAc. [BACK]

76. Edwin Porter, draft of affidavit for equity no. 28,863, Thomas A. Edison v. 20th Century Optiscope Co ., ca. October 1907, legal files, NjWOE. [BACK]

77. J. Searle Dawley, payroll books, CLAc. This was the only day the actors appearing in the still were hired. [BACK]

78. "A Model Studio," NYDM , 14 November 1908, p. 12. [BACK]

79. Edison Manufacturing Company, payroll ledger, indicates that Cronjager was hired 1 July 1907, shortly after Bonine's departure. He appears in the production photograph of A Country Girl's Seminary Life and Experiences turning the crank. [BACK]

80. Richard Murphy would later follow Porter to Rex and Famous Players. In 1919, when he went to the British Famous Players-Lasky Studio, he was accompanied by his

Page 540

assistant, William Cameron Menzies ( MPW , 2 August 1919, p. 667; I thank Russell Merritt for bringing this to my attention). [BACK]

81. MPW , 16 December 1911, p. 908. [BACK]

82. Eileen Bowser, "Griffith's Film Career Before The Adventures of Dollie, " in Fell, ed., Film Before sGriffith , pp. 367-73. [BACK]

83. Dawley, payroll notebook, CLAc; Edison Manufacturing Company, payroll ledger, NjWOE. Dawley's books were for those actors hired on a per day basis. The Edison ledger was for those working on staff. [BACK]

84. "Edison's Devil," Film Index , 3 October 1908, p. 4. [BACK]

85. NYDM , 19 September 1908, p. 9. [BACK]

86. "The Flower of Youth," Variety , 15 February 1908, p. 11. [BACK]

87. MPW , 26 September 1908, p. 232. [BACK]

88. "Whither Are We Drifting," MPW , 10 October 1908, p. 276. [BACK]

89. Billboard , 25 January 1908, p. 17. [BACK]

90. "Lectures on Moving Pictures," MPW , 22 August 1908, pp. 136-37. [BACK]

91. W. Stephen Bush advertisement, NYDM , 9 January 1909, p. 9. [BACK]

92. MPW , 3 October 1908, p. 253. [BACK]

93. MPW , 21 November 1908, p. 398. [BACK]

94. MPW , 22 August 1908, p. 137. [BACK]

95. "The Value of a Lecture," MPW , 8 February 1908, p. 93. [BACK]

96. MPW , 11 January 1908, p. 23. [BACK]

97. Billboard , 7 March 1908, p. 29. [BACK]

98. MPW , 22 February 1908, p. 143. [BACK]

99. "The Successful Exhibitor," MPW , 16 May 1908, p. 431; and NYDM , 14 November 1908, p. 11. [BACK]

100. Pittsburgh Dispatch , 8 January 1905, p. 4D. [BACK]

101. NYDM , 25 February 1905, p. 18. George Pratt generously provided much of this information about Spook Minstrels . See also Film Index , 13 October 1906, p. 3; and MPW , 7 September 1907, pp. 421-22. [BACK]

102. Detroit Free Press , 4 February 1906, p. 6D. [BACK]

103. Clipper , 25 March 1905, p. 126; Pittsburgh Post , 30 January 1906, p. 4; and Cincinnati Commercial Tribune , 7 January 1906, p. 22. [BACK]

104. NYDM , 19 September 1908, p. 9. [BACK]

105. Manchester [N.H.] Union , 22 April 1907, p. 8. [BACK]

106. Clipper , 20 April 1907, p. 246. [BACK]

107. Ibid. [BACK]

108. Manchester Union , 22 April 1907, p. 8; Lewiston Evening Journal , 16 April 1907, p. 2. [BACK]

109. "Pictures at Ford's," Baltimore Sun , 6 August 1907, p. 9. [BACK]

110. Billboard , 15 February 1908, p. 7. [BACK]

111. Billboard , 25 April 1908, p. 41. [BACK]

112. Clipper , 16 May 1908, p. 350. [BACK]

113. Humanovo Producing Company, consent to increase stock, 12 November 1909, NNNCC-Ar. When Loew became a part-owner is not clear. [BACK]

114. "Twenty-Two Humanovo Companies," NYDM , 18 July 1908, p. 7. [BACK]

