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5 Producer and Exhibitor as Co-Creators: 1897-1900
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The Eden Musee

The Eden Musee, an imposing stone structure on the south side of Twenty-third Street west of Madison Square, was located in a fashionable New York entertainment and shopping district. When a group of Frenchmen opened the Musee on March 28, 1884, the amusement center featured waxworks, often of a topical character, and musical concerts, along with an occasional specialty— lantern shows, marionettes, and so forth.[23] The Musee's catalog described its purpose:

The founders of the EVEN MUSEE had a higher object in view than that alone of establishing a profitable commercial enterprise. It was their intention to open a Temple of Art without rival in this country, affording to all an opportunity for instruction, amusement and recreation, without risk of coming into contact with anything or any-


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body that was vulgar or offensive. For children and young people, particularly, the Eden Musee will prove a constant source of enjoyment and instruction. A child will learn more from a plastic representation of events and persons than a book can teach. Illustrated newspapers, giving pictorial views of incidents and scenes of today, have already a great advantage over the ordinary journals which give us only the dead letterpress; and from the cold, colorless engravings of an illustrated newspaper to the life-like plastic groups of the Eden Musee is an immense step towards a realistic representation of nature and life.[24]

Through ticket price and programming, the Musee appealed to a middle-class audience whose sense of cultural propriety included a strong dose of moralism.

By the mid 1890s the changing world of New York amusements had left the Musee in a tenuous situation. To compete with the rising tide of vaudeville, it often featured dancers, singers, and other performers. Yet these worked against the image outlined in its catalog and were not apparently successful. Musee president Richard G. Hollaman solved the crisis by making moving pictures an important third element in the house's programming. On December 18, 1896, the Lumière cinématographe began to show films in the Winter Garden, which could accommodate 2,000 people.[25] According to the Mail and Express , one of New York City's smaller afternoon newspapers:

The Cinematographe is having a successful run at the Eden Musee. This is due mainly to the new views that have been taken especially for the Musee. One of the latest and most interesting is that of Li Hung Chang's march into Fifth Avenue from Washington Square. Li Hung Chang can be readily recognized, as can many of the officials who accompanied him. Along each side of the avenue there is a great crowd of people waving their handkerchiefs and applauding. The thirty-five or more other views are equally lifelike and interesting. The views are all well chosen and occasionally a peculiar effect is produced by reversing the view. When this is done everything is entirely opposite from the first effect. The views are shown each hour during the afternoon and evening.[26]

There was a close affinity between the Eden Musee's waxworks and its moving pictures, both of which strove toward "a realistic representation of nature and life."

Although Hollaman chose to use the French cinématographe rather than the vitascope or projectoscope, he nonetheless added a wax figure of Thomas Edison to his collection in February 1897. Edison, who was sketched in his studio and donated a suit of clothes to cover his likeness, was shown "seated at a table on which are the drawing of the phonograph and one of the completed instruments. Edison is holding the tubes to his ears, listening to the first complete message ever inscribed on a phonograph cylinder."[27]

The Lumière cinématographe lasted only two months at the Eden Musee. On February 22d, a week after the Lumière service opened at Proctor's Pleasure


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Palace, Hollaman introduced the cinématographe Joly as a "permanent feature" at his house. The new exhibition service was owned and operated by German emigré Eberhard Schneider. Musee publicity announced that the new machine "reproduced long scenes without noise and flickering of light on the screen. Many of the scenes take from three to five minutes, and each detail is strikingly exact."[28] A lecture and music accompanied the opening night performance, with views primarily from France.[29] In mid April the Musee shifted its emphasis to American views and renamed Joly's apparatus the "American Cinematograph."[30] By May, groups of American and foreign films were being shown on alternating hours.[31] Two or more films in a program often contained related subject matter, which was frequently noted as the principal or headline attraction.

Although New York had a population that was nearing three and a half million in 1897, the Eden Musee was the only amusement center in the city that committed itself to motion pictures on a full-time basis. Vaudeville managers thought of moving pictures as a popular turn that had to be replaced more or less frequently to keep the bill fresh and lively. Even B. F. Keith, whose organization evidenced the greatest enthusiasm for films, did not keep motion pictures on his Union Square theater bill all the time. After the Lumière cinématographe's five-month stay ended in late November 1896, manager J. Austin Fynes allowed seven weeks to go by before bringing in Biograph for a fifty-week run. Then the theater was once again without motion pictures. At the other extreme, Pastor's Theater had seven different motion picture engagements between mid January 1897 and early February 1898. These kept motion pictures on his bill for twelve of the sixty-five weeks. Other vaudeville theaters, including the Proctor theaters and Huber's 14th Street Museum, showed films periodically as well.[32] This gave the Eden Musee a unique role in New York City and, because New York was the center of motion picture activity, in the United States as a whole.

When a problem arose at the Eden Musee in mid 1897, Richard Hollaman increased his commitment to moving pictures when other managers might have backed away. On June 14th, Schneider's cinematograph started a fire that sent 1,500 patrons stampeding to the exits. The Musee's publicist minimized the narrowly avoided catastrophe, which came just over a month after the infamous Charity Bazaar fire in Paris, also started by a cinématographe Joly. Schneider lost his contract, and Hollaman brought back the Lumière cinématographe.[33] At the same time, Hollaman hired Frank Cannock to build a projecting apparatus for the Musee's use. This machine was installed at the Musee in August. "For months a skilled inventor has been working upon models and a new cinematograph will be placed on exhibition today," reported the New York Times . "It is a wonderful machine and the vibration is reduced to a minimum."[34] The Mail and Express added, "The new machine is superior to any that has been shown


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before. It projects with the least flicker and looking at the picture does not weary the eyes."[35] Cannock worked with William Beadnell, who handled publicity for the Eden Musee, and with Edwin Porter, who joined the project in the summer of 1897 while he was projecting films in New York City.[36]

Hollaman's move may have inaugurated the American Cinematograph Company, an exhibition service based at Room 205, 5 Beekman Street, New York City. Although the nature of its relationship with the Musee remains somewhat hazy, the service must have been at least partially owned and controlled by the amusement enterprise.[37] As the Musee prospered, so too did this exhibition service.


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5 Producer and Exhibitor as Co-Creators: 1897-1900
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