115. NYDM , 13 June 1908, p. 10. [BACK]

116. MPW , 4 July 1908, p. 9, and 12 September 1908, p. 195. [BACK]

117. MPW , 25 July 1908, pp. 64-65. [BACK]

118. MPW , 31 October 1908, p. 352. [BACK]

119. "How Talking Pictures Are Made. A Scarcity of Picture Actors," MPW , 22 August 1908, p. 138. [BACK]

120. "Alleged Talking Pictures," NYDM , 6 June 1908, p. 6. [BACK]

121. Baltimore Sun , 31 May 1908, p. 1, and 7 June 1908, p. 1. The fourth film was Selig's The Two Orphans . [BACK]

122. MPW , 4 July 1908, p. 9. See also "Motion Picture Notes" in NYDM for this period. College Chums was probably the most frequently used film for talking pictures. Tom Gunning and I wrote dialogue for and performed with the film at the Collective for Living Cinema, New York City, 29 April 1979. It was the high point of the evening. [BACK]

123. NYDM , 19 September 1908, p. 9. [BACK]

124. Film Index , 17 August 1907, p. 3. [BACK]

125. MPW , 16 May 1908, p. 431. [BACK]

126. MPW , 28 November 1908, p. 419. [BACK]

127. MPW , 23 January 1909, p. 86. [BACK]

128. Film Index , 7 August 1907, p. 3. [BACK]

129. "Moving Pictures as a Profession," NYDM , 12 September 1908, p. 9. [BACK]

130. MPW , 22 February 1908, p. 143. [BACK]

131. NYDM , 5 September 1908, p. 8. [BACK]

132. NYDM , 19 September 1908, p. 9. [BACK]

133. NYDM , 26 September 1908, p. 9, and 10 October 1908, p. 8. Both films were based on plays. [BACK]

134. See "Barbarian Ingomar," NYDM , 24 October 1908, p. 8; and "Song of the Shirt," NYDM , 28 November 1908, p. 8. [BACK]

135. Recent research by Richard Koszarski indicates that many projectionists in the 1920s continued to play an editorial role by cutting down their film programs to fit within a designated time-slot (Richard Koszarski, An Evening's Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Picture, 1915-1928 [New York: Scribner's, 1990]). This does not seem to have been a common practice during the nickelodeon era, however. [BACK]

136. Bowser, "Griffith's Film Career Before The Adventures of Dollie, " in Fell, ed., Film Before Griffith , p. 371. [BACK]

137. NYDM , 29 August 1908, p. 7. [BACK]

138. Thomas Robert Gunning, "D. W. Griffith and the Narrator-System: Narrative Structure and Industry Organization in Biograph Films, 1908-1909" (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1986), pp. 145-54. [BACK]

139. Sergei Eisenstein, "The Filmic Fourth Dimension," in Film Form , Leyda, ed. and trans., p. 64. [BACK]

140. Tom Gunning, D. W. Griffith and the Origin of American Narrative Film (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, forthcoming). This is a revision of Gunning's dissertation, cited in a previous note. [BACK]

141. Defleur and Dennis, Understanding Mass Communication , p. 6. In their discussion of motion pictures, however, Defleur and Dennis fail to analyze the cinema in light of their definition (see pp. 208-37). Moreover, Defleur and Dennis neglect certain aspects of mass communication that have been the focus of this study and seem particularly

Page 542

important. Mass communication, for example, requires more than professional communicators. It usually depends on an organizational structure that utilizes specialization and hierarchy. [BACK]

142. Vardac, Stage to Screen , p. 57. The play opened at New York's New Star Theater in November 1904 and was soon burlesqued by the Vitagraph Company in its film A Race for a Wife (November 1906). Available prints of The Trainer's Daughter lack the first and last shots, although these sections were restored by adding copyright stills and catalog descriptions. [BACK]

143. Variety , 29 February 1908, p. 12. [BACK]

144. Variety , 16 May 1908, p. 11. [BACK]

145. "Last Week at Maryland," Baltimore Sun , 9 June 1908, p. 9. [BACK]

146. MPW , 1 February 1908, p. 71. [BACK]

147. Baltimore Sun , 7 June 1908, p. 1. The reference to the song was brought to my attention by Tom Gunning. This song is performed by Joan Morris and William Bolcom on their record After the Ball (Nonesuch, H-71304). The complete lyrics are reprinted in the accompanying notes. [BACK]

148. Variety , 21 March 1908, p. 15. [BACK]

149. MPW , 11 April 1908, p. 312. [BACK]

150. Billboard , 25 April 1908, p. 6. [BACK]

151. Hans Leigh, "Exhibitors Are Not Satisfied with Their Bill of Fare," MPW , 23 May 1908, p. 454. [BACK]

152. Variety , 9 May 1908, p. 11. [BACK]

153. NYDM , 13 June 1908, p. 10. [BACK]

154. NYDM , 20 June 1908, p. 6. [BACK]

155. MPW , 20 June 1908, p. 526. [BACK]

156. Variety , 20 June 1908, p. 13. [BACK]

157. MPW , 20 June 1908, p. 526. [BACK]

158. NYDM , 20 June 1908, p. 6. [BACK]

159. NYDM , 4 July 1908, p. 4. [BACK]

160. NYDM , 11 July 1908, p. 7. [BACK]

161. NYDM , 27 June 1908, p. 5. [BACK]

162. C. H. Wilson to Mr. Weber, 24 July 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

163. J. Searle Dawley, memoirs, CLAc. [BACK]

164. Compare reviews of Edison and Biograph films from this period in the NYDM and Variety . [BACK]

165. NYDM , 18 July 1908, p. 7. [BACK]

166. NYDM , 15 August 1908, p. 7. [BACK]

167. These night scenes are in the Museum of Modern Art Collection and labeled Tales the Searchlight Told . The original 1905 intertitles had been removed. [BACK]

168. NYDM, 12 September 1908, p. 9. [BACK]

169. NYDM , 1 August 1908, p. 7. [BACK]

170. Harper & Bros. et al. v. Kalem Co. and Kleine Optical Co ., no. 2-160, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 6 April 1908, NjBaFAR. This ruling was augmented by copyright legislation signed by President Theodore Roosevelt in the closing days of his administration. See NYDM , 20 March 1909, p. 3. [BACK]

171. A. T. Moore to Frank Dyer, 25 July 1908, and Frank Dyer to H. Anthony D'Arcy, NjWOE. [BACK]

172. NYDM , 24 October 1908, p. 8. Griffith also made use of this method with Song of the Shirt . [BACK]

173. NYDM , 24 October 1908, p. 8. [BACK]

174. NYDM , 28 November 1908, p. 8. [BACK]

175. MPW , 25 July 1908, p. 67. [BACK]

176. MPW , 3 October 1908, p. 263. [BACK]

177. NYDM , 10 October 1908, p. 8. [BACK]

178. MPW , 24 October 1908, p. 318. [BACK]

179. NYDM , 3 October 1908, p. 8. [BACK]

180. Variety , 26 September 1908, p. 12. [BACK]

181. NYDM , 26 September 1908, p. 9. [BACK]

182. NYDM , 12 September 1908, p. 9. [BACK]

183. NYDM , 11 October 1902, p. 16. Tom Gunning brought information about the de Lorde play to my attention. [BACK]

184. Jay Leyda often showed this Pathé film in his Griffith classes in conjunction with The Lonely Villa . [BACK]

185. NYDM , 10 October 1908, p. 8. The play was probably Pocahontas by Tecumtha, © 7 June 1906. [BACK]

186. Variety , 3 October 1908, p. 11. [BACK]

187. NYDM , 7 November 1908, p. 8. [BACK]

188. NYDM , 7 November 1908, p. 8. [BACK]

189. ''Earmarks of the Makers,'' NYDM , 14 November 1908, p. 10. [BACK]

190. Ibid. [BACK]

191. NYDM , 21 November 1908, p. 8. [BACK]

192. NYDM , 5 December 1908, p. 8. [BACK]

193. Ibid. [BACK]

194. MPW , 5 December 1908, p. 448. [BACK]

195. Sklar, Movie-Made America , p. 30. [BACK]

196. Film Index , 22 September 1906, p. 3. [BACK]

197. Film Index , 15 September 1906, p. 6. [BACK]

198. Film Index , 22 September 1906, p. 3. [BACK]

199. MPW , 20 April 1907, p. 102; and Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will , pp. 205 and 207. [BACK]

200. Chicago Tribune , 10 April 1907 cited in MPW , 20 April 1907, p. 101. [BACK]

201. MPW , 25 May 1907, p. 179, and 14 March 1908, p. 214. [BACK]

202. MPW , 20 July 1907, p. 312. [BACK]

203. Ibid. [BACK]

204. Billboard , 24 August 1907, p. 5. [BACK]

205. J. Pelzer, memos, 16 and 23 June 1908, NjWOE; when this practice began is uncertain. [BACK]

206. "The Merry Widower," NYDM , 29 August 1908, p. 7. [BACK]

207. Clipper , 26 October 1907, p. 1005. [BACK]

208. MPW , 21 December 1907, p. 677. [BACK]

209. MPW , 7 March 1908, p. 190. [BACK]

210. MPW , 19 December 1908, p. 501. [BACK]

211. MPW , 16 May 1908, p. 443. [BACK]

212. Variety , 20 June 1908, p. 12. [BACK]

213. Film Index , 30 November 1907, p. 3; Clipper , 9 November 1907, p. 1066. [BACK]

214. Variety , 22 February 1908, p. 11; MPW , 1 February 1908, p. 82. [BACK]

215. Variety , 20 June 1908, p. 12. [BACK]

216. Newspaper article, reprinted in MPW, 5 December 1908, p. 444. [BACK]

217. MPW , 5 December 1908, p. 448. [BACK]

218. MPW , 28 November 1908, p. 422. [BACK]

219. MPW , 21 September 1908, p. 524; 7 September 1907, p. 422; 7 December 1907, pp. 645-46; and 14 December 1907, p. 665. [BACK]

220. MPW , 2 May 1908, p. 392. [BACK]

221. Variety , 23 May 1908, p. 12. [BACK]

1. "Legitimate Competition," MPW , 13 June 1908, p. 507. [BACK]

2. "New Film Factories," MPW , 29 August 1908, p. 155. [BACK]

3. William Swanson to Frank Dyer, 18 June 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

4. Carl Laemmle to Frank Dyer, 6 May 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

5. T. L. Tally to Dwight McDonald, 26 August 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

6. Harry N. Marvin, testimony, 15 January 1913, United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co ., p. 11. [BACK]

7. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 471. [BACK]

8. Hector J. Streyckmans, testimony, 8 July 1913, United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co ., p. 965. [BACK]

9. "Fight Settlement Expected," Variety , 8 August 1908, p. 10. [BACK]

10. "Moving Picture Peace Strongly Rumored About," Variety , 15 August 1908, p. 11. [BACK]

11. "Italian Cines Out," Variety , 15 August 1908, p. 11; "Advance in Price of Films," MPW , 22 August 1908, p. 135. [BACK]

12. "Pathe Will Not Invade Rental Field," MPW , 12 September 1908, p. 191. [BACK]

13. "Settlement Talk Going On," Variety , 19 September 1908, p. 11. [BACK]

14. Léon Gaumont and George Kleine, memorandum of agreement, 23 September 1908, NNMoMA. [BACK]

15. "The Renters and the Rumored Merger," MPW , 17 October 1908, p. 295. [BACK]

16. "Association of Film Manufacturers," MPW , 14 November 1908, p. 375. [BACK]

17. "The Film Service Problem," MPW , 21 November 1908, p. 395. [BACK]

18. MPW , 14 November 1908, p. 375. [BACK]

19. American Mutoscope & Biograph Company, sales records, 1908-9, NNMoMA. [BACK]

20. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 472. [BACK]

21. "Postpone Convention till Film Peace Pact Is Made," Variety , 21 November 1908, p. 13. [BACK]

22. "Among the Renters," MPW , 5 December 1908, p. 443. Sixty days' advance notice was required for any contractual changes between FSA members and the Edison-licensed manufacturers. [BACK]

23. For more information on the Motion Picture Patents Company, see Janet Staiger, "Combination and Litigation: Structures of U.S. Film Distribution, 1891-1917," Cinema Journal 23 (Winter 1984): 41-72; Robert J. Anderson, "The Motion Picture Patents Company" (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1983); Gunning, ''D. W. Griffith and the Narrator-System." [BACK]

24. These agreements and related documents were published in United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co ., pp. 16-145. [BACK]

25. A new agreement was to be made with Gaston Méliès on 20 July 1909. See George Melies Co. v. Motion Picture Patents Co., et al ., printed record, NjWOE. [BACK]

26. Hector J. Streyckmans, testimony, United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co ., pp. 966-67. [BACK]

27. Ralph Cassady, Jr., "Monopoly in Motion Picture Production and Distribution, 1908-1915," Southern California Law Review 32 (Summer 1959): 325-90, provides a useful overview of the Motion Picture Patents Co. An abridged version of this article appears in Gorham Kindem, ed., American Movie Industry , pp. 25-67. [BACK]

28. William Selig to Frank Dyer, 21 January 1909; Motion Picture Patents Company, "Meeting Held January 26, 1909," NjWOE. [BACK]

29. "The Conditions of License," MPW , 23 January 1909, p. 85. [BACK]

30. "Manufacturers Assume Control of All Moving Pictures," Variety , 16 January 1909, p. 13. [BACK]

31. Approximately 5,000 theaters were licensed during the first year, with each paying $104 per year. [BACK]

32. Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Viascope Manufacturing Company , no. 29,514, C.C.N.D.I., filed 28 September 1909, ICFAR. [BACK]

33. This agreement was apparently enforced; $150 was the lowest figure cited after 1 May 1909 in MPW . Most advertisements, moreover, stopped citing prices as a way to entice prospective purchasers (see, for instance, MPW , 22 May 1909, p. 661). This suggests that competition by pricing was reduced, if not eliminated. [BACK]

34. Cassady, "Monopoly in Motion Picture Production and Distribution: 1908-1915," p. 332. [BACK]

35. For example, William Swanson in Show World , 6 March 1909, p. 6. [BACK]

36. Chicago Film Exchange to Exhibitors, 18 January 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

37. Show World , 23 January 1909, p. 3. [BACK]

38. "To Handle Huge Volume of Film," Variety , 16 January 1909, p. 12. [BACK]

39. "The Position of the Independents," MPW , 16 January 1909, p. 59. [BACK]

40. "Independents Promise to Supply 25 Reels Weekly," Variety , 30 January 1909, p. 13. [BACK]

41. "The Independent Protective Association," MPW , 30 January 1909, p. 116. [BACK]

42. "Williams Refuses to Sign," Variety , 6 February 1909, p. 13. [BACK]

43. "An Exhibitor's Protest," MPW , 6 February 1909, p. 149. [BACK]

44. "Observation by Our Man-About-Town," MPW , 20 February 1909, p. 195. [BACK]

45. Show World , 6 February 1909, p. 3. Capt. L. A. Boening, former treasurer for

Page 546

William Swanson & Co., was treasurer, while Hector J. Streyckmans, business manager of the trade journal Show World , became secretary. [BACK]

46. "The International Projecting and Producing Company," MPW , 20 February 1909, p. 197. [BACK]

47. "Columbia Co. Will Soon Make Film Announcement," Variety , 13 February 1909, p. 12; Ramsaye, p. 497. [BACK]

48. "Columbia and Murdock Cos. Plan Mutuality Scheme?" Variety , 20 February 1909, p. 12. [BACK]

49. "Exchange Licenses Cancelled," MPW , 27 February 1909, p. 233. [BACK]

50. "W. H. Swanson and 'Our Man About Town,'" MPW , 13 March 1909, pp. 308-9. [BACK]

51. "Eugene Cline Also Out," Variety , 13 March 1909, p. 13; Show World , 27 March 1909, pp. 8 and 11. [BACK]

52. Carl Laemmle to MPPCo, 12 April 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

53. "Strength of the Two Film Factions," NYDM , 1 May 1909, p. 39. [BACK]

54. MPW , 5 June 1909, pp. 740 and 871; 3 July 1909, p. 22. [BACK]

55. NYDM , 3 April 1909, p. 13. [BACK]

56. NYDM , 21 November 1908, p. 8. [BACK]

57. NYDM , 12 December 1908, p. 6. [BACK]

58. Ibid. [BACK]

59. NYDM , 19 December 1908, p. 6. [BACK]

60. NYDM , 9 January 1909, p. 9. [BACK]

61. NYDM , 2 January 1909, p. 8. [BACK]

62. NYDM , 2 January 1909, p. 8. [BACK]

63. NYDM , 23 January 1909, p. 7. [BACK]

64. Dyer to Graf, 14 December 1908, NjWOE. [BACK]

65. Copyright records, NjWOE. [BACK]

66. Fragmentary documentation leaves the historian somewhat confused on this point. Production records indicate that these employees were at the old studio, and yet only films shot by Armitage and Cronjager were then being copyrighted and released. Were Cronjager and Matthews also at the Twenty-first Street studio, in which case there were only two units, or were the films at the Twenty-first Street studio being treated differently from those made in the Bronx? [BACK]

67. Bordwell, Staiger, and Thompson, Classical Hollywood Cinema , pp. 92-127. This suggests certain modifications in Staiger's model, some of which have already been discussed. There are significant differences in organization between a single-unit production company and one with multiple units, but these differences occur for the cameraman system as well as the collaborative system. Certainly the director-unit system did not emerge out of a director system as Staiger suggests. If anything, the problems of management in multi-unit companies encouraged the emergence of the director as a key figure. Staiger's principal reasons for this shift-cost savings and the lack of personnel trained in all areas of production-are important to consider when accounting for these changes, but they are not the only ones. [BACK]

68. "Edwin S. Porter," MPW , 7 December 1912, p. 962. [BACK]

69. NYDM , 23 January 1909, p. 7. [BACK]

70. NYDM , 30 January 1909, p. 16. [BACK]

71. NYDM , 20 February 1909, p. 16. [BACK]

72. Ibid. [BACK]

73. NYDM , 30 January 1909, p. 16. [BACK]

74. NYDM , 23 January 1909, p. 7. [BACK]

75. NYDM , 30 January 1909, p. 16. [BACK]

76. M. Bradlet to Frank Dyer, 3 February 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

77. Jack Farrell to John Pelzer, 20 April 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

78. This fragment is at the George Eastman House. The film's story appealed to American chauvinism. A rich American tries to introduce his daughters into English society. He becomes disenchanted with European nobility and telegraphs two American boys to come over and rescue his girls from the aristocratic "monkeys." Perhaps because the Moving Picture World reviewer watched the film with an audience that gave "vent to its enthusiasm," he declared it "one of the best films to come out within the past month" ( MPW , 27 February 1909, p. 237). [BACK]

79. NYDM , 27 February 1909, p. 13. [BACK]

80. Ibid. [BACK]

81. NYDM , 6 March 1909, p. 12. [BACK]

82. NYDM , 13 March 1909, p. 16. [BACK]

83. NYDM , 20 March 1909, p. 13. [BACK]

84. Ibid. [BACK]

85. NYDM , 27 March 1909, p. 13. [BACK]

86. NYDM , 15 May 1909, p. 15. [BACK]

87. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 496. [BACK]

88. Frank Dyer to all departments, 27 March 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

89. St. Loup may have been the sought-after European director. He had previously directed films for Théophile Pathé. [BACK]

90. Horace G. Plimpton to Frank L. Dyer, 18 August 1911, NjWOE. [BACK]

91. Edison Manufacturing Company, accounting sheet by film and director, [June-October 1909], NjWOE. [BACK]

92. Matthews continued to work as a director into the 1910s ( New York Telegraph , 30 November 1913, p. 2E). [BACK]

93. See Janet Staiger, "Dividing Labor for Production Control: Thomas Ince and the Rise of the Studio System," Cinema Journal 18, no. 2 (Spring 1979): 16-25. [BACK]

94. Frank Marion to Frank Dyer, 26 April 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

95. Dyer to Marion, 27 April 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

96. E. S. Porter to H. G. Plimpton, 17 June 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

97. NYDM , 3 July 1909, p. 15. [BACK]

98. NYDM , 22 January 1910, p. 16. [BACK]

99. Horace Plimpton to Frank Dyer, 10 November 1909, NjWOE. [BACK]

1. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights , p. 492; Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Actophone , no. 5-105, C.C.S.D.N.Y., filed 24 December 1909, NjBaFAR. Edison was granted a preliminary injunction in this case on 12 January 1910. [BACK]

2. "The Inception of the 'Black Top,'" MPW , 15 July 1916, p. 368. [BACK]

3. MPW , 30 July 1910, p. 239. [BACK]

4. Balshofer and Miller, One Reel a Week , pp. 43-53. [BACK]

5. NYDM , 18 June 1910, p. 20. [BACK]

6. NYDM , 14 September 1910, p. 34. [BACK]

7. NYDM , 28 September 1910, p. 31, and 5 October 1910, p. 32. [BACK]

8. Again, Defender executives may have referred to World Film Company negatives in order to throw MPPCo detectives off the track. Moreover, it is hard to imagine Swanson and Engel investing scarce funds in a new studio when Porter was performing so poorly in one he had just built. The mystery is deepened by Budd Schulberg ( Moving Pictures: Memories of a Hollywood Prince [New York: Stein & Day, 1981], p. 15) who reports that Porter handed a copy of the scenario for The Schoolmarm's Ride for Life to his father, Benjamin Schulberg, suggesting that he was its producer. [BACK]

9. NYDM , 15 March 1911, p. 34. [BACK]

10. MPW , 16 December 1911, p. 968. [BACK]

11. MPW , 4 March 1911, p. 463. [BACK]

12. NYDM , 22 February 1911, p. 32. [BACK]

13. NYDM , 8 March 1911, p. 32. Porter's tendency to recycle subjects is evident in the Rex releases, but not in those for Defender, yet another argument against Porter's responsibility for the earlier company's productions. [BACK]

14. NYDM , 15 March 1911, p. 34. [BACK]

15. "Rex Company Success," NYDM , 23 August 1911, p. 20. [BACK]

16. A print of Fate survives at the George Eastman House. [BACK]

17. "Too Near the Camera," MPW , 25 March 1911, pp. 633-34. [BACK]

18. "The Rex Director," MPW , 24 February 1912, p. 674. [BACK]

19. MPW , 27 January 1912, p. 269. [BACK]

20. The film-related activities of the Edison Manufacturing Company shifted to Thomas A. Edison, Inc. in mid 1911, placing various Edison-owned business ventures under the umbrella of a single corporation. [BACK]

21. Kinetogram , 1 November 1910, p. 2; 1 August 1911, p. 15; and 15 September 1912, p. 17. [BACK]

22. Kinetogram , 1 March 1910, p. 2. [BACK]

23. "Dawley Goes West," Kinetogram , 1 August 1912, pp. 14 and 16. [BACK]

24. Horace Plimpton to Frank L. Dyer, 24 April 1912, NjWOE. [BACK]

25. To meet overseas demand in this period, the Edison Company made two negatives and shipped one overseas. [BACK]

26. Kinetogram , 1 October 1912, p. 4. [BACK]

27. Stephen Bush, "Queen Elizabeth," MPW , 3 August 1912, p. 428. [BACK]

28. "Observations by Our Man About Town," MPW , 26 October 1912, p. 326. [BACK]

29. "E. S. Porter Resigns from Universal," MPW , 2 November 1912, p. 441. [BACK]

30. American Film Institute Data Base. [BACK]

31. James O'Neill v. General Film Company , New York Supreme Court, County of New York, filed 18 November 1912, NNNCC-Ar. The James O'Neill character plays a key role in Eugene O'Neill's autobiographical Long Day's Journey into Night . The play is set in August 1912, immediately before O'Neill made The Count of Monte Cristo . [BACK]

32. Adolph Zukor with Dale Kramer, The Public Is Never Wrong (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1953), p. 84. [BACK]

33. MPW , 1 March 1913, p. 871. [BACK]

34. New York World , 19 February 1913, p. 7. [BACK]

35. MPW , 1 March 1913, p. 871. [BACK]

36. MPW , 12 April 1913, p. 124. [BACK]

37. "With the Film Men," NYDM , 4 December 1912, p. 31; see Schulberg, Moving Pictures , for a loving, witty portrait of B. P. Schulberg and his association with Porter at Famous Players. [BACK]

38. "Laura Sawyer Joins Famous Players," MPW , 30 August 1913, p. 465. [BACK]

39. "'A Good Little Devil' Shown," MPW , 26 July 1913, p. 407. [BACK]

40. "Mrs. Fiske as Tess," NYDM , 10 September 1913, p. 28; J. Searle Dawley, manuscript, CLAc. [BACK]

41. "'Little Mary' in Fine Role," NYDM , 17 September 1913, p. 28. [BACK]

42. New York Telegraph , 16 November 1913, p. 3E; Dawley also claimed directing credit for Caprice —suggesting the continuation of his collaboration with Porter. [BACK]

43. "Famous Players Co. Makes Innovation," Pittsburgh Post , 10 August 1913, p. 4B. [BACK]

44. The exhibition of this latter film, however, was restricted for a time as the issue of rights was challenged in the courts ("Injunction Against 'In Bishop's Carriage,'" New York Telegraph , 21 September 1913, p. 1E). [BACK]

45. "Mary Pickford with Famous Players," MPW , 29 November 1913, p. 1015; New York Telegraph , 23 November 1913, p. 2E. She left for California shortly after attending the opening of Caprice , at which she was mobbed ("Little Mary Receives Ovation While at Hamilton Theatre," New York Telegraph , 16 November 1913, p. 3E). The star had been ill. [BACK]

46. MPW , 21 February 1914, p. 927; Variety , 20 February 1914, p. 23. [BACK]

47. NYDM , 25 March 1914, p. 34. [BACK]

48. MPW , 3 April 1914, p. 40. [BACK]

49. Zukor, Public Is Never Wrong , p. 110. [BACK]

50. MPW , 20 December 1913, pp. 1374-5; "Famous Players Sign Ford, Stanhope, Morange," New York Telegraph , 7 December 1913, p. 1E. Hugh Ford had been the stage director for Israel Zangwill's hit play, The Melting Pot (1909). [BACK]

51. NYDM , 23 December 1914, p. 32. [BACK]

52. "The Eternal City," NYDM , 6 January 1915, p. 26. [BACK]

53. "Evolution of the Motion Picture," MPW , 11 July 1914, p. 206. [BACK]

54. Zukor, Public Is Never Wrong , p. 120. [BACK]

55. "Porter Sells Famous Players Holdings," MPW , 20 November 1915, p. 1468; "Zukor Buys Out Porter," Variety , 19 November 1915, p. 21. [BACK]

56. Cassady, "Monopoly in Motion Picture Production and Distribution: 1908-1915," 325-40; Michael Conant, Antitrust in the Motion Picture Industry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960), pp. 18-21. [BACK]

57. W. L. Eckert to Edison, 16 February 1915, NjWOE. [BACK]

58. L. W. McChesney to Wilson, Maxwell, and L. C. McChesney, 23 October 1914, NjWOE. [BACK]

59. McChesney to Plimpton, 23 October 1914, NjWOE. [BACK]

60. Although My Friend from India (August 1914), a special, 3½-reel feature distributed by the General Film Company, cost a modest $5,548 to produce, one year later it had yet to yield a profit. Perhaps this helps to explain the delayed shift to features. [BACK]

61. Stephen B. Mambert, financial executive memorandum no. 3324, 20 November 1915, NjWOE. [BACK]

62. L. W. McChesney to Charles Wilson, 17 March 1915, NjWOE. [BACK]

63. L. W. McChesney to Messers Ridgely, Collins, McGlynn, Wright, Ridgwell, Louis, Turbett & George, 9 December 1915, NjWOE. [BACK]

64. L. W. McChesney, report of recent activities of Motion Picture Division, 5 December 1916, NjWOE. [BACK]

65. Ben Singer, "Early Home Cinema and the Edison Home Projecting Kinetoscope," Film History 2 (1988): 37-69. [BACK]

66. "At Last the 'Talkies' Are Before the Public," New York World , 18 February 1913, p. 6. [BACK]

67. Miller Reese Hutchinson to Thomas Edison, 25 July 1913, NjWOE. [BACK]

68. Rosalind Rogoff, "Edison's Dream: A Brief History of the Kinetophone," Cinema Journal 15 (Spring 1976): 58-68. [BACK]

69. L. W. McChesney to J. W. Farrell, 11 May 1916, NjWOE. [BACK]

70. MPW , 15 July 1911, p. 1. [BACK]

71. "Stereoscopic Films Shown," NYDM , 16 June 1915, p. 21. [BACK]

72. Dawley, manuscript, CLAc. [BACK]

73. For example by reading and "correcting" Terry Ramsaye's manuscript for A Million and One Nights . [BACK]

74. Porter file, NN; Jack Spears, "Edwin S. Porter," Films in Review , June-July 1970: 351-54. [BACK]

75. Stan Brakhage represents personal cinema at its most extreme. Sayles writes, directs, and edits his own films; Emile de Antonio frequently declares that he makes every cut on his films and that the editor is "just a pair of hands." [BACK]

76. A number of scholars have explored the relationship between early cinema and the avant-garde, particularly in terms of representation. See Miriam Hansen, "Reinventing the Nickelodeon: Notes on Kluge and Early Cinema," October 46 (1988): 179-98; Noel Burch, "Primitivism and the Avant-Gardes: A Dialectical Approach," in Philip Rosen, ed., Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 483-506; Tom Gunning, "An Unseen Energy Swallows Space: The Space of Early Film and Its Relation to American Avant-Garde Film," in Fell, ed., Film Before Griffith , pp. 335-66 and "The Cinema of Attraction[s]: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde,'' Wide Angle 8, no. 3/4 (1986): 63-70. [BACK]

77. For such reasons, independent or avant-garde filmmaking has contributed extensively to our understanding of early film form. It is safe to say that without the "experimental" cinema of the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s, historians would still find it difficult to recognize early cinema's otherwise unfamiliar representational practices for what they were—something quite different than a simplified, rudimentary precursor of a natural, universal "film language." [BACK